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"You can color me completely surprised. Peter actually contacted the mediator to set up the consultation. He really did it. We&amp;#039;ve talked about it for so long with nothing ever coming of it, and now I guess either he or Stacie or maybe both of them realized that I&amp;#039;m never going to have the funds to spare on this and I&amp;#039;ve got nobody waiting in the wings to hurry this along for, so they&amp;#039;d better take the initiative.  The mediator will be mailing out a packet to both of us full of information and worksheets we have to fill out to facilitate the process. I&amp;#039;ve started doing some homework of my own, and I&amp;#039;m putting together the list of stuff we need. The big problem here is that this is a mediation, meaning there has to be compromise on both sides to some degree. And that means I have to ask for more than what I want, hoping to settle for what we need. That&amp;#039;s bound to cause some friction, and I have such a knot in my stomach thinking about it. I really do. So I&amp;#039;m putting together the list of things: custodial issues, child support, investment accounts, division of debt, insurance policy addendums and revisions, provisos for college, long-term care (for David, if necessary), dual ownership of the home (I can&amp;#039;t afford to buy him out and can&amp;#039;t refinance while we&amp;#039;re underwater on the mortgage), home maintenance issues... the list is enormous. I&amp;#039;m picking the brains of everyone I know who went through the process to get their &amp;quot;wish I&amp;#039;d have asked for that&amp;quot; items. And that&amp;#039;s where you come in, readers. When you were negotiating the terms of your divorce, is there anything (in hindsight) you wish you could go back and re-do? What did you forget to ask for that you should have remembered? What did you insist on that ended up being not worth the battle? Give me your insights, please! [Follow Ellie on Twitter and Facebook] "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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