Can you introduce yourself—your name, title, and the work you do?
I'm Jessica Knight, a certified coach with a high-conflict divorce coaching certification from HCDC, based in Brookline, MA, but I work with people all over the United States and the world. I work with parents in custody cases where the other parent uses control. Much of my work is reading their co-parenting communication, organizing their records, and helping them prepare for family court alongside their attorney.
What drew you to this profession, and why do you specialize in divorce? Why are you passionate about helping people navigate divorce?
I didn't know what post-separation abuse was until well after my own divorce, even though it had been happening all along. Once I understood it, I started seeing clients go through the same thing without a name for it. I care about this work because the right information early can change how a parent handles the whole case.
Tip 1
Log what happened and what it affected. Keep a running log with the date, what happened, and what it affected, like a missed pickup or a cancelled appointment. A single rude email rarely matters much in court, while forty schedule changes that all land the night before your parenting time can. Write entries flat and factual so they still read well a year from now.
Tip 2
Translate your experience into something a judge can follow. You lived inside the pattern, so you understand it in a way a judge never will. The judge has a short hearing and a stack of paper. For each concern, write down the specific behavior, the record that shows it, and how it affected you or your kids.
Tip 3
Build your case around the orders you want. Many survivors walk into court hoping the judge will finally see what happened. Courts are much better at issuing orders than validating anyone's experience. Work out which orders would take away the other parent's leverage, such as set exchange locations, a parenting app, or limits on message length, and build your documentation around asking for those.
Tip 4
Vet your attorney on coercive control early. Ask any attorney you are considering how they would present a pattern of coercive control, and listen for whether they talk about patterns or only incidents. An attorney who sees your situation as two parents who can't get along will present your case that way too, and that is hard to undo later.
Tip 5
Decide whether a message needs a reply before you write one. When a message accuses you of something, logistics get a short answer. A distortion that matters for your case can get one brief factual correction, and everything else goes in your log. Many of these messages are designed to keep you replying, so a log entry often serves you better than an answer.
Out of all your tips, which one feels the most important right now, and why?
The first one. Most of my clients know something is wrong long before they can explain it to anyone else. A careful log is usually what lets an attorney, an evaluator, or a judge see the pattern, and it also helps clients trust their own read of what's happening when the other parent insists nothing is wrong.
What does “fresh start” mean to you in the context of divorce?
It means your days stop being organized around the other parent's next message. You make plans without bracing for a reaction, and you answer email on your own schedule. The court case usually ends well before that happens, so I tell clients to plan for the emotional side of recovery separately from the legal one.
Please note that the blogpost above does not represent the thoughts or opinions of Fresh Start Registry and solely represents the original author’s perspective.