Of course, you want to get your Judgment – that's the goal of your legal divorce – but you don't want to go through the adversarial system to get it. You don't want to get all tangled up with lawyers and courts because the system is designed to work against you.
There are only two practical solutions to your problem.

One, if you are able and willing to invest the time and effort, work it out completely between yourselves. Depending on your relationship, your ability to communicate effectively, and your willingness to spend many hundreds of hours learning what is necessary to get a legal divorce, you would be able to construct your own legal divorce. So, if you and your spouse can work out your own temporary arrangements and share all information openly, you'll have no need for those incredibly expensive legal tools. You can keep your case out of lawyers' offices and out of court. You don't go through the legal system, you go around it. You work outside the legal system to make arrangements and reach an agreement with your spouse. This sounds like an ideal solution except you really can't do it alone. The legal requirements to get a divorce are simply too complicated for most people to endure.

But there is even a better and more reasonable solution that statistically has an 83% rate of success. That is, hire an experienced and trained divorce mediator and work together to settle all the issues of your divorce.

Most people don't have the technical knowledge required to know exactly what's needed to get a divorce through our courts. Ignorance about the legal system and how it works can make you feel uncertain, insecure and incompetent. If you want to stay out of court and our convoluted legal system, all you need is a divorce mediator who is trained to guide you through this process.

You're emotionally upset and conflicted. In virtually every divorce situation, there is a high level of anger, hurt, blame and guilt. You simply can't negotiate alone given the intensity of these emotions. You need a divorce mediator who is experienced in working through these emotions to help you work together to come up with a mutually agreeable solution.

Mediation replaces the need for you to hire two complete strangers (lawyers) to conduct a war to resolve the issues involved in your separation or divorce. With the aid of a professional matrimonial mediator, you make all the decisions regarding the terms of your divorce. A professional mediator is trained and has the practical experience to facilitate the negotiations even between the most difficult couples.
A mediator is necessary because you and your spouse are too emotional to communicate with each other in an orderly, problem solving tone. One of you may have a dominant advantage over the other in strength or information. Even if you could negotiate together, you probably don't know the issues that must be resolved, and lack the experience to effectively find the solutions that you could agree to. And that will work. That is the role of the mediator. That's what he's trained to do. That is his responsibility.

Don't lose all your money in legal fees!
Don't make a bad situation worse for you and your children!
Don't suffer through months or years of delay and  disruption to your lives!
Don't lose control of things that are important to you!
Don't suffer endless aggravation and public humiliation!
Continue forward with your life as soon as possible!
Get what you think is fair and stay in control of the process!
Make the best choices for you and your children!
Save your money, time, pain and life!