Robin Williams and his wife, Marsha Garces Williams, have announced in court papers that they are going to have a collaborative divorce. (Which means we won't see them and their children paraded on special editions of Entertainment Tonight.) In their court filing they said they would be "honest, cooperative and respectful" and put their children first.

A collaborative divorce allows the couple to make final decisions on the division of property, custody, child support, and other matters, and not leave the decisions to the judge. The idea is to look at long-term interests instead of short-term anger, according to The Wall Street Journal.

In mediation, the husband and wife seeking a divorce meet with a trained mediator, try to work out an agreement, and the agreement is sent to their respective lawyers. Mediation is sometimes ordered in the midst of litigation, as a way to resolve problems. Mediation, on average, will cost around $7,000. 

In a collaborative divorce, the couple agrees that they will reveal all pertinent information and their lawyers agree that they will not go to court. If the husband and his lawyer and the wife and her lawyer cannot come to an agreement on something, a neutral expert – a psychologist, an accountant, a real estate analyst, whatever – is brought in to offer advice.

The sides agree not to take advantage of mistakes made by each other. (If only this process had been around during the marriage!)

Everything about the settlement remains confidential. (Thus the results of the Robin Williams divorce will not hit the tabloids.) And finally, if the process breaks down, which it does in less than 10 percent of cases, the two sides cannot continue with their lawyers. They have to start over from the beginning.

A collaborative divorce, because of the time both lawyers have to put in, is more expensive than a litigated divorce, around $20,000, but in a collaborative divorce the husband and wife are each alerted to the legal ramifications of any decisions, on the spot.

A litigated divorce, by comparison, would cost an average of $27,000 and go up steeply. The Journal cites Constance Ahron’s 20-year research as showing that children suffer most when their parents bad-mouth each other, assign blame, ask the children to choose sides, and keep secrets. Such behavior, fully on display in a litigated divorce, will affect the children even decades later.

A study by Jui-Chung Allen Li of the Rand Corporation was presented at a conference by the Council on Contemporary Families in Chicago, in April. The report, “The Kids Are OK; Divorce and Children’s Behavior Problems,” looked at more than 6,000 children over more than 20 years and found that long-term problems in the marriage (antisocial behavior, contempt for each other, distanced parenting, mental problems, alcohol abuse, poor impulse control) increase the likelihood that children will have problems, even if the parents stay together.

Stephanie Coontz, director of research for the Council on Contemporary Families, said the report’s findings were provocative and “could reframe the national debate on divorce.” In other words, in some situations, a divorce might be the best solution. And a collaborative divorce, or a mediated divorce, will spare children the blame and contentiousness of a divorce fought in the courtroom.