The family lawyers group, Resolution, has launched a guide to help couples avoid conflict during divorce proceedings.

The guide, Separating Together: Your options for separation and divorce, follows an online poll by Resolution that revealed that 81% of people believe that it’s children who suffer most during a marriage break-up. This is in spite of the fact that 78% said that the children’s interests would be one of their top priorities.

The survey was conducted to mark Family Dispute Resolution Week which was held in September to raise awareness of alternative methods of resolving relationship breakdowns.

Nearly half of those questioned believed that most divorce proceedings involved court action.

The new guide issued by Resolution will help couples understand other methods of settling their differences such as mediation, collaborative law and arbitration.

The results come at a time when divorces are on the increase and the courts are struggling to cope.

Hopefully, the advice will help to ease the burden and ensure that more cases are settled out of court.

Jo Edwards, Vice Chair of Resolution, said: “These findings highlight how people have good intentions to prioritise the well-being of children and to avoid conflict during separation, but this can often be derailed by a lack of knowledge of non-court based options and an exposure to the adversarial nature of courts. Something is going very wrong, and often the result is emotionally and financially drained parents and deeply distressed children.

“We’ve launched this guide because we want separating couples to know about non-confrontational alternatives to court. These methods can help prevent separation and divorce from being needlessly adversarial, and often can benefit the whole family through fairer settlements and by prioritising the interests of children.”

Please contact us if you would like more information about divorce and conflict resolution.