When an unmarried couple who have had one or more children together decide to end their relationship,  they must deal with many of the same issues that confront divorcing parents.

 

Like divorcing  parents, unmarried parents have a continuing responsibility to work together to provide for their children.  If the parents have been living together, they  now must create a way to co-parent their child or children in separate households.

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Even when the parents have never maintained a household together, or parented their child together, they may have developed a pattern of informal but cooperative co-parenting that one of the parents now wants to change.  Mediation can help parents in conflict create a parenting plan that will be satisfactory to both parties. There is no “right” way to share parenting time with your children.

 

In addition to creating a workable time sharing arrangement, I help unmarried parents resolve child support and other child-related financial issues such as health and dental insurance, uninsured health and dental expenses, extracurricular activities, college expenses, and dependency exemptions and the related tax credits.

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At the conclusion of the mediation,  I will incorporate the parties' decisions into an agreement that they can later file with the court and incorporate into a judgment.  As with other mediated agreements, parties are always advised to have the agreement reviewed by independent counsel before signing and filing with the court.

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For more information, please contact Mary Anne Johnson at  mjohnson@mjmediator.com or call 781.856.3173.

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