Anyone else told to keep an "emotional diary"?

Survival Strategies
1

Okay weird question but my lawyer Karen told me to start keeping what she called an “emotional diary” along with all the factual stuff I’m already documenting. Like write down how I feel when my ex pulls another stunt with the kids, not just what happened.

This feels… I dunno, touchy-feely for a court case? I’m used to keeping track of missed calls, canceled visits, the stuff that actually matters. But she says judges need to see the “human impact” or whatever.

Anyone else been told to do this? Does it actually help in court or is this just therapist stuff disguised as legal strategy? I’ve got a hearing coming up in November and I’m already drowning in paperwork without adding feelings journals to the mix.

My kids are 7, 10, and 13 and I haven’t seen them since August because their mom keeps finding excuses. I can document that till I’m blue in the face but apparently that’s not enough anymore.

2

This is exactly what my lawyer Sarah told me to do back in 2018. I thought she was having a laugh at first - like seriously, you want me to write “dear diary, today I felt sad again”?

But I did it anyway because I was desperate and it actually came up in court. The judge read bits of it out loud and I could see something shift in her face when she got to the part where I wrote about forgetting the twins’ voices. How I’d started playing old voicemails just to remember what they sounded like.

Your lawyer’s onto something with the human impact stuff. The facts are important but judges see dozens of cases like ours every week. Mine said later that the diary helped her understand what this was actually doing to our family, not just the legal mechanics of it all.

I still keep writing in it sometimes, even though court’s long over. It’s become this weird habit now.