Traditional negotiation is where both you and your spouse each have an attorney. Each side generally advocates his/her best possible outcome and after a series of “back and forths,” some form of compromise is negotiated. Sometimes one spouse will have his/her attorney draft an agreement and present it to the other and then wait for a counteroffer. Alternatively, the attorneys may first negotiate the terms and when a consensus is reached, an agreement is drafted.
Negotiations work well if you and your spouse are in almost complete agreement from the outset and you simply need the agreement reduced to writing. Negotiation is also good of there is a power imbalance between you and your spouse, such as domestic abuse, or have such distrust, that direct negotiation is impossible. The benefit of negotiations is that in difficult cases, the lawyers do most of the advocating and communicating. The down side is that you and your spouse tend to be left out of the process, you talk more to the lawyers than each other, and the agreement may feel unfair in the end since it a product of compromise.
Continue to mediation.