One of the hard truths about marriage is that when things fall apart, you can end up leaving with less than when you came in. For many spouses throughout the country, they married the person they loved while they were both building their lives, but then slowly things began to change. Maybe one of them got a promotion, and the other’s career began to stagnate, or perhaps the couple decided to have children and that turned a two-income household into a single-income household with one spouse staying home to raise the kids. This is where the rug can get pulled out.
When divorce enters the conversation, all of the sacrifices on both sides can be hard to assign a fair valuation, especially when the negotiations are between two spouses who have grown apart or embittered. For those who stalled their career to better serve their marriage, the hard costs of leaving the marriage can be devastating.
Various numbers for the average cost of a divorce float around the divorce industry, and the nature of the sources makes it difficult to specify exactly where the statistical median cost falls, but most experts agree it is somewhere in the range of $15,000 to $30,000. In some cases, it is not unheard of for a divorce to end up costing $100,000. Regardless of your station in life or the nature of your contribution to the marriage, those figures are enough to give anyone pause. It quickly becomes clear that spending money fighting about money is probably not going to serve either spouse’s best interest.
Divorce mediation can help reduce the real costs of divorce by keeping the legal system out of asset division negotiation, while at the same time help you and your spouse retain your dignity and treat each other with respect, instead of treating each other as enemies. If you believe that your marriage may be a good candidate for divorce mediation, consider contacting a qualified lawyer with divorce mediation experience in Illinois. A qualified lawyer can guide you through the mediation process respectfully, while helping to protect your rights.
Source: The Atlantic, “The Divorce Gap,” Darlena Cunha, accessed Sep. 27, 2016
