Mediation to Stay Married

Marriage is not perfect. In fact, successful marriages “bottom out” at some point and need to be rebuilt. It’s that rebuilding that leads to a better, stronger, more satisfying marriage. At Compass Divorce Center, we have recently had an influx in couples with marriages that have “bottomed out” but aren’t looking for divorce. What is so amazing about these couples is that they are looking for a way out besides divorce. Congratulations to them for exhausting all options! (See "Exhaust All Options" http://divorcecompass.blogspot.com/2009/03/step-1-exhaust-all-options.html).

When a marriage is stressed, many tend to stick their heads in the sand rather than take proactive steps to improve the relationship. In working with divorcing couples, I often hear one spouse say “It’s too late!” Isn’t that just another way of saying: “I am hurting and I am so hurt and exhausted in trying to salvage this relationship that I don’t want to work on it now that you are willing to work on it! Where were you when I needed you?” In counseling divorced clients, I hear, “I wonder what would have happened if I had given him/her the last chance s/he asked for.”

Divorce mediators develop a great deal of perspective and insight into the trappings of conflict in a marriage that lead to a divorce. These insights can be invaluable to a hurting and deteriorating marriage of a couple that hopes to improve their marriage, not just end it. Furthermore, the divorce clients themselves have expressed that mediation taught them how to communicate with their spouse and resolve conflict much more effectively, and that if they were able to engage in the process earlier that the relationship would have benefited and perhaps survived.
As our marriages deteriorate, our fantasy of what marriage is supposed to be seems to grow stronger. We search for the answers to our own incompleteness in our spouse and when we aren’t met with the perfect response, we blame our spouse for not being enough. Not being emotionally supportive enough, not being sexual enough, not being thoughtful enough, not being financially responsible enough, not being helpful with the house or the kids enough! If these are your reasons for having an affair, or your feelings of despair and desperation about your marriage, or the constant fighting, I am here to tell you that you having a real relationship and your fantasy does not exist in another person. It exists in the very person you are married to now as much as it does in the person you have created in your mind, or met at work, or had the affair with. BUT, it needs to be awakened! And this takes deliberate work from both spouses. If your spouse is finally awake and gets that you are serious about leaving the marriage, s/he is awake and now you have something to work with! Now it is up to you to give him/her that last chance.

A developing trend is Mediation to Stay Married, also known as Marital Mediation. To start the process of marital mediation, a couple jointly hires a mediator to assist them in identifying areas of conflict and formulate a mutually agreeable plan to address them. The mediator does not serve as a therapist or lawyer. Throughout the mediation, the parties may consult or continue to work with other supportive professionals, such as financial advisors or mental health providers. At Compass Divorce Center, a mediator and therapist can both partner with the couple and mediation is used for the above goals and the therapy is for working through the emotions, fears, and thoughts that go along with making changes in the marriage and our financial advisor is used as decided upon by the couple.

The goal of marital mediation is to strengthen an existing relationship by addressing areas of conflict that have not been resolved for far too long and now have led to a breaking point in the marriage. Whether the conflicts are financial or agreeing upon parental and household responsibilities, marital mediation works to better communication and creative solutions that work for you as a couple. If the couple wishes, a Marital Agreement can be produced as a written document that may be legally enforceable. Like other types of mediation, marital mediation is voluntary, non-adversarial, and guided by a trained neutral professional.

Mediation also allows couples working to uphold their relationship a comfortable environment that contributes to those efforts. Communication skills and insights learned during mediation sessions can help couples mitigate the patterns of harmful conflict in a relationship. If a couple later decides that divorce in inevitable, the progress made in mediation can serve as the foundation for a divorce agreement, so the process has benefits even if the marriage ends.