I’m just starting my divorce. Can you give me your best tips?

My two best tips are: seek counseling, and gather all the documents that you can.

If you have children, keep a journal of the timeshare — and perhaps also statements the kids are making if it’s going to be an issue of someone going to brainwash the children or anything of that nature. Also keep a journal of how often you have the children or how often your spouse has the children.

As far as other tips: start making copies of all of the documents, even if you think they may not be that important: all the bank statements, all the credit-card statements, loan statements, mortgage statements, property tax, life insurance, etc. All of that becomes important. Anything you think that might be an asset, copy it. Even if you think it’s not worthy of it, copy it, because you never know — it might be important.

Julia M. Garwood is a family-law attorney and divorce mediator based in San Diego, CA.