You know your marriage can’t be saved. You and your spouse have grown apart or there has been a catastrophic breach of trust. Still, that doesn’t mean either of you wants a drawn-out battle in the courts. You want to ensure the divorce is fair for everyone involved, including your children, and you want to make the process as painless as possible.
You and your spouse could be ideal candidates for an uncontested divorce, wherein you agree to specific terms and the courts do not make any critical decisions, such as how assets get divided or how you set up your parenting plan.
Even if you and your spouse want to make things work, you may not yet agree on all the terms of your divorce. You may feel like that eliminates an uncontested divorce as one of your options. However, if you believe that compromise is possible, you and your spouse could turn to mediation to resolve the issues you can not yet agree upon and move forward into a healthy co-parenting relationship.
How mediation works
Mediation is a guided process that facilitates important conversations and mutual compromise for the best possible outcome to your divorce. Ideally, both you and your spouse have your own attorneys who have experience in uncontested divorces in Illinois. You will all meet with a neutral third party, who will help guide you through the various points of potential contention in your divorce. You and your spouse will discuss each issue thoroughly, with the guidance of your attorneys, to determine what the best outcome for everyone could be.
Once you agree to terms, you can begin the process of filing your uncontested divorce. There are waiting periods, but you can feel confident that you know what the outcome of the process will be. Overall, uncontested divorces are much faster than those that go through court hearings.
The many benefits of mediation and uncontested divorce
In a typical, contentious divorce, you and your spouse will battle it out in court for days. Your children may have to take sides or listen to testimony about the worst behaviors of their parents. That can create a difficult situation for after the divorce. Your children are more likely to suffer adverse affects if your divorce is a battle and not an agreement.
Uncontested divorces show the children of the family that even if the marriage didn’t work, the adults are willing to compromise and work together. Children are not only spared the emotional damage of a protracted and angry divorce, they also benefit from seeing healthy and mature behavior modeled by their parents. The adults also benefit from decreased stress and more control over the final outcome of the divorce process.