Divorce and Negotiating
We encourage our clients to avoid divorce court if at all possible for a couple of reasons. Here in Bucks County, PA, if your divorce goes to court, a judge will make the decisions regarding the division of your property. Most likely you will be unhappy with the final, legally-binding decision. Furthermore, it can cost a lot more money to go to court than to settle outside of court.
Many couples are able to come to a negotiated settlement with our help. We at Elissa C. Goldberg Law Office and Mediation Services are experts in mediation and collaborative law. We have the experience and the real desire to help our clients come to negotiated agreements that benefit the entire family.
Preparing for successful negotiations
It’s important that you come to the negotiating table prepared. This will take some research and some real introspection on your part. Take the time to go through these steps to prepare for successful negotiation and mediation:
- List all assets, their value, and their marital asset status. This includes both hard assets, such as your house, cars, and furniture, as well as financial assets, such as a family business, cash, stocks, pensions, IRAs, and 401ks. Consider also any shared debts that will need to be settled.
- Determine your non-negotiables, including both assets and circumstances, such as custody or visitation rights, not moving outside a given distance to stay close to family, etc. Then determine the assets and circumstances that are very important to you but may be negotiable if necessary. Finally, determine your negotiables.
- Know what is most important to your spouse and what he or she is likely to be willing to negotiate.
- Plan some bargaining chips ahead of time. Knowing what is important to your spouse, what are you willing to offer in exchange?
- Know what, if anything, both of you will consider “non-negotiable.” In the end, one of you will have to negotiate. You can’t both get your family home or your one-and-only antique car. If there are two things you both want, consider splitting them. If they are of different value, something else will probably have to be offered along with the less valuable item.
- Create a detailed list of your income and your family expenses and budget. How will this likely change after the divorce? How much help do you think you’ll need in child support or how much will you be able to pay?
Negotiating successfully
- Keep your emotions in check. Obviously, if you two always got along, you probably wouldn’t be getting a divorce. Anger, pain, jealousy, resentment, rejection – these and other emotions will try to crowd into your head as you’re sitting across from each other to negotiate the end of your marriage. Be prepared for this and change your mindset. Think about this as a business negotiation, if necessary, to keep yourself as peaceful as possible. Prepare yourself to respond calmly and appropriately if your spouse tries to bring up hot-button topics to get you distracted or emotional.
- Settle smaller issues first and show cooperation before negotiating big hot-button items that you think may lead to a fight. This can create an atmosphere that could cool the likely disagreements.
- Present your preferences in a diplomatic manner. Rather than saying, “I get full custody!” say something more like, “It will be easiest on the children if they stay in their current school and continue to do their current activities. I think my having full custody and keeping the family home will give them the security and stability they’re really going to need at this time. We can negotiate generous visitation opportunities because it’s so important that they continue to have both their parents in their lives as much as possible.” Try practicing ahead of time so you can say this calmly; think about how your spouse may respond and be prepared with some likely answers and suggestions.
This short list of dos and don’ts should set you on the path to a successful divorce settlement negotiation. Give us a call today at (215) 345-5259 to see how we can help you.