little falls mediation
  • Home
  • About Ellice Halpern
  • How LFM Can Help You
  • Mediation
    • WHAT IS MEDIATION
    • FAMILY/DIVORCE MEDIATION
    • BUSINESS/CIVIL MEDIATION
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Testimonials

Moving Toward Resolution

9/21/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
In my last blog post, I told the story of Elizabeth and James, with their permission. James wanted to modify their settlement agreement five years after their divorce since their daughter had just turned eighteen.  In Virginia, once a child turns eighteen and has graduated from high school, there is no child support obligation. They have another child, a son who is fourteen. James retained a lawyer and informed Elizabeth how things were going to be amended. Elizabeth felt stressed and upset.  During their marriage, James was the unilateral decision maker. She had not liked his failure to consider her input during the marriage, and she did not like his lack of considering her opinion now.  The couple had been divorced for five years, and Elizabeth did not want to fall back into old communication patterns, She wanted to have a collaborative, and not an adversarial, approach to working through these post divorce issues.

Elizabeth retained a lawyer as well to level the playing field, but she had no interest in paying $400 per hour to her divorce attorney, as much as she liked her.  Instead, I helped Elizabeth and James in drafting a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that set forth and clarified their intentions.  Elizabeth and James agreed  that (1)  they both want to share expenses 50/50, no matter what their incomes are; and (2) they both want to continue contributing to their children's 529 accounts until their children finish college so that there is money for graduate school.  What they disagreed about was how to share expenses 50/50. 

The MOU  stated  in pertinent part that Elizabeth would continue to carry the children on her health insurance policy as long as the insurance was reasonably priced, that Elizabeth and James would equally share all of the children's expenses -- such as cell phones, sports, extracurricular activities, car insurance, and health insurance -- until they were able to gradually take on the responsibility of paying for their own expenses, and that there would be an annual reconciliation of all previously agreed-to expenses over $100. 

The real issue here was how to move Elizabeth and James from old communication patterns -- where moving toward agreement was stalled --  to new ways of talking to each other with a neutral mediator so that agreement could be reached.  Mediation works!

0 Comments

Empowerment

9/9/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
My friend Elizabeth called me recently to talk about her attempts to resolve some post-divorce issues. She was extremely frustrated and upset. She and her ex-husband James, a lawyer, had been divorced for five years. They share all of the expenses of their children 50/50. They agree that, no matter what their incomes are, they want to continue to share expenses equally. 

My friend's daughter had recently turned 18 and had started college.  Her ex-husband wanted to modify the original divorce decree.  He was tired of the current method of how expenses were shared.  For the past five years, he would send a monthly email to Elizabeth listing all of the major kids' expenses, such as car insurance, cell phones, voice lessons, and sports fees.  In return, Elizabeth would send a monthly check to him for half of the total expenses.

Some couples prefer to share expenses using a pro-rata formula.  If the husband's income is 30 percent more than the wife's, for example, the husband and wife may agree that the husband would pay a greater proportion of their children's expenses.

James wanted to share expenses differently going forward.  He was not interested in using a pro-rata formula.  He informed Elizabeth that she would pay for health insurance and cell phones and he would pay for car insurance and soccer.  There would be no more monthly communication about bills or expenses and there would be no monthly reconciliation.  In fact, there would not even be an annual reconciliation.  Elizabeth was intrigued by the suggestion, but before she could consider the benefits and disadvantages of this change, James informed her that his lawyer would draft a revised order. She would have a couple of hours to review it before the revised order would be filed.

Elizabeth felt bullied, outnumbered, rushed, stressed, and anxious. She did not like the way that James had made a unilateral decision without her input and had immediately contacted his lawyer.  She did not want  dueling emails to go back and forth.  She did not want to run up a legal bill at $400 per hour.  She did not think that what he was proposing was balanced. James would be finished paying for soccer forever at the end of the season, but she might be obligated to pay for health insurance for the next 8 years. Elizabeth wanted to be empowered.  After giving the matter some thought, she realized that she and James did agree on one core issue: they wanted to continue to share expenses in a fair and equitable manner. 

So Elizabeth told her ex-husband that she wanted to sit down around a table with a mediator to jointly define the current  issues regarding expense sharing and to then seek solutions together.  Stay tuned for his reaction...

And, just a reminder that what happens in mediation stays in mediation.  The names have been changed in this blog, and Elizabeth was happy for me to share her story.







1 Comment

    Author

    Ellice Halpern, J.D., is a Virginia Supreme Court certified general and family mediator.

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2015 www.littlefallsmediation.com
  • Home
  • About Ellice Halpern
  • How LFM Can Help You
  • Mediation
    • WHAT IS MEDIATION
    • FAMILY/DIVORCE MEDIATION
    • BUSINESS/CIVIL MEDIATION
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Testimonials