Breakups & Divorce Support Group

This is more of a general suggestion for those using a mediator for the divorce process:

Our mediator did a FANTASTIC job during our 2-hour mediation back in December, and we arrived at a very clean and simple agreement about the division of assets (we have no children) that we both felt good about. The mediator was to email the notes to us right away.

We each wrote him an email afterward thanking him for a great mediation and all his help. We loved his fancy software and the financial analysis he projected onto a big screen for he and my husband to see while I got on my laptop ( was in another city and was attending the meeting via webcam.)

But it was the holidays and he didn't get the notes to us right away, which we understood.

But 4 weeks later he STILL had not sent them. We had each written him several times asking for the notes so we could proceed with our filing, and each time he gave some lame excuse for the delay and said he'd get them to us shortly.

So a full month later, we finally got the notes and guess what?

They were wrong.

And what he got wrong was the bulk of the agreement which we spent the most time on. I spoke with my stbx last night, and we agree about the error, but when I wrote the mediator this morning he wrote back that his notes are right and gave an inaccurate review of agreement about the division of assets.

I called him immediately and as patiently as i could, refreshed his memory by going over the 3 major-but-very-simple points of agreement that he remembered what we had decided to do. He blamed it on an email from my husband about tax comparison, which was ridiculous because his email was very clear.

In short, it was before Christmas and the guy wasn't paying enough attention. And the long delay did not help refresh his memory.

This morning I asked for a recording of our session, because while my stbx remembers the most important part, he does think i agreed to a smaller point which i didn't. The mediator remembers it as i do, but how do i prove it to my stbx now that the mediator screwed up the other part? I don't blame him for thinking the guy is not a reliable witness.

So... if you're going to mediation, please protect yourself by doing the following 2 things:

1) Take your own tape-recorder, and also insist that the mediator record the entire session, including a summary of the agreement, with you both repeating the points in your own voice, so there will be NO doubt down the road and no chance for a misunderstanding.

2) Make sure you get the mediation notes as soon as possible (within a week, max.) That way if they are wrong, your memory is still fresh and you don't have to go back to the negotiating table.

The last thing you want is to have to re-negotiate AFTER the mediation, which can cause unnecessary frustration & anxiety and undermine the peace of mind you gained from the mediation.