In Ontario, using a divorce mediator is quickly becoming the preferred way for people to create their Separation Agreement.  Still there are a lot of misunderstandings about family mediation. Here are the most common fears and common concerns that can prevent you from taking the wise approach towards creating your Separation Agreement.

1. A family mediated agreement is not legally enforceable. The mediation process is not only accepted by the courts in Ontario, it is now highly favored and encouraged by the court system and any agreement reached by the parties is considered binding and enforceable. 
2. The weaker party won’t be protected in divorce mediation. In most marriages there are dominant personalities and less dominant personalities and often there is a concern that the less dominated personality will be overshadowed. This concern comes up frequently and is expressed most commonly by women facing their divorce.  The belief is that, without an aggressive lawyer by their side, they won’t have a voice.  In fact, our mediators are trained to ensure that your voice is heard and that your spouse is not allowed to steal the microphone. 
3. Family mediation is not for people with a lot of assets or complicated businesses. Financial mediation… this is our specialty! Mediation works in almost every situation. As long as parties are willing to sit down together to meet and discuss their conflict, mediation is possible.  For most people, divorce is more about finances, retirement planning and tax implications.   The value or type of assets is unimportant. The same process is used to resolve them.  Our Mediators specially trained to work with any type of financial asset.
4. Family mediation only works if you already agree on most things. The whole point of family mediation is to solve issues and problems you don’t agree on. Our mediation process will helps you find compromises and generate solutions even if your didn’t believe you had any. You don’t need to agree on the issues.  You just need to agree to mediate. 
5. The divorce mediator makes all the decisions. No in mediation you and your spouse make all of the decisions.  We make sure you ask all the right questions and help you find solutions.   You are in the driver’s seat when it comes to agreeing to outccomes that work best for each of you.
6. Mediation is too time-consuming.  You are saying this because you really don’t understand the alternatives in Ontario.   Compared to going to a divorce lawyer or collaborative law, mediation will almost certainly be faster… weeks compared to months or years faster!  And there is NO comparison to the time that it will take to go through a contested court proceeding. 
7. Mediation is touchy-feely. Your divorce mediator is not your therapist. To resolve certain difficult issues it can be helpful to talk about the emotions or reasons behind them, but the goal in mediation is not to talk through your problems as you might in therapy. Instead, the goal is to tackle problems until you find a solution that works for everyone.  From there, your mediator will help you draft a Separation Agreement that will be enforceable in court.
8. People who mediate don’t use lawyers. Lawyers are still involved at the end of the mediation process, but typically only for the purposes of independent legal advice (ILA).  This means that they are not negotiating on your behalf but rather before you sign any agreement they will make sure that you and your spouse are understanding what you are signing and that you both understand your rights, responsibilities and obligations.
9. Men are always at a disadvantage in family mediation, particularly if the divorce mediator is female. Mediation is blind to gender. The process is not skewed in any way to give either spouse better chances. Our mediators will ensure that both parties have a voice and an opportunity to speak and negotiate. And just to make sure your interests are addressed, when you complete your mediation you will be assigned a family lawyer who will review your Agreement on your behalf.
10. Mediation doesn’t work unless you have good communication with your EX. Most people are facing divorce because they don’t have good communication, so this is definitely not a requirement for mediation. And now we offer more and more kinds of mediation to help people even more… mediation for couples without children, mediation with a financial emphasis and even mediation for couples that need their lawyer to join them in mediation room.