You should not settle anything until you know what you are settling or you will likely base your settlement negotiations on inaccurate or incomplete information. Though the Internet can be a great supplemental resource, you should avoid relying on it for understanding your legal rights. You may see laws from other states which differ from North Carolina and incorrectly assume the laws are the same. In addition, North Carolina laws themselves change frequently and judges may even differ from county to county (or even within the same county). You may not be able to understand the context of what is being written on the Internet. Finally, and probably most importantly: Even for North Carolina sites, much of what is on the Internet is just flat out wrong and it can be difficult to determine which sites provide correct information and which sites do not.
Let’s say you do give the “keep lawyers out of it” approach a chance and, armed with all of your (hopefully correct) independent research, you approach your spouse to negotiate a settlement. You make a reasonable offer with the expectations that your spouse will see it like you do. They never do. Once you make offers or concessions to your spouse, it is very difficult (if not impossible) to take them back down the road. For instance, you may be entitled to alimony and not know it. If you were to tell your spouse that you were not going to seek alimony, your spouse will take that as a given in future negotiations. Yes, you can sometimes legally take back these offers and concessions, but that does not mean that your spouse will be open to giving them back to you in a settlement, driving the case to an inevitable (and expensive) trial.
If you do want to try and settle yourself, it is a wise move to meet with an attorney to understand your rights and to make a negotiation plan so that you do not make your lawyer’s job in future negotiations more difficult than it needs to be (or impossible).