From Lee Jay Berman's Eye On Conflict Blog:

One of this week’s most talked about legal issues is whether or not Larry King will divorce his wife Shaun Southwick. See “King Divorce 'Full Steam Ahead'" href="http://www.aiminst.com/divor...”. Last week the media speculated about
the state of Tiger and Elin Woods’ marriage. The week before it was all
about Sandra Bullock and Jesse James, and the week before that Charlie
Sheen and Brooke Mueller. Next week another couple with a marriage in
crisis will take the spotlight amid accusations of cheating, disclosures
of prenuptial agreements, divisions of millions in assets and
child-custody battles. Like many failed marriages, however, when the
focus goes away the discussion about those matters will remain toxic.

Every day, famous and unknown families are torn apart by divorce. Here’s a story that didn’t make headlines. While it did not have a happy ending, the couple involved are still speaking to each other and
making joint decisions about their children’s care.

He was a professor, she was a surgery nurse, and their girls were three and five. Just like most folks in their forties, they had a house, individual retirement accounts, some stocks, some love and some
anger.

This couple chose co-mediation, where they met with a pair of mediators: she was a family law attorney and he was trained in psychology. After the mediators facilitated rational conversation and
give-and-take, the couple agreed on everything from dividing their
belongings and support issues to a collaborative parenting plan for the
girls. They spent less than $2000 for the entire process, and more
importantly, they remain civil and friendly to each other. And they
decided the outcome. They retained control of their own lives.

Some people still choose to get divorced the old-fashioned way – where they let their emotions overtake their logic. They fight over everything, including things they don’t even care about. All they
really care about is hurting the other one as the conflict escalates.
This method requires lawyers and judges. One such young couple had
$30,000 in community property and no kids. When they finished fighting,
her legal bill alone was $40,000.

Couples with children who choose to fight do damage in another way, too. Their kids are watching and learning how to engage in conflict from their parents’ example. These kids will grow up thinking it’s
normal to have parents who don’t have the skills to get along and who
have to be carefully seated separately at graduations and weddings
(stealing the spotlight at their kids’ events).

Some may say that a couple’s approach to divorcing depends on whether it ends by mutual agreement or by deceit and betrayal. I submit that it’s the other way around – that the way they approach divorce depends
on their choice of process. Maybe like other contracts, there should be
a marriage contract with a pre-dispute mediation clause in it, meaning,
“We love each other now, let’s agree now that if anything ever goes
wrong, we’ll use mediation to sort it out civilly.”

It’s a mediator’s job to keep a divorcing couple on the civil path, where it’s a lawyer’s job to advocate for their client’s interest above all others. The only thing divorcing couples have to do – celebrities
or not – is make the choice to go the more civil path, and then let
their mediator help them keep it there. They should make this decision
for themselves and for their children.

Nobody knows how many celebrities use mediation to divorce, mostly because mediation is confidential, but judging by the magazine covers in the supermarket, far too few consider it. Maybe it’s because the
financial cost of the divorce isn’t as daunting to them. Maybe it’s
because they have an ulterior motive for having their names on the front
pages for an entire week. Most of the couples in the news lately,
however, have small children who are going to have to live for years
with the consequences of their parents’ decisions about their
break-ups. I hope at least one of them reads this post and looks into
mediation. As you read this, you may know a couple who is in need of
this advice. It could save them a lifetime’s worth of regret.

What do you think about the viability of a prenuptial mediation agreement?