Ron Ousky, co-author with Stuart G. Webb of 'The Collaborative Way to Divorce: The Revolutionary Method that Results in Less Stress, Lower Cost, and Happier Kids-Without Going to Court,' recently spoke with AOL Book Maven Bethanne Patrick on how to compromise during divorce. Here are excerpts of the interview:

Bethann Patrick: First of all, I know your methods are aimed mainly at divorce, but can a couple who are not actually legally married, but are dating, use the collaborative principles to work on their relationship?

Ron Ousky: Yes... Actually a lot of the communication techniques used are really just conflict resolution skills. We do also have some non-married couples who use this to separate, but I think you're asking a separate question. Are these relationship techniques and communication techniques? Absolutely... The underpinnings of these can be used in almost any kind of conflict situation.

Bethann Patrick: This is such an important subject and one that is getting a great deal of attention as people try to figure out ways to make divorce less cruel and stressful for everyone. How do you know if you can have an amicable divorce?

Ron Ousky: That's a great question. In the book there's actually a test that people can take to kind of go through a checklist of things. But in short, the main thing is whether you and your spouse are really willing to commit to do it in a different way. It doesn't mean you have to be great friends, but you have to be willing to commit to doing this. Most people start out that way; they say, 'Well, we really want to get it done outside of court because court is expensive and it's emotionally exhausting.' But you really have to be able to commit.

It really requires a level of commitment to work on some of the barriers that are keeping you from doing it amicably, which are things like emotions. You have to be able to set those emotions aside and work on resolution.

Bethann Patrick: Let's talk about those barriers for one second. A difficult divorce is probably more costly than an amicable one, not just financially but emotionally. What are some of those costs?

Ron Ousky: It's easy to think of the financial costs because you can spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars on a trial or even tens of thousands on a litigated settlement, and only a fraction of that on an amicable or collaborative divorce. That's the easiest candid one for people to see. The bigger one from my standpoint is the emotional costs -- the type of damage that can happen to children and adults in an adversarial process can last a lifetime and sometimes generations. That's the incentive people have: You can really avoid all of that.

The actual challenges in getting people to come around to this are:

• First, they're dealing with the emotions. They have to recognize that even though they might feel like they want to seek revenge, they have to step aside and ask themselves if that's really what they want; is that really in their long-term interest.

• The second barrier we have is misinformation. People don't have good information about their options. And people have the belief that if you want to get what you want in divorce, you have to fight hard and you have to dig in. All the studies and all of the experiences have in fact shown the opposite. These more amicable and collaborative methods get better results for people.