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india magazine english Published
this article page no We know from long
experience that only collaborative divorce -- not old-style adversarial legal
representation, and not a single mediator working with or without lawyers in
the picture -- views divorce as a complex experience requiring advice and
counsel from multiple perspectives if it is to be navigated well. Collaborative
divorce prepares you to deal with the emotional challenges and changes
associated with divorce and provides the resources that can best help you make
a healthy transition from married to single.We know from long experience that
only collaborative divorce -- not old-style adversarial legal representation,
and not a single mediator working with or without lawyers in the picture --
views divorce as a complex experience requiring advice and counsel from
multiple perspectives if it is to be navigated well. Collaborative divorce
prepares you to deal with the emotional challenges and changes associated with
divorce and provides the resources that can best help you make a healthy
transition from married to single.Collaborative divorce builds in important
protections for children, too. It informs you fully about how your children are
experiencing the divorce and what they need to weather the big changes in their
family structure without harm. It helps protect your future relationship with
your spouse by informing both of you fully -- together, at the same time --
about the financial realities of your marriage and divorce in a way that
eliminates pointless arguments about economic issues. It also teaches you and
your spouse new ways of problem solving and conflict resolution so that you
develop useful skills for addressing your differences more constructively in
the future. Further, collaborative divorce.
Helps you clarify your individual and shared values and
priorities
Helps you and your spouse reach maximum consensus
Includes complete advice about the law without using legal
rights as the sole template for negotiation and resolution
Helps you and your spouse resolve serious differences
creatively and without destructive conflict
Helps parents improve their ability to coparent after
divorce
Builds in agreements about resolution of future differences
after the divorce is over
Focuses not only on resolving past differences but also on
planning for healthy responses to current challenges and on laying a strong
foundation for the future after the divorce is over
Aims toward deep resolution, not shallow peace
Why You Do Not Want an "Old-Style Divorce"
We're confident that, like the people we work with every
day, you want to protect yourself and your loved ones from the havoc that an
old-style divorce can wreak in your lives. Let's summarize the facts you now
know about old-style divorce:
It is based on the centuries-old belief that divorce is
wrong and abnormal
It seeks to find fault and mete out punishment
It focuses on the past
It is premised on conflict
It is constrained by an arbitrary legal framework intended
to resolve matters of right and wrong by the exchange of money
It aims at a deal, not deep resolution
It fails to take into account current understandings of how
people are wired, what they need in times of change, what children need during
and after divorce, and how families change and restructure What's more, we know
that old-style divorce is bad for individuals, families, and communities
because
It's expensive
It's hurtful and damaging
It's "one size fits all"
It deems irrelevant many common concerns that are extremely
important to most people because judges can't issue enforceable orders about
them
It focuses on the past
It encourages unrealistic expectations on the part of both
spouses about what should happen in the divorce
It resolves disputes through competing predictions of what a
judge would do rather than focusing on what you and your partner can agree on
It won't provide essential help to you or those you care
about
The emotional and social costs are incalculable
Luckily, we live in an era when there is finally a better
option -- one that can end a marriage without destroying a family or setting
into motion negative effects that can bedevil family members for a lifetime.
Why Collaborative Divorce Works So Well
The reasons why collaborative divorce does such a good job
of helping most people achieve their own "best divorce" are simple.
Collaborative divorce addresses the financial and legal matters that must be
resolved in any divorce, but it does so more effectively because it provides
the built-in help of three professions, not just one. The design of
collaborative divorce -- with its team of professionals, its systematic
attention to values, its emphasis on healthy relationships, and its focus on
the future -- takes into account the broad spectrum of what really matters to
most people when their marriages end. It considers not only the two spouses but
those around them who also matter to the divorcing couple and who will be both
directly and indirectly affected by a good or a bad divorce: children,
families, and even extended families, friends, and colleagues. It applies what
we know about marriage and divorce from the realms of psychology, sociology,
history, law, communication theory, conflict resolution theory, finance, and
other realms in a very practical, useful, and concrete way.
Collaborative Divorce Deals With What People Actually
Experience in DivorceUnlike any other divorce conflict resolution process that
has come before, collaborative divorce teams make constant use of vital
information about how people are "wired," how we think, how our
emotions affect our ability to communicate effectively and to process
information, how we experience pain and loss, how we recover from the end of a
marriage, what our children are experiencing and what they need in the divorce,
and what the needs of each member of the family after the divorce are likely to
be. In this way, collaborative divorce offers constructive, comprehensive, multidisciplinary
professional support that responds to the actual complexities of divorce as
people experience it, rather than imposing an old-fashioned, limited
institutional legal point of view as the sole perspective on a complex human
experience.
Pauline H. Tesler, M.A., J.D., has been a
specialist in family law certified by California State Bar Board of Legal
Specialization since 1985. She is a fellow of the American Academy of
Matrimonial Lawyers and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband
Peggy Thompson, Ph.D., has been a licensed psychologist specializing in
families and children for thirty years. For the past fifteen years, she has
been actively involved in the development and practice of collaborative
divorce. Peggy lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband.
www.cdadivorce.com Together they confounded the International Academy of
Collaborative Professionals. shine
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