Divorce mediation spares families from ugliness and rancor

Divorce is always painful, and believing Jews will explore every opportunity to save a marriage on the rocks. But when divorce is the only option, does the process have to be protracted, ugly, and inordinately expensive?

Proponents of mediation say there’s a better way. How does mediation give agency and control back to the divorcing spouses? When is it effective, and when is it a poor choice?

What are the benefits, and what are the pitfalls? A closer look at a medium that’s spared many families from the rancor that all too commonly accompanies divorce

When it became clear to Meira that her marriage of six years was over, she knew exactly what not to do.

“I was 11 when my parents divorced, and my family was absolutely decimated,” she says. “My mother’s family was well-connected, and succeeded in getting askanim on their side in a brutal campaign against my father. It was a ‘holy war,’ fought to ‘save the neshamos’ of the children from the influence of my father, who they viewed as not up to their religious standard. When I got married years later, my in-laws had to pay for the entire wedding because my parents were still slugging it out in court and didn’t have a penny. My father’s parents took out a reverse mortgage to help his defense; they were bled so dry that there was no money for my brothers’ bar mitzvahs.”

Was the holy war successful? “Two of my brothers and one sister are not religious,” Meira says. “Worse, two of them are married to non-Jews — my parents will have generations of goyim among their descendants. Many, many relationships were destroyed. And 23 years later, of the eight children in my family, I’m the only one on speaking terms with everyone.”

Years after her parents’ divorce, Meira faced the necessity of ending her own marriage — and she was determined to take a different approach. “We’re not stepping foot into court,” she told her husband. “I will not take that ugly route at any cost.”

Meira and her husband chose instead to work out their divorce agreement through a mediator. With the mediator’s help, they parted peacefully.

Divorce is always painful. But those who’ve taken the route of mediation say it doesn’t have to be protracted, ugly, or inordinately expensive. Unlike litigation or even arbitration, mediation puts both parties in one room, where a mediator facilitates a productive — albeit charged — conversation about the major issues. The immediate aim is to walk out of the room with a signed agreement that can be processed in court. But the bigger goal is to avoid the bitterness so often associated with divorce, and to lay the groundwork for stable co-parenting in the future.

Mediation Basics

In addition to the get which dissolves the halachic ties between man and wife, a divorcing couple in the United States must have an attorney sign their divorce agreement and file it in court in order to be legally divorced. But the details of that agreement — custody arrangement, child support, division of assets, etc. — can be negotiated in a variety of ways.

One option is collaborative law, also known as arbitration, where lawyers for each side duke out the details and settle out of court. Another option is to go to beis din, where a toen (a personal advocate well-versed in halachah) or a lawyer is hired to win the best possible award for their client. If someone is bent on winning at all costs, they can choose litigation: hiring a lawyer to take the case to secular court. (It should be noted that halachically one may not turn to a secular court unless he was given permission to do so by a qualified beis din.)

And then there’s mediation, a wholly different approach from any of the above; its objective is for both sides to win. A well-executed mediation will result in each side walking away with terms they feel capable of accepting, sans unnecessary bitterness and resentment. This doesn’t mean they get everything on their wish lists.

“A mediation is successful when both parties feel they’ve given up on something they are otherwise entitled to,” says B.Z. Halberstam, a rabbi and lawyer who serves as a pro bono mediator in Clifton, NJ — but it does mean that the long-term benefit will far outweigh the sacrifice.