Collaborative Divorce gives the parents the best opportunity to have a supportive and cordial co-parenting relationship going forward. Personally, I know from my experience as a child of divorce that didn’t happen. I also had the experience of having done a Collaborative Divorce and having that kind of relationship where my children and my ex-wife and I can be together and enjoy ourselves as a family, such as it is. At holidays, birthdays, whatever we have going. Sometimes for no reason at all. Collaborative gives people the best chance for a relationship like that.
However, I’m not saying that a cordial divorce means an easy divorce. My divorce was extremely difficult. One of the things I tell people about Collaborative is, it’s not easy because you still have to sit down across the table from somebody with whom you are not happy. It’s much easier to be combative. You still have to look at your lives and your mutual interests and try to come to an agreement that you can both find acceptable and move forward with it. That’s not easy and we have our moments, but we’ve chosen to care for our kids more than we dislike each other. Collaborative gives you the best chance of doing that.
A cordial divorce does not mean an easy divorce
Collaborative is still better than the process of negotiating through lawyers. Using lawyers as intermediaries can easily result in more discord and disagreement. This does not take into account the very real possibility the lawyers do not like each other. This dynamic is avoided in collaborative as the parties meet face-to-face to solve their issues.
The Collaborative team is committed to ushering the two parties through the Collaborative process to an agreement. They don’t get any bonus points from Collaborative. Litigation would make more money. They’re also trained in how to raise the level of communication, raise the level of understanding, and keeping the parties focused on the issues.