Divorce Mediation - Reality Series - Kevin and Britney

It is often the case that a couple comes to my office with hard feelings between them. Sometimes this is due to hurtful arguing that has occurred during the course of their marriage. Sometimes it is due to the bitterness that inevitably develops when one spouse wrongs the other in a significant way, like having an affair or being dishonest, deceptive or cruel. In Kevin and Britney's case, it was due to a combination of these.

When I met them, which was shortly after they decided to divorce, Britney and Kevin had been married for eleven years. They had two children, David, aged ten and Lila, aged eight. They owned a house in Providence, Rhode Island that they had purchased four years earlier. They had purchased the house at a reduced price because it needed quite a bit of renovating. With a lot of time and effort, their house turned into a dream home that they and their children were proud of. They had backyard bar-be-ques for friends and family and their kids regularly had friends over for play-dates and sleepovers.

But along the way, communication dwindled between Britney and Kevin. Arguments ensued about who was putting more effort and money into every aspect of their lives - the kids, the house, their relationship. When they were in one another's company, Kevin could not seem to stop criticizing and swearing at Britney. Eventually, each began to enjoy spending time away from the other.

Britney ended up having an affair with an administrator at the hospital where she was a nurse. She was drawn to him because he was kind to her and seemed genuinely interested in her happiness. The breaking point in Kevin and Britney's marriage occurred when Kevin found out about Britney's affair and barged into the hospital where Britney worked to confront her in front of her co-workers and patients. After making a horrific scene, Kevin stormed out of the hospital with the assistance of hospital security guards. The arguing erupted anew when Britney got home that night. The fight turned violent and police were dispatched to the house that had so recently been the home of their dreams.

After a lot more fighting, threats and tears, Britney and Kevin reached an agreement to divorce. For the sake of their children, they agreed that it would be best to keep the house, with one of them living there with the children until Lila graduated from high school. After some more fighting about who should remain in the house with the children, Kevin conceded that Britney should be the one to stay, and they agreed that each of them would be entitled to half of the equity they had built into their home. Kevin needed his share of the equity in order to move out. After all, he would need a downpayment and then he would have ongoing household expenses of his own. He would also need money for furniture and other household items for wherever he was going to live. Britney agreed with him on this, but could not afford to pay Kevin his half of the equity in the house. So, more fighting broke out over this, with Kevin finally demanding that the house be sold so that each of them could afford to start over somewhere else.

The following day, Kevin went to see a divorce lawyer. After he explained his situation, the lawyer told Kevin not to worry a bit. The lawyer said he would take action to either have Britney removed from the house or have the house sold, either of which would work to Kevin's "favor." The lawyer also harped on Britney's infidelity and told Kevin that he would demand that more than half of the house equity went to Kevin, and if Britney wanted to fight about it, the lawyer promised to subpoena Britney's lover and co-workers into court to humiliate her publicly. The lawyer told Kevin that Britney would be painted as a lying cheating wife and a bad mother, and possibly even end up losing custody or visitation with her children.

Ironically, as Kevin listened to the lawyer, even though he was angry with Britney, he became even more angry with the lawyer. Kevin was smart enough to realize that the approach the lawyer was going to take could devastate his children and destroy Britney. He actually found himself becoming defensive of Britney in this lawyer's presence. And after the lawyer told him what it was going to cost to wreak all of this havoc on his family, Kevin could see that the equity he and Britney had in their home was going to end up in this lawyer's pocket. While it may be a good idea to hire a lawyer when you divorce, it is important that you hire the right divorce lawyer.

So, Kevin spoke to Britney about his visit to the lawyer that night, confiding that he wanted to stick with original agreement that Britney and the children would remain in the house until Lila graduated from high school, but that he wanted to find a way to make it work financially.

The next day they called an accountant for help and the accountant referred them to my office, whereupon Britney and Kevin were able to work out how to financially afford to have Kevin move to a new place while Britney remained in the house with the children.

This is a very common problem for divorcing couples. How can they afford to live separately? The problem is especially tricky in this day and age where two incomes are generally contributed to a single married household. What makes a solution easier to find is having both spouses work together on finding a creative solution. Most people (including lawyers) are not aware of how creative a couple can be in deciding how to divide their marital assets. The marital home is just one of these assets.

Divorce mediation allowed Kevin and Britney to sit with an impartial person familiar with law and experienced in negotiation in order to confidentially and civilly sort out options for accomplishing what they both needed to achieve as an outcome in their divorce with respect the their marital home. After considerable brainstorming, once they became aware of their options in splitting the equity in their home, Britney and Kevin agreed that they would jointly take out a loan against the equity in their home. Each would contribute one-half of the cost of this loan, plus one-half of the cost of the mortgage on the home plus one-half of the cost of an apartment Kevin would rent for the next two years. Each would pay the other expenses associated with the place they lived in - taxes, utilities, maintenance. They would do this until Lila graduated high school, after which time they would sell the house if neither wanted to buy out the other's interest in the house.

This agreement worked perfectly for Kevin and Britney, based upon a number of factors including their mortgage expense, the equity value in their home, their respective incomes and other assets and liabilities involved in their divorce. The fact that each trusted the other to keep his/her side of the bargain was another contributing factor that made this solution work for them.

Britney and Kevin's solution to the dilemma of what to do about their marital home will not be the right solution for every divorcing couple with the same problem. The solution always depends on the individual circumstance of the spouses. The point here is that divorcing couples have many more options than they realize when it comes to dividing their assets and liabilities. Through divorce mediation, couples can meet in the privacy of a divorce mediator's office to learn about options and to civilly discuss possible solutions without the fear of courtroom brawling and expensive legal fees.