Husband’s control issues likely to backfire

My husband wants joint physical custody of our three children in our divorce. He asked for and the court appointed a guardian ad litem to investigate what parenting plan meets our children’s best interests. The kids are 6, 4 and 2. I am a lawyer but have not worked full time since our oldest was born. I do some contract research/writing from home when I can. I intend to return to work when our youngest goes to kindergarten. I am representing myself in the divorce and have managed to navigate the process so far. But, having never been through a GAL investigation, I don’t know how to convey our respective roles without overburdening the GAL. My husband is controlling and has horrible OCD. He sends me about 50 emails a day reminding me to do everything from taking our daughter to school to getting the mail to putting away his socks. This escalates when he travels for work, which is usually three days each week. I want to convey what life is like but not bury the GAL in paper.

The fact that you do not want to bury the GAL already works in your favor. If your husband is sending you 50 emails each day, be assured he will send at least 75 to the GAL. Such behavior almost always backfires on the person with the proverbial shovel. Prepare an outline of tasks that you, as mom and CEO of your household, do on a weekly basis. You can approach this as a week-in-the-life-type format so the GAL sees all you do each day for your kids, especially while your husband is traveling. If you have a calendar reflecting his trips, send the GAL a copy so she or he knows how often he is gone. While your husband may think dictating emails of tasks equates to parenting, the GAL should understand that is not the case with such young children. Your outline should include details such as grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, making and taking the kids to doctor and dentist appointments, coordinating and hosting play dates, volunteering at school, helping your oldest with homework, playing with and reading to the kids and bedtime routines. Try to keep your outline to five pages or less. Conclude your outline with a sample of one day’s worth of emails from your husband. Offer to supplement with a full week of emails or other days as a sample to show what you provided was not a one-off but merely an accurate reflection of a day.