I may be naive, but I believe I have stumbled upon the antithesis of mediation.  If the objective was to take a rather chatty and comfortable couple and antagonize them separately until neither could see straight, then she performed beautifully.  There are a host of things, both reasonable and unreasonable, upon which my ex The Politician and I do not agree.  Unfortunately, the only common ground we found yesterday was that that meeting was a tragic waste of time.