Regarding negotiating amongst yourselves; ensure it is documented, signed off on, and notarized. If you can, have a professional arbitrator sign off on it too. There are divorce kits out there that will walk you through this. In most cases they direct you to have a lawyer look over it. They wills sign off on it and take care of channelling it through the court. I did this with my first divorce. It cost me a total of $500. But there was no property to haggle over.

On the matter of alimony. I hate to tell you this but you may not be entitled to it. Here, one generally doesn't get it - unless you haven't worked during the relationship and your spouse took on all responsibility for the household.