When a married couple gets divorced, everyone takes a financial hit. Women take a larger hit than men, especially if that woman had stepped back or entirely out of her career to care for children.

Even worse for a woman’s financial future is when there wasn’t a prenup, whether customized or the standard provided by law of marriage in the state the couple is living in, eg when an unmarried couple separates.

And the divorce itself is also expensive, from the relatively minor costs of the mandatory paperwork through the potential of tens of thousands or more in legal fees. What are the alternatives? A divorce with mediation instead of the usual litigious attorneys, also known as a collaborative divorce.

Collaborative divorce tries to keep both sides on good terms with each other, which in addition to being less costly, also leads to better relationships for future co-parenting – this is especially important if there are still minor children in the picture, where the interactions will need to continue for decades into the future.

High conflict, on the other hand, is what many divorces devolve into: A type of conflict of “us” vs “them”, good vs evil, where neither side listens to or respects the other. This type of divorce makes future co-parenting almost impossible, as the relationship between the ex-spouses is not just no longer that of a married couple, it is now the emotional vitriol of enemies. But the feedback loops of outrage and blame can be broken, as Amanda Ripley describes in her book “High Conflict”, and in fact she shows us behind the scenes into just how that can be done.

How Mediation began

Mediated divorce was an unheard of concept until the late 1970’s. Instead, if a couple was going to have a lawyer involved, they would each be separately represented, they wouldn’t talk directly to each other, all communication would be played “telephone” style through the two lawyers, and the lawyers would try to adversarially wrangle out all of the details, charging by the hour. Then attorney Gary Friedman had two friends arrive at his office, a married but about to be separating couple who wanted to do things differently.

He had his friends envision their lives 10 years in the future. Their lives were permanently entangled, what did they want their relationships with their kids to look like? What would their relationship with each other look like? And then, with that end in mind, knowing their own problems better than anyone, he helped them collaborate on what their agreement should be on the kids, the house, their finances, etc. This is tapping into your best self at your worst times. It is avoiding the trap of conflict. It avoids stagnation, and feeds curiosity. It avoids outrage, and makes space for the predictable errors of judgement. And by helping the two divorcing people feel more understood, they are more willing, and more able, to understand each other.

High conflict is the opposite of all of that. High conflict causes increases in the stress hormone cortisol, our higher order thinking skills go on the blink, and we make many more errors. In high conflict, those around us try to avoid being drawn in. About 2/3 of people fall into this category, which was described as the exhausted majority. This leaves the high conflict with less potential diffusers involved, indeed only those who will feed the fire stay attached to it. Signs that high conflict is happening include: believing that the other side will never change, that they are trying to trick you, and that you are a victim.

These two camps align with the two ways humans solve problems – through solidarity (which can include good conflict), or through attacking the enemy (high conflict).

I learned that the word category comes from the word for accusation in Greek. As soon as there is an “us” and a “them”, there is conflict. Even among long mission astronauts, selected among other things to be both resilient and the least conflict seeking people in the world (it being 75 times easier to get into Harvard than into the astronaut program with NASA), and trained in simulations specifically for the purpose of managing conflict, they have conflict in the real and simulated missions. It is more frequently found between the astronauts and Ground Control (eg us vs them) than astronaut to astronaut.

Mediation in practice

In addition to visualizing a desired future state, more techniques are needed.

Looping is a technique mediators use to manage conflict. It allows the person who is in the conflict to lead, while the mediator follows; the mediator cannot be leading them along to their next planned question. It involves checking to see if you heard, not just proving you’ve heard correctly, but making them feel like it by acting like it. Some useful looping questions Amanda provided included:

• What would it be like if you got what you wanted here?
• What do you want your opponent to understand about you? What do you want to understand about them?

Also, to be clear, to understand is not the same as to agree. You can and often must be able to understand and still disagree.

Other rules useful for mediation described in the book included:

• Be respectful of others
• One person speaks at a time
• No name calling
• No eyeball rolling.

Mediators also often meditate, helping to retain their own mental flexibility and equilibrium in the middle of the conflict instead of being drawn in. It certainly wouldn’t hurt if those being meditated tried it too.

Communication and perception

The perception of communication is often an illusion. Through a study of rhythms tapped out for popular songs, of which the tapper estimated that half would be guessed correctly, only 3% were actually properly identified. It is all too easy to overestimate how well we have communicated, whether that’s about our intentions or our ideas.

Similarly, we judge differently our own intentions vs the intentions of others, even if the same outcomes came to pass by the actions of both groups. We give ourselves grace, and none to others. And we think we are an open book, that others should give ourselves the same grace we gave ourselves; but to those others, we remain opaque.

If you are expecting to be accepted, then being blindsided by rejection is all the more hurtful, and triggers more hostility. Unpredictable threats feel more dangerous, and therefore a need to protect yourself even more. Similarly being disliked doesn’t trigger nearly the emotional backlash as feeling disrespected. People who are ostracized try fawning, trying conformity and compliance, and then resort to aggression if/when that doesn’t work. This works, and it doesn’t – those who become aggressive have almost certainly finalized their social rejection, but it does re-establish a sense of self control and agency.

Keys to setting the mediation stage

Simply putting two people (or two groups of people) into the same room as each other isn’t enough, and in fact in about 1/4 of people contact will actually make the conflict worse. Instead, the stage has to be carefully set, through four conditions for “Contact theory”.

• Everyone should have approximately equal status.
• Some kind of respected authority is present and supporting the proceedings. In divorce that’s the mediator.
• A common problem must be being worked on together.
• The pursued shared goal should be of interest to everyone – the people need to be motivated, to want to be there, to want a solution.

This means that everyone has the power, stability, and motivation to “take risks and withstand discomfort”, which can be a very high hurdle in a divorce. It can help if you consider and envision who is your why, what do you care about that is bigger than this divorce, to help keep it in perspective.

Resources

Author Amanda provides two highly useful appendices: Appendix 2 is how to recognize high conflict in yourself. And Appendix 3 is how to prevent high conflict.

From Appendix 2, here are some warning signs of high conflict: there is simplicity to their viewpoint, their brain is stuck going in circles, they are having sleep disturbances, and they are happy when bad things are happening to the other side.

From Appendix 3, the power of a good mediator is again highlighted. They can keep actual useful talking going. Shut out the people around you who delight in conflict; if that’s your lawyer, then consider a new lawyer. Support the ratio for conflict resilience, of 5 positive interactions for each negative one. Get training on active listening. Write about the argument from a neutral third party’s point of view. And don’t let a story be too simple.

Conclusion

Avoiding high conflict isn’t easy; it’s all too easy to fall into whenever the stakes are at their highest. But at the same time, high conflict is best to be avoided exactly in those highest conflict scenarios, because it will get you no where anyone wants to be. A mediator and a willingness to think about where you want to be 10 years in the future can be the most cost effective and positive choices you can make in high stakes conflict. You can find a mediator for your divorce through a professional directory such as that of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP).