Once a marriage has progressed far enough, the only question that remains is, “How difficult will it be to untangle our legal and financial lives and (if relevant) settle custody?” For some couples, a mediated divorce is appealing rather than a contested divorce: many people don’t want to cast their ex-partners as enemies, and mediation is a cheaper, more cooperative, and less adversarial process than a War of the Roses-style battle.

But not every couple is a good candidate for mediation, and it can be hard to know ahead of time who will find the process helpful and who will find it useless or, worse, infuriating. To get a better sense of the warning signs, I spoke with Rachel Green, the Brooklyn, New York, family law attorney who handled my own divorce a decade ago. Here are eight signs that mediation might not be right for you.

“Mediation requires both parties to want the best for each other,” Green says. “The goal is for everyone to be OK at the end. You have to be willing to consider the other party’s point of view, even if you don’t agree with it. That you’re willing to sit in the room and listen.” And of course, they have to be willing to consider yours.

Even the most open-minded adults can easily cling to the idea that their version of events is the only version. Green says, "You have to be able to accept the idea that the other person had a different experience than you, which doesn't negate your reality, and allow both to coexist."