Details Can Help When You Have Serious Conflict

 

Clearly, your mediator is going to be aware of the level of conflict between the two of you and will raise the issues that are most commonly addressed in Separation Agreements in terms of parenting plan details. They may not, however, get into the exact detail that you feel is most important based upon your particular circumstances. So, if there’s something that your mediator doesn’t raise and you want more detail about that certain issue, bring it up in the mediation.  

 

 

You don’t want to do anything that’s going to immediately put your spouse on the defensive, so try to be as objective as possible. For example, when you’re trying to make a decision that affects the children, let’s say that your spouse just keeps repeating the same things over and over and that really annoys you. Instead of saying “it drives me crazy when you just keep talking and talking and saying nothing new,” you can say that you want to talk about making sure that your discussions are focused and productive. That will then lead to a discussion in mediation about how much time we will spend on a decision before moving on to another step such as consulting with a professional with expertise about the issue in question. 

 

 

You may be the source of that conflict, as well. If there’s something that you do that you know, really causes annoyance to your spouse, bring it up. Let’s say your spouse is annoyed because you don’t respond to a text or email as quickly as they would like. Ask if you can discuss and determine a reasonable time frame to respond to a non-emergency text. Then you can actually put language in that spells out how long you have to respond to a text. Your spouse will know that you have that time and not get annoyed, and you don’t have to feel like it will be an argument if you can’t answer a text immediately.