RI Marriage & Family Divorce Mediation

The brainstorming phase of mediation allows parties to think creatively about how to resolve problems. A couple was splitting the equity in the house 38-62 (rather than 50-50) because one person had put in a lot of sweat equity. They had a disagreement whether to divide the mortgage and costs equally, or according to their agreement. One of them proposed, "The costs incurred during the marriage, let's split equally. The costs incurred because of the divorce should be split in the proportions of the divorce settlement." I could not have come up with a more fair way to divide those costs myself.

Mediation can give even divorcing parties a new and better understanding of each other. A wife insisted that she take the tax deduction every year for their 2 children, even though she earned ???? of what her husband earned, and would therefore be paying less of the children's expenses. The husband argued that this arrangement was unfair to him. Initially, I agreed with him (privately). With two children, they could have easily split the tax deductions -- but I asked her why she didn't want to divide the deductions.

She answered, "I feel terribly betrayed by this man. He promised to stay with me for the rest of his life and now he has changed his mind. He is promising to take care of his children in the future, but I fear that he will again change his mind. If he stands by his promise to provide for and care for the children, in 2 or 3 years I would be willing to give him some of the tax deductions."

The husband heard this from his wife and said, "OK, that's fine with me. She can have the deductions." I said, "Do you want to put into the agreement that you will reconsider this a couple of years down the road?" He said, "No. I trust her." The wife's eyes widened in surprise at this acknowledgement by the husband.