Advice for mediation

dday_throwaway3 · 2026-02-03T18:57:29+00:00

I created a reference post about mediation tips here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1qv0k8w/fundamentals_tips_for_meditation/

Your attorney should have a boilerplate divorce and parenting agreement that meets your state's requirements. Read it over and make sure it covers the things you want.

Basic stuff:

* 50% of parenting time. For holidays, you swap ever other year. Keep the holidays simple: Winter break (Christmas+New Years), Spring Break, Thanksgiving. Forget the Hallmark holidays like Mother's Day and Father's Day.

* Each parent pays for 50% of education (not college), religion, medical and extracurricular. For the latter, make sure it's capped per year per child to something you think is reasonable. You don't want the mother to sign up the kiddos for equestrian sports that cost $5k+/year just to punish you.

* You each get half of the marital estate. Add up all assets and liabilities, then divide by two. That includes all financial accounts. When it comes to debt, only one of you can own it. It will be balanced on their side of the ledger by more assets.

* No financial entanglements post-divorce. No joint accounts. No joint property ownership. If there's a house, then one of you will buy out the other. If neither party can agree who stays in the house, then it will be sold and the proceeds split.

If you're concerned she's going to move away and try to take the children, then ensure there's a geographic restriction for schools.

Since she's making more income than you, spousal support and child support is on the table for you. Use it as leverage to get what you want. Because women hate the thought of having to pay a man support post-divorce.

survivingtheyellowbr · 2026-02-02T00:29:15+00:00

Before you go there, decide what you are willing to bend on and what you are willing to fight for..

painfulletdown · 2026-02-01T10:31:22+00:00

Need to make up your mind on what you need are are willing to negotiate. playout in your head how the offers might go. if they ask you to go first, then they are just playing games. if they send you a dogshit offer then they are mentally not ready yet, so decline and leave to save your money and frustration. Dont let your lawyer talk you into accepting crap offers. Also lump sum alimony offer is a trick and your lawyer may not be privvy to all tricks so be skeptical. The mediators arent helpful at all and basically just collect money

condortheboss · 2026-02-01T06:06:22+00:00

If they appear amicable, assume they have been getting advise to rip as much money out of you as they can during the mediation. Plan to fight for what you deserve and make sure you lock them out of your personal financial accounts before you start.

Plan to fight to keep custody, plan to fight against false allegations, document all time spent with children to discount the likely upcoming false allegations.

Assume that they are no longer your other half, your partner, your friend, or depending on circumstance, even interested in cooperating.

If you hope for the best and expect the worst, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Commercial_Song_7595 · 2026-01-31T23:42:13+00:00

Gather as much information as you can possibly get your hands on, bank account details and statements, retirement, house value and debt, vehicles income etc figure out what you’d think is fair to split and start there, see what they think and start working from that

International_Dog872 · 2026-01-31T21:19:08+00:00

Hey, there. I am couples therapist and mediator.

The biggest problem is that people cannot talk about complicated topics without emotions. And emotions can cause people to overreact. So Mediator's job is to keep your conversation in productive stream.

Advices - before you go there, decide what you want to get as the result.

Take notebook and pen, and write questions that they ask you. That way you slow down your reactive brait.

You should have sort of template: Situation - What result do I want - How are we going to achieve that.

Best of luck out there!

Title	Advice for mediation
Author	Conscious-Spell-6348
Upvotes	2
Comments	7
Date	January 31, 2026 6:31 PM UTC (6 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/Divorce_Men
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/Divorce_Men/comments/1qsa67b/advice_for_mediation/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/Divorce_Men/advice-for-mediation.1572413 https://theredarchive.com/post/1572413

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