Bonjour, mon amis. I have always believed that love is the only madness worth pursuing. Wealth, fame, and even knowledge pale before the intoxicating heat of passion. It is a classical French affliction, I think, this addiction to romance, this desire to plunge headfirst into affairs of the heart even when we know the landing will be hard, perhaps fatal.
I have had three great loves in my life. Two of them ended in marriage. Both of those ended in divorce.
The first dissolved quietly, like sugar in hot water. The second… the second was war. A siege fought not with swords, but with subpoenas. By the end, all that had existed between us…joy, laughter, the smell of her hair in the morning sun…had been burned away. The lawyers had left no survivors. The bridge between us was not only destroyed, it was salted to ensure nothing could grow there again.
And yet, as I sat at a cafe last month, licking the wounds of memory, an old friend joined me and shared a different story. His marriage, too, had come to the brink. The shouting, the resentment, the creeping realization that perhaps love was not enough. But instead of hiring attorneys and preparing for combat, he and his wife tried something else. They signed what he called a marriage contract, a final chance to save the relationship before surrendering it to the courts.
At first, I laughed. What nonsense was this? A contract to save a marriage? But as he explained, I realized I was the fool. The marriage contract is no bureaucratic trick.

It is a tool created by the mediation attorney in Orange County he had worked with, a woman named Colleen McNamee of McNamee Mediations, designed to help couples identify what is broken and give them one last, honest chance to fix it.
Together with a skilled mediator, the couple lays their cards on the table. They name the problems. They write down the solutions. They agree to changes, to commitments, and to a deadline. The mediator prepares all necessary divorce paperwork, yes—but holds it in reserve. If the agreed-upon time passes and either partner still wishes to proceed, the documents are ready. If not, they vanish into a drawer, never to be filed.
It is a marriage on probation. A final test of the will to remain together. And for my friend, it worked. They found their way back.
McNamee Mediations did not simply help them separate with dignity, they helped them decide whether to separate at all. This, I must admit, moved me deeply.
Too often, the professionals involved in a divorce act like butchers with their knives already drawn. But Colleen McNamee and her firm approach things differently. They fight, if they can, to preserve what remains of the bond. Just take a look at some of their online reviews that attest to this quality:
Read Maureen G.‘s review of McNamee Mediations on Yelp
If I had known about this… if someone had told me that there was a middle ground between endless misery and outright war, perhaps my second marriage would have ended differently. Perhaps it wouldn’t have ended at all.
If you are standing at the edge of this particular cliff and you and the person you once loved are unsure whether to jump, I urge you: call McNamee Mediations. Talk to them about the marriage contract. See if something can be saved before you strike the match.
McNamee Mediations
(949) 223-3836
4590 MacArthur Blvd Suite 500, Newport Beach, CA 92660