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"What if we try divorce mediation and it doesn’t work out? Do we have to go to court, or are there other options?"

With or without a mediator, you still need to go to court to get divorced. Only a judge has the authority to grant a judgment for divorce. But if you reach an agreement with a mediator, you can incorporate that agreement into your divorce judgment and make the divorce process much quicker and simpler.

If you don’t reach an agreement with a mediator, you still have to go to court. The difference is, then you and your spouse will be fighting in court and probably paying lawyers to do so. The result is that you spend a lot more time and money in court, as well as a lot more grief and aggravation out of court.

Like it or not, at this point, those are your options.

Karen A. Covy, J.D. is an attorney and family-law mediator in Chicago. She owns and operates Midwest Mediation as well as a successful family-law firm. This answer is an excerpt from When Happily Ever After Ends (2006), used by permission of its publisher, Sphinx Publishing, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc. She can be reached at (312) 236-1670. View her Divorce Magazine profile.