Ep.8: Document like a pro with Courtney Gilmartin

In this episode, I talk to Courtney Gilmartin, a documentation expert, the founder of the Monarch Method, as well as the New Jersey Protective Moms  a Non-Profit organization. 

Documentation is truly the foundation of your case proving your ex's patterns of behaviour, so, it's vital that you become an expert in this area, as they are always going to counter parent, and very rarely do what's actually in your children's best interest. 

Courtney drops some key tips and tricks that are sure to help any protective parent listening in. 

You can find her on IG at: @courtney.gilmartin and on her website: www.monarchconsultinggrp.com. 

I hope you all leave with new tools in your toolbox that expand your playbook!

Visit: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com to learn how to work with me.

Grab my free parenting resource:

https://chantalcontorinescoaching.myflodesk.com/free-how-to-guide

Join my monthly membership for protective parents: https://chantalcontorinescoaching.com/monthly-membership

Follow me on Instagram: @chantal.contorines.coaching

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice.

Transcript

0:02

Welcome everybody to The Survivor's Playbook. This is the podcast for every survivor, and I am your host, Chantal Contorines. If abusers can have a playbook, then why can't survivors also have a playbook so that you can learn to live lives that you love to despite what the abuser in your life does or doesn't do. And today I'm so very excited to have the amazing Courtney Gilmartin on. She is the co-founder of the New Jersey Protective Moms. She's also the founder of Monarch Consulting and she focuses really on two key pieces documentation and evidence building and gathering. Thank you so much, Courtney, for being on today and taking time outta your full life to be here. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So let's go. For those who don't know you, who this is the first time hearing about you, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this space? Yes. So I think I probably have a similar story to everyone in this space. You don't, as a kid, dream that you're gonna be in the divorce or. Custody litigation space. I was married for almost 10 years when my children, I have two children, when they were about five and three is when we got separated and then subsequently divorced. So now looking back, I realize that our divorce actually wasn't too litigious. I think I've always been a very business minded person and entrepreneurial. Dropped outta college at 19 and owned my own business for 10 years that I had to sell during the divorce. But that's a separate story. And so I really looked at the divorce litigation as just I'm losing money every day. Every day this goes on, every email, every correspondence, every time that my lawyer has to get involved, I'm losing money. And that's such a key thing because. We feel divorce, even if you're dealing with a healthy person on the other end, divorce can get very me versus you and can get very petty. And you have to think about it as every time you use your lawyer, that is money down the drain. So being aware of that is a key piece of information and really, is this worth my time and money? I always say cost analysis. Cost analysis. I'm like a broken record to people who reach out to me who are getting divorced. I'm like, do a cost analysis. I dunno, is it worth it? If you're gonna spend 10 grand to get five, it's not worth it. Even though you might be in the right, and even though it might be, it's fair, it's, you're actually wasting money and your time. And it's hard, when you're. Writing checks for tens of thousands of dollars. It's really hard, especially for women who, most women who've given up their career or aren't in careers that where they make as much money as their male counterparts or their exes, it's really hard to gain that money back. So you're really doing a disservice to yourself as you start the new phase of your life. I get there's a tremendous amount of emotions that come with dealing with like the grief and the anger and the rage and all of that of. Being in the position that you are. But that's where I really try to tell people, this is where radical acceptance comes in. Like this is the position you're in. So you have to, to some degree, accept it and look at it. In that black and white thinking okay, I'm losing money. I can't harp on this. Yeah. And radical acceptance, it doesn't mean that it's okay. Yeah. And radical acceptance. We have to accept the unacceptable. If you have an abuser on the other end, none of this is fair. None of this is just, but you have to radically accept that this is actually the reality of your life. And then go from there. It's not fair. You're never gonna get justice. No. So I think just that was like burned into. Into my being that entrepreneurial, I wanna, make money. I gotta get outta this. That helped me a lot in my divorce. So we got divorced in 13 months. So it wasn't a very litigious or long divorce by any stretch of the imagination. I hear people being in court for years trying to get divorced. But the smart things that we did do, and I had an amazing first attorney who had the foresight to see some of the problems that he, he had enough experience to know there was gonna be problems down the road. He saw the foreshadowing the writing on the wall. So we settled on a custody agreement that I certainly wasn't happy with'cause it was a near 50 50 split. Of course my ex-husband wanted that true 50 50. And then what we did was we had a clause in our divorce where we said we both weren't happy with the custody as it stood, but we were settling the divorce with this custody schedule to avoid a trial and that we reserve the right to petition the court for a custody evaluation in the future without a change in circumstance. Because that's huge. Usually you need to change in circumstance before the judge will order that custody eval. And I always tell people this too, the court really view, tends to view. Divorce agreements as a giant consent order. So the fact that we had that language in there that we're both agreeing there doesn't have to be a change in circumstance, was really helpful long term because then, it gave, it wasn't a guarantee, but it definitely was helpful. The judge, wasn't gonna say you need a huge change in circumstance. I'm not granting this. And we also named the expert in our divorce agreement that we wanted to use for the evaluation. So that also saved us, because, you could go to court. Wanna get a third party involved and then the judge just fires off some random name that you're, stuck with that could really derail your case. As we know, third parties can oftentimes be weaponized against victims and survivors and are utilized by abusers to continue to abuse you Post Separat. Yes, and my lawyer was also very smart. He, he had obviously had 20 years experience at this point, and he is I don't really see a ton of evaluations during the divorce litigation that are super persuasive or, come out with this report that makes a huge change from what you're looking at right now schedule wise with custody. So he's let's just get you divorced, let's settle on this schedule. Then, the real work begins. You have to document everything. And that's where I found myself now, really my niche is that documentation piece, because throughout the years now, we got divorced in 2018. So from 2018 until 2022, when we finally got the evaluation, everyone's answer to everything was just documented document. And I. As I entered the evaluation, I'm like now I have screenshots on my computer, screenshots on my cell phone. PDFs here, PDFs there, paperwork here. I've documented it, but I don't have a system in place and everything's disjointed, so it was. That was where the light bulb went off on my head and I'm like, I need to look at this as like a business project and I need to really manage this in a system and have a centralized place for all my documentation so that if I'm talking to, we had a PC at the time. If I'm talking to the pc, I can pivot and give him what he needs. If I'm talking to my attorney, I can go through my evidence quickly, find what I. What I need, give it to her. If I'm talking to the evaluator, I can find what I need and give it to her.'cause there's a lot of different use cases for the evidence. But when you have it in one place, it makes it a lot more workable. It makes you a lot more efficient and it gives you that like solid footing. You also just come across as more organized and with it. Yes. Which actually does. Lend some weight and some credibility for you as opposed to very disjointed, disorganized people are like, so it actually bolsters your claim that you are actually, the parent who knows what they're doing and is organized and truly does have the children's best interest at heart, and it's also, I also so traumatic. If you're constantly having to, go through all of your documentation that's here and there, it's in a binder. You have some printouts, you have some emails that is very traumatic for so many people who are still easily triggered because they're still in the active healing stage. So to have it in one space where you can easily just pull out what you need, it just becomes business. It's no longer the emotional, you've taken away the emotional, and it just becomes rational, reasonable business. It's just a business transaction. Yep. That's what I tell people. You hit the nail on the head there and to your point, and I always remind protective parents, this you are dealing with, they may not be like street smart, they may not understand dv, but you are dealing with people who went through four years of law school, who knows what else posts. College secondary training. You're dealing with judges, you're dealing with psychiatrists, you're dealing with people who have, some advanced education here. They're not dumb. They may not get it, but they're not dumb. So yeah, when you go in and you present organized and your PDFs are all streamlined, your evidences and, a uniform naming convention and you have things accessible and it doesn't look like a third grader threw together a PowerPoint, you are gonna gain credibility points right off the bat. Yeah. There is that definite advantage to having your crap together. For sure. And and the abuser, sorry, the abuser will always just, they throw mud at the wall to see what sticks. So they're and to create confusion, right? They create so much chaos that people just become inundated by it and overwhelmed by it. So if you can come through like a straight arrow Yes. With your documentation, all you know, tickety boo and all lined up and highlighted, not only does it lend you credibility and strengthen your case, but it also becomes easier for those who are reading it and going through it to actually see the clear pattern of behavior. Behavior, right? Because that's your job. And then when you have, let's say you're in a setting with a PC and there's two of you in the room and he's just, your abuser's just going off, your ex is just throwing just mud, creating all this chaos and everyone's heads are spinning and their eyes are glazing over, you then have the advantage. You're like, Nope, I got all my evidence. I have everything right here. You can calmly. Maybe externally, calmly, yeah, internally, maybe dying. But you can bring up the evidence and the proofs and kind of refute everything. And you have the advantage of clarity, no chaos. And then that hard fact evidence. And I understand people will be like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It may not matter a hundred percent of the time. I will say that some players in this space are just bad players, but when you have overwhelming evidence that is black and white, that you can refute their claims, it truly does. Ultimately in the end matter. It does. And also you then know that you've done everything within your power, right? This is the thing. So you. Even if it doesn't go in your favor, you know that you've done everything possible to try to protect your children. And there's nothing more that you could have done if you had just done this. So it does actually matter. It may not ha end up in the outcome that you were hoping for, but at least you've done everything within your power to protect your children, and then the rest is up to the system. Back to my story. That was a little bit of a segue, but so we got divorced in 2018. With that clause, I quickly realized now the work begins, right because there was just constant co-parenting issues. We had our parenting plan, we had an MSA, but he wasn't really following anything. Every holiday was a problem. Sounds so familiar, so weird. It's I've heard this before. Every communication was a problem. I could email, the sky is blue today, isn't it beautiful? It's Friday. And he would be like, you're a dumb idiot. The sky is purple and it's Saturday. So it was just like, it was just chaos 24 7. The degrading comments to the kids trying to fracture that relationship. He, my ex was never physical with me and the kids, but he was very menacing. He was very harassing, intimidating, a lot of the posturing in public, glaring, staring, screaming, making scenes, just anything he could do to humiliate, try to erode away at my safety system, my support system, all of the above, right? I had to quickly re figure out how am I gonna document this in a meaningful way. So there's so many ways, the. Your communication with your ex is always evidence right there, like that is black and white. I tell everyone if you can get in an app, if they'll comply, because it's just the timestamps make it easier to not manipulate things. If you're communicating via email or text. Fine. Take a screenshot, download the email, throw it in a Google Drive folder, forget about it, put the date on it. And then, like you said, it's a business transaction. You don't have to go back through your phone or go back through your emails and relive everything. It becomes like just a file in your Google folder, not a memory that you have to go through when you're, when you need it. And then, obviously police reports, school reports, any third party reports, any recordings, security cameras, any, there's so many ways that you can get evidence. And then I also tell people. It doesn't have to be perfect. You don't have to have a solid, clear proof for every single little thing, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't note it. So I always tell people, get a tracker, put it in chronological order. Try to follow the 80 20 rule. Of course you want a hundred percent evidence, but that's just not realistic. I get it. But if you can have 80%. Solid evidence for the claims that you're saying or the incidents that have occurred that you need to tell people about. The other 20% or the other things that you don't have that like direct evidence for. You may have indirect evidence, you may just have anecdotal evidence, you become more credible and that stuff gets believed and filter like included in the. The equation just because of your credibility, right? And credibility is everything, right? Because remember, they're gonna try to discredit you. They're gonna try to make you sound. And while Courtney works with women, it doesn't mean that we're saying that this only happens to women. That's just what she feels comfortable working. And so this applies to men and to women and everybody in between. But their goal is to discredit you, to make you sound like the crazy one, to make you sound like the disjointed, disorganized, abusive. Party, you become the the high conflict person and oftentimes our reactions, our emotions take over and we do actually fall into that trap of presenting as the overly emotional reactive person and they just sit there calmly. And they've laid this trap. So this is really important. Creating everything that you communicate with your ex has to be business. There can be zero emotions, not good emotions, not bad emotions, not anything, because that will be used against you. And I always tell my clients. If you don't feel comfortable reading this in front of a judge, do not press send. You can pause. You can pause if you're heightened, if you're triggered, if you're reactive, press pause. Do not press send to tell your girlfriend or your boyfriend. Journal it. Talk to your coach, your therapist, but do not press. Send because it will be used against you. You just need one thing to be used against you and they'll be able to spin that off in a million different ways. And your credibility will be lost. So your job is to come across as the non-high conflict party, right? Because even though we all know that it just takes one party to become high conflict, the court system doesn't view it that way. They see it as two party conflict. So you really have to keep your side of the street really clean. And that can be hard. That is why you need the support, both professional as well as community and the right support to be able to guide you through this so that you appear less reactive, more responsive, calmer, less emotional, and this then boosts your credibility. And that's such an important point. And I tell people too, don't be shy about asking for help and don't you know, if you need to take a break from the communication.'cause I understand, the com communicating with my ex was such a trigger for me. It was so hard because like I said, every single email was just this huge problem. It would become this huge issue. It would snowball, it would like spider web into a million other things. And I had to really work at that. Biff responses Brief. Yep. Informative firm, friendly firm gray rocking, whatever terminology you wanna use. I had to work at that. And there were times, I'm not gonna lie, where I literally had to outsource communication Yeah. To a friend of mine or my sister, because I was like, I want to write back things that I showed. Yeah. I have friends who send me like, what they would like to say and I'm like, okay, that's great. We are not gonna send that though. That's just between you and me. That's communication between the two of us, and I'm glad that you got that out. But what you're going to say is, thank you so much. That's been noted. And also with acronyms. So we have the biff, which is brief, informative, friendly, and firm. We also have Gray Rock versus Yellow Rock, and there's a time and place for either, and another really good one for communication is Jade. You don't justify, argue, defend and explain yourself. They love that, they wanna keep you engaged in the conversation. It fuels them while it exhausts. you and there's zero clarity, zero resolution and you only ever have to respond to stuff that pertains to your children, and then it's on your time. Unless it's an emergency, you don't have to respond. ASAP, they've conditioned you to think that you do, but you don't. You can press pause, you can respond in 12 hours, 10 hours, whatever works for you. You don't have to respond. You don't have to be at their back on the call, right? I think a lot of victims have an advantage right now just in, living in 2025. We have tools like chat, GPT where I don't, I do, I will pause, I will say don't use chat GPT as like your go-to, because the courts and the judges and the lawyers they know how it looks and they know how it reads and they're gonna be like, okay, but that's not really you. That's chat, GPT. So write out what you wanna reply and if you want, run it through chat, GPT and just say. Take out the emotion. I want it to follow the Biff method. Like you can train it to then filter it and then send that. Yep. There's, so that isn't, there's also an advantage that's so many great apps out there, like parent copilot. Yes. Where you can actually put in what you know what they've said and then it comes up with a nice response for you. So there are all these tools. You just need to do a little bit of research. Yes. Or ask around. And thank goodness we also have social media. There's a lot of. Junk on social media. So do not follow everybody'cause not everybody is built the same way or has the same intentions in this space, but there's lots of free information on the daily. You, create posts all the time. I create posts. There's lots of good information out there. So you pick apart what works for you, take what works, leave what doesn't work. Yes. Back to the story. So I'll finish. I guess I'll parse through like experience and story. Like I said, a ton of co-parenting problems. My kids were getting older and I did quickly realize, and I also wanna say there was a tremendous amount of excusing his behavior, mini, minimizing the behavior, and almost just I think they were good intentions, but a lot of people, including my attorney, were like, oh, give it a year. He'll get better. Let him get a girlfriend. He'll get better. Let him get this, he'll get better. And it just never got better. And then I was,'cause they don't understand the premise of coercive control. It doesn't get better. This is not a bruised ego. This is not somebody who just, lost the love of his life or her life and they just need to calm down. They just need to have a little bit of support. They need to find love again. That's not gonna change. They are never gonna change. This is the reality is coercive controllers do not change. Abusers do not change. And that I think was my weak spot. I didn't know that, of course not. I didn't, I know. I nec I didn't necessarily fully buy it. But I was holding onto that sliver of hope. Okay, maybe he'll get better when the kids get older. And the actually the opposite was true. And now knowing what I know about course of control, it makes sense, right? As my kids grew and they became more independent. There were now three people he had to essentially control, right? And three people, me and my two children, who had differing opinions from him. And that was really when things came to a head and our family was in crisis in 2021. So during COVID, ironically, it was really quiet, I think,'cause the world outside of him was out of control. So for some reason he just didn't really, it wasn't as bad. As the world started to open up and we started to, live life again and we were traveling and the kids were back in sports and doing all these things and my daughter was in sixth and seventh grade and she had more of a social life and her friends started to matter more than the parenting time schedule. That did not bode well. So that is when things really came to cri a crisis point, and my daughter was like, I just can't do it anymore. Allali does is scream and yell. I can't hang out with anyone that, he wouldn't let her hang out with anyone whose parents I was friendly with. Of course not. So that was really bad. And keep in mind, during this time, we still had near 50 50, so there were every other weekend was Thursday to Monday. So Thursday to Monday, she was essentially cut off from her friends. And in middle school, that's very hard for a child. Yeah. And it's also just not right. No, it's not right. It's not right. And I was struggling because when we first got divorced and he would do things, I was trying to really shelter my kids from it. As most protective parents do. There's also this like misconception out there that like we love to involve our kids and tell our kids things. First of all, the kids know, yeah, okay. They're not dumb. And second. As they get older, they get wiser, they get more in tuned and alongside what was happening in our family. My daughter's in school learning. If your friends are monitoring where you're going, that's not healthy and healthy relationships and social intelligence and emotional intelligence and all these things. And then she's coming home and asking me like. If this is wrong, then why does Dad do this? Or if this is, why can't I do this at dad's? And it was harder and harder for me to make excuses'cause I essentially felt like I was gaslighting her and lying to her. We feel like we have to, right? The system makes us feel like we have to gaslight our children and their reality, because if we don't, then we can be accused of alienating them from their abuser. When in actuality or children are just smart and putting the pieces, they're connecting the dots and putting the pieces together themselves. So that's when I really, I think, put my foot down and I had to, take a stand for myself and my kids, and I was like, I will not. Continue to make excuses, I'm done. And that was the line in the sand for me. And I stopped and I started really call, I wasn't aggressive and there wasn't anything in emails that I didn't want anyone to see, but I was really calling a spade this is not right. You can't do this. Obviously we need services, you need to go to therapy, we need family therapy. Something. Of course, that wasn't well received. Talking, I don't know what you're, I don't know what you're talking about. You're crazy. You're making it up, there was an incident where I got my son an Apple watch and that just did, he just lost his mind, because he wanted to have the Apple watch under his, plan more control. And that really started, that was like, the catalyst for launching into the post-separation active litigation. We were always litigating because we had third parties involved, but we were back in court. My daughter stopped going, I was trying to get him to go to family services. He refused. I had my third restraining order against him because he showed up at my house really upset about the Apple Watch. And then. That's when he went to court and, started to really follow like the abuser playbook. He tried to have me committed, said, filed an emergency petition. She's out of her mind, she's making things up. She says, all these things that aren't true. Please help me. I'm just like a loving father. I can't see my daughter. She won't see me because her mother's brainwashed her. She needs to be locked away and she needs to be evaluated by mental health professionals. That was denied, thankfully. But that was a scary that was a scary day. I remember I was on the beach and the court's calling me, they're like you have a hearing in 30 minutes. I'm like, for what? That was denied. And then he filed a subsequent motion, non-emergency motion just asking for make a parenting time and basically to force my daughter to go. And that's when the judge ordered the custody evaluation, which is what I had asked in my counter motion for relief. And thankfully our evaluator was very good. She understands coercive control. She did a very thorough job. It was 13 months, it was wow. Probably one of the most. Emotionally, mentally, physically, financially draining times of my life. But I will say. The fact that I had all the proof and the evidence to back up all my claims and concerns really helped. And we had a really favorable outcome where, the evaluator did the right thing. She recommended the right things to the court, and the judge was receptive to the evaluation and, ever since he's had extremely limited time with my children my daughter still, does not have a relationship with him. Just based on everything that has gone on, he hasn't yet. And I don't think he ever will take accountability. Oh, he will. And that's why the relationship is gonna flounder and he'll just blame you for it.'cause he can't take, he can't take any accountability. It's always someone else's fault. They're the perpetual victim and somebody else is always the villain. Yes, but, and thankfully, everyone now recognizes that is still the narrative. So that narrative isn't really getting him anywhere. But in the past it had been successful. We're in a better spot. Obviously I have sole decision making and that gives me, the ability to make decisions for the kids in their best interest without being in this just like constant. S like locked conflict where nothing gets done. And we don't have any, parenting coordinators or anything anymore where we have these like joint services because it's just not beneficial to our family dynamic. And it's so financially exhausting because everything is an issue for them and you're having to pay. For issues that they create when there's no issue, it's a non-issue and they create a mountain out of a molehill. Yes. So I guess, the silver lining here and how I ended up here was throughout my journey, obviously I've had a few iterations of like my system as I call it like the Monarch method now. And I learned that so many people just flounder in this space. Lawyers tell them you need to document, but they don't really ever tell'em how. And a lot of people don't have the business background that I have. I've worked and so many people are still so traumatized. Yes. It's really hard to be clear. It's hard when you're still being abused. You're being actively abused by your abuser. You're being forced to co-parent with somebody who can't co-parent. They'll only ever counter parent. Yes. And it's very hard to be creative and to think logically, and to be rational and to be reasonable. When you're in a heightened state of survival, you're in survival mode. Yes. And that's why, which is where you come in. I had, listen, I had to dig deep. This has been a journey, this has been going on for quite a while, but I, and I'm in a better place now, but it's because I have the protective measures in place that I should have had. At the beginning, 17, right? So I had to dig deep and just put like my business cap on and really say I have to look at this through a business lens. I have to put the emotion aside. And that took a tremendous amount of work. My therapist is an angel. She's a godsend. Thank God for her. She really helped me. But once I shifted the, the purview of how I looked at my case. That's when it really helped and I was able to put that emotion aside and just process it, when I had therapy or when I wasn't, talking to the evaluator or working through my evidence. So that's what I really try to share with others now. And I try to empower them that there is a way out at least. And you don't have to sit with this overwhelm.'cause I also know that feeling when you have an impending court date or a session with a mediator or a PC or a GAL or whomever is involved and you're like, oh my God, I have to go through my camera roll. I don't even wanna relive this. And you're just. Stuck in that panic mode, there's no worse feeling. Yep. How many people listening can actually attest to that? Put your hand up. My gosh. It's just, it's the worst feeling. So I try to get out ahead of that. I try to get people set up with a system. Obviously it's really emotionally draining in the beginning because most people that I meet have already started the screenshots and the emails here and there, and just the unorganized system. But once you're on a baseline and you have everything like up to speed. And then it's just, the maintenance, you're people are generally in a much better place. And a lot of my clients will be like, thank God I listened to you and I did this because. I have my tools, I can, it is like a toolkit. You can, but it's just like anything, starting anything is hard. Starting your diet or your new fitness plan or going back to school, you have to learn it's hard at the beginning to create these different systems, especially if you've been doing it a different way and you're having to relearn. But once you create the foundation of anything, it just becomes maintenance, as you said, it is no longer so laborious and time consuming, emotionally time consuming, and you're not ruminating. You simply have a system in place, and now you just file things off into their little folders and away you go. And I, and in full transparency, I my documentation took a backseat just because I felt like I was in a better place. I didn't really need it. The litigation was winding down and there was an incident kind of recently where I did need to pull out a bunch of proofs just because there was some letters flying around between the lawyers that were just obviously full of lies. And I'm like, I. I took the time and I got my documentation to par, but I was candid with my clients. I'm like, listen, you need to maintain this. Because even I was like, oh crap, now I gotta go through and find this stuff. And I didn't feel like dealing with it. Yeah. Yeah. We're only human. We're only human. Yes. And I tell people, I try to, I understand it's also very costly, so I try to keep like my costs manageable. I am, it will save you time and money. Yes. This is the thing is people erroneously believe that their lawyers are gonna be the be all and end all. And lawyers have a place they do, they have a real place in this. Entire system, but they are one part, and if you rely on them, it's going to actually cost you a lot more time, a lot more money. Sometimes also your children, because they do not have the answers to everything. And if you can do stuff in the background with coaches, whatever kind of coach and therapists, you will actually be saving yourself time and money. And it may not seem that way if especially at first when it's. High investments for these things, but long term, because this is not gonna be a sprint. This is not gonna be over in, five months. This is gonna be, you're gonna be en engaged with this person for 18 years at least. And I learned, I think I also learned a lot to your point with that. So your lawyer's only as strong as the evidence and the facts that you provide them, right? So they're not magicians. They can't make things up and make things happen. And I get it. Family court is a very emotional place, but it's still a court of law and therefore it should be like dictated by facts and evidence. Yeah. And case law. When our evaluation was done in December, 2022, the judge called us in every month for 16 months for case management conferences, which a was. So emotionally daunting because then I knew I had to see him every month. And then B, it was just the mud slinging from his attorney every month. And, but c, financially my, my legal bills were insane for that time period, that's radical acceptance. I have to accept that's what had to happen. So I spent a tremendous amount of time with. Attorney because sometimes, our hearings wouldn't start on time. Yeah. So I was, I would talk with her about evidence and stuff and she would always say you're so organized. When I asked for something, you have the files. It's easy to like navigate, she could present stronger to the judge. She's busy. She probably had four other hearings that morning and she's gotta pivot to my case. She's gotta have the facts at her fingertips to be able to like. Get the point across to the judge so that we get what we need and want, I was just, I learned so much.'cause I'm like looking at the stacks of paperwork just around the office and I'm thinking for every client she probably has so much that comes her way in just such an unorganized Yeah. Fashion. Whereas if how many people just throw especially at the beginning, how many. Survivors don't know what they're doing and don't know how to utilize their lawyer, so they're sending every text message that comes in, they're forwarding it to their lawyer, and emails that come in and screenshots, and your lawyer just has like a pile of stuff in their inbox and they don't know what to do with it, and they, there's no, it's disjointed again, that then takes their time and as far as I know, across the world. Family law attorneys, lawyers, they are overworked. They have so many cases, so we actually make their jobs easier, which means that they can then focus on what they're there for, which to is to advocate for you and your children to the best of their ability. So that I also looked at it from the lawyer's perspective, like there I do have some empathy for them. Not all are created. Equal. There are some that I do not have empathy for, that are not good people, but they are just like the abuser for the good ones. It's a lot, you're like weeding through all these. Awful pieces of evidence and it's, I can only imagine the amount that they have to look through by the end of the day. And that's why you also want your evidence and how you present to stand out and be set apart from all the other clients because they have fatigue as well. So you don't want'em to be like, oh God, she's gonna send me like 5,000 attachments that I have to read through. I always say to my clients, send them five really strong pieces of evidence. Maybe even less three to five. And then tell them if you need more, I have more. And then if they need more, and the way that I work my system is we tag everything with a category, which allows us to pull some data from it as well, because then we can like. Get some metrics around how often are certain things happening. So I'm like, then you can go into your spreadsheet, filter out what you need. Let's say your lawyer's I need examples of him disparaging you in our family wizard. We tag it. You can go in, you can filter, and then you can send her off all of those proofs and it's narrowed down. It's a more narrow scope so she can work more effectively. Yeah, this is like win, before we wrap up, do you have any, I know this puts you right on the spot here. Do you have any last minute nuggets for people, something that they can take away and go, aha. So I always say give yourself grace. Don't, there's no timeline. There's no like magic. Formula for this. I didn't really have, I don't think the emotional bandwidth or the energy to go back until I had created some space and time and healing between my, the end of my marriage and when I was finally back in that evaluator's chair. The timeline is entirely yours to manage. You have to do what's right for your family, if you're in a position where you're the safe parent, it's emotionally draining. I understand it's like financially draining, all of the above. So if you need to take a pause from litigation, take a pause. There's other tools that you can lean into in the meantime. Like you are always gonna be that safe space for your children. So just that's what I really focused on, like the quality time. Spending the time with them, showing them the difference in the two homes. Like being that constant for them. Yes. And then, in the background just continuing to maintain, my evidence and collect all of that so that when the time came I had what I needed. But again, I think people put a lot of pressure on themselves. Of course. Yeah. Which kind of makes it worse'cause then you get in this spiral I could do more, I should do more. What can I do? And then you get like this panic. Yep. Try not to do that. Give yourself some grace as you would your best friend. And I tell people, treat yourself and speak to yourself as if you loved yourself. Yes. And if, and. And one other thing I'll say. I think for me, exercise really saved my sanity in so many ways. And there's so much more science coming out now on how beneficial exercise is. And I know this is like a complete detour from what we've been talking about. It's so important. That was huge part for me too, was just running. It was free. I could just get outta my door, run for 30 minutes hard and come home and it clears your mind. It releases so many good, feel good hormones. It helps you de-stress. Yes, it reduces anxiety. The list is endless and it makes you feel better about yourself.'cause you've done something, you've accomplished something. So I say to people, strong mind, strong body, strong mind. And it's true. I'm a huge fan of weightlifting and Pilates and all of that, but I understand also that's like a, some of it's cost prohibitive for people, but there's. A ton of content online that you can do for free. You can, and if you can't, we have weights in our house. Don't wanna go for a walk, go for a run. Like you said, you just need a pair of running shoes for that. Yeah. And walking is so beneficial. And try to walk with your kids too. You'd be surprised. And you can wear a weighted vest like I do now. I'm 46 and that seems to be what all 46 year olds do as we walk around with our weighted vest. If you live close to the water, which I do, it's so therapeutic, and I just choose out. I don't listen to podcasts. I don't do anything, but actually just be present and be thankful. It's the gratitude that comes with being outside as well. There's so many things that you can do that. Are not cost prohibitive and like in fact, they can be free walking biking if you already have a bike, playing tennis jogging, hiking. All these things really help you clear your mind and create a strong body. And like you said, strong body, strong mind, and it's really true. And if you actually pay heed to our advice, you'll reap the benefits. I know it's hard when you are in survival mode and everything seems so overwhelming and it's one more thing to do. But I, as I always said, everything starts with you. So if you are running on fumes, if you're exhausted, if you're overwhelmed and super stressed, you can't show up as your best self for anybody, including yourself, let alone your children. So if you invest time and energy into yourself, everybody benefits not only yourself, but also your children. Yeah, I agree. Go lay in the grass. Go lay in the sun. Yeah. Morning sun, every, all of the above, right? Yeah. It doesn't have to be all family court related, yeah. There's a lot of other things that are so beneficial. So that's my other tidbit. I love that. I, and it was a total, totally different, streamline from everything. That's been how our conversation, we have this one path and then we diverge off the path and come back to the path and then we end with this little nugget there. Thank you so much, Courtney, for taking the time outta your full life. Thank you. To be here today to impart your incredible wisdom.'cause documentation and evidence is such a huge part for so many protective parents. So this is gonna be so beneficial for people. I will have all the ways that you can connect with Courtney in the show notes, so please don't worry about that. And thank you Courtney, so much for being here today. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Survivor's Playbook. If today's episode helped you feel less alone, more confident, empowered, and more educated, please share it with somebody else who may also need the same empowerment and education. And if you are ready for deeper support, you can join my monthly membership or grab. Free tools and resources on my website. All the links are below in my show notes. Remember, your clarity is your power. Your calm is your resistance. You are not crazy. You are not alone, and you are not powerless. Until next time, keep going. I see you.