Benefits Of Hosting A Forum

I am considering my next project - create a discussion forum that will live in a subdirectory of my website. Something like the highrankings forum. My goals will be to increase traffic, encourage repeat visitors, increase word of mouth, and reap any possible seo benefits.

A possible plan is to use a couple of commercial “posting services” for 12 months to simulate an active community.

The subject is divorce - so I am blindly assuming there are a lot of people available that will post thoughts and comments.

I am willing to put money into the forum and hold out for the long term.

Question: Has anyone been through this? Is the effort worth it in terms of increasing website stickyness and word of mouth traffic? How about seo benefits?

Thanks