Crafting a "Graceful End" to a Marriage

In last Thursday's New York Times "Home" section, one of the articles on the front page, "Within Arm's reach," discussed a recent divorcee's quest to remodel her tiny (600 square feet!) new apartment to maximum effect.

Now that's charming, and it's fun to see how her team of interior designers helps her to achieve a beautiful end-result, but for me the really interesting part of the article is here:

She also said that when she and her husband of some 20-odd years divorced a few years ago, they used a mediator because they were determined that their marriage would have a "graceful end."

I couldn't agree more. Often, when I'm mediating a marital settlement agreement, I want to ask the parties, "Don't you want to honor what you had?!? You married this person for a reason, right? They were there with you for how many years? Don't you want them to walk out of here with dignity and respect intact?"

Usually, the answers to those questions are yes. Most people will choose mediation when they are still able to have a conversation with the other party, when they want to end things kindly and fairly. While it's true that some folks end up in mediation because it is cheaper (and that's true), it also requires a baseline of respect and the ability to compromise and forgive. And what better way to celebrate the graceful end to your marriage then, oh I don't know, renovating your beautiful new private retreat with all the money you saved?

Rebuilding Trust: Fixing What Has Been Broken

Trust. It's a key component to any healthy relationship, be it personal or professional. And perhaps particularly important when the relationship encompasses both of these spheres. This is an issue I've come across several times in recent mediations - married couples who are also business partners, who have become unable to communicate effectively about their business. Very often, this frustration bleeds over into their personal lives (surprise!), and makes life extremely stressful at home as well as at work. While the couple may not seek a divorce, something has got to give - this level of stressful frustration with a spouse/business partner is not sustainable.

But, often, the history of the couple is so littered with broken promises, old hurts, and damaged faith, that reinvesting in the relationship in a real way is scary and may even feel foolhardy. How can mediation change this dynamic when they've tried to fix things on their own so many times before?

The answer, as I like to flatter myself, is that they are now accountable to a third party. In the past, the couple may have struggled to communicate; one party may believe they are clearly expressing themselves when the other party understands something completely different.

In mediation, I help the parties to draw up a contract that details their respective responsibilities. It clarifies the communication process, and leaves no doubt about about whom is responsible for what. It forces them to discuss, in detail, and with specificity, what their expectations are. With a well-written agreement in place, it becomes possible to rebuild trust by sticking to the terms of the agreement over time. And that's a beautiful thing.

Mentalization

I recently had the pleasure of attending a workshop about some of the psychological elements in mediation, by Dr. Ilene Diamond, and sponsored by Community Boards.

This presentation was fascinating for me. One of the main ideas that we discussed was "mentalization," which denotes a person's ability to understand the mental state of another without overt verbal explanation. This includes the ability to feel empathy towards someone else, and the ability to understand a situation from another's perspective.

When a person has poor mentalization skills, it is very difficult for them to participate collaboratively in a mediation. They are unable to compromise, since they are unable to see the relevant issues from anyone's point of view but their own. Moreover, they have a sense that they will be "losing" if they make any concessions.

But the most interesting part of mentalization revolved around the formation of this skill set, which starts extremely early in life. In infancy, we learn from our parents that it's possible to intuit how someone else is feeling - they anticipate our needs, look after us, and connect with us before we can verbalize our needs. From them, we learn that we can relate to other people in this way. Sadly, babies whose parents are less attentive, or perhaps negligent, never learn these skills. While they can be taught later in life, the foundation is laid in infancy. Amazing.

So how to work with a party who has poor mentalization skills? Often, the best approach is to cast the relevant issue in selfish terms, i.e., "If you let this person have this one thing, it really is better for you because...." If the poor mentalizer can see self-interest in a decision, it will be more compelling for them.