how am i supposed to document bm's conduct or lack of contact with ss or our life with ss for court and such? is there a specific way you are supposed to do it or specific things i am supposed to document?
speaking from experience, you can either do it on your computer using word document or grab a spiral notebook and start writing away. That is what we do! DH will actually email his lawyer if something went wrong during a visitation..
Get a notebook and write the date then put what happened or didn't happen when it was supposed to. If she sends e-mails, keep them in the notebook, if she calls, write what was said.
I keep a journal of what my ex does/doesn't do in regard to our child. He's such a loser father I have to keep a record of it. I make it as detailed as I can. I do an entry every night as a status update with the following:
1. Were there any phone calls from ex? If yes, were they for child or for me? what was conversation about?
2. Were there any texts from ex? If yes, summarize message and responses.
3. Was he supposed to pick child up? If yes, did he show up?
Then I have a misc. section for each day to just summarize or add any incidents that may have happened.
THEN if it was the ex's weekend with the child my Sunday entry looks like this:
1.Did ex bathe child? If yes, when was last bath/shower?
2.Did ex give child medication?
3.Did ex feed child when he was hungry? (I have to put this bc the ex "forgets" to feed our son sometimes)
4.How many different women was our son subjected to on this visit? (our son frequently complains of never knowing which one of daddys girlfriends will be at the house)
5.Did ex leave our son alone with anyone overnight? (he makes a habit of leaving the child with strangers while he gets high somewhere else.)
Obviously, for your situation your notes will need to be different..you just adjust it to fit your situation...it takes time and you have to be diligent about your note taking...
"Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it." *Anais Nin*
I have a friend whose ex is exactly like yours!!! Except she got lucky and he has no rights to the children at all. He now visits the children in my friends grandmothers house, which is on her mothers property.
My DH used to put in on a calendar that was used specifically for documenting. He put EVERYTHING down. He would write when she called, when she saw ss, what ss said about the visit, if ss called her and she didn't answer, what she said to DH, ect. DH also saved ALL emails.
From my experience with having to document things concerning my skids and BM, our attorney told me to write everything down and be a specific as I possibly could. For example, when BM calls...I write the date, time, who she spoke to, what BM said, and what whoever spoke to her response was. I also keep every single e-mail that BM sends me and every e-mail response I send her. DH & I are still trying to figure out a way to record the phone conversations so that the records of them are more accurate. Because there are times when DH talks to BM and she gets him so angry, that he forgets some of the things she said to him. We also have a calendar just for marking the dates of contact & visits. Because in order to use it in court against BM, you need to be very specific. Good Luck!
As far as phone recordings go, we record every phone conversation with a digital recorder with the phone on speaker phone (we don't own a landline phone). Not only can you set the date and time on the recorder so that it maintains the time and date like a watch, you can also upload the audio files to a computer (which we do) and back them up on a zip drive (which we do as well) and label them with their content or the speakers. I also print out SO's call logs from his cell phone company so that if we ever use the recordings we'll have the cell companies records to back up the date and time. I may go overboard but I figure better safe than sorry!
dh thought about doing that but someone told him that unless the person being recorded knows that they are being recorded that you cant use it in court.
The law regarding phone conversations differs in different states. SO and I are in one state, BM is in another, in both states, the law says that as long as one of them knows they are being recorded, it is legal to record the conversation.
Here is an excerpt from an article addressing this very thing: "Once a court determines that a conversation is private, and covered by the statute, then it will consider various exceptions. The most common, and most litigated, is consent. Federal law allows recording of phone calls and other electronic communications with the consent of at least one party to the call. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have followed federal law and permit individuals to record conversations to which they are a party without informing the other parties that they are doing so. These laws are referred to as "one-party consent" statutes, and as long as you are a party to the conversation, it is legal for you to record it.
Twelve states require, under most circumstances, the consent of all parties to a conversation. Those jurisdictions are California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Be aware that you will sometimes hear these referred to inaccurately as “two-party consent” laws. If there are more than two people involved in the conversation, all must consent to the taping. The more accurate term is "all-party consent."
The situation can get hairy when a person in a one-party consent state calls and records a conversation with a person in an all-party consent state, but does not get that person’s permission. There are several factors that go into which consent law applies. It is generally safer to assume that the stricter, all-party consent law will apply where either the caller or receiver is in an all-party state".
speaking from experience,
speaking from experience, you can either do it on your computer using word document or grab a spiral notebook and start writing away. That is what we do! DH will actually email his lawyer if something went wrong during a visitation..
Get a notebook and write the
Get a notebook and write the date then put what happened or didn't happen when it was supposed to. If she sends e-mails, keep them in the notebook, if she calls, write what was said.
is there anything
is there anything specifically that i should be writing down? i mean, like, how specific do i need to get - like word for word what she said?
"Life favors the risk taker."
EVASION
I keep a journal of what my
I keep a journal of what my ex does/doesn't do in regard to our child. He's such a loser father I have to keep a record of it. I make it as detailed as I can. I do an entry every night as a status update with the following:
1. Were there any phone calls from ex? If yes, were they for child or for me? what was conversation about?
2. Were there any texts from ex? If yes, summarize message and responses.
3. Was he supposed to pick child up? If yes, did he show up?
Then I have a misc. section for each day to just summarize or add any incidents that may have happened.
THEN if it was the ex's weekend with the child my Sunday entry looks like this:
1.Did ex bathe child? If yes, when was last bath/shower?
2.Did ex give child medication?
3.Did ex feed child when he was hungry? (I have to put this bc the ex "forgets" to feed our son sometimes)
4.How many different women was our son subjected to on this visit? (our son frequently complains of never knowing which one of daddys girlfriends will be at the house)
5.Did ex leave our son alone with anyone overnight? (he makes a habit of leaving the child with strangers while he gets high somewhere else.)
Obviously, for your situation your notes will need to be different..you just adjust it to fit your situation...it takes time and you have to be diligent about your note taking...
"Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it." *Anais Nin*
I have a friend whose ex is
I have a friend whose ex is exactly like yours!!! Except she got lucky and he has no rights to the children at all. He now visits the children in my friends grandmothers house, which is on her mothers property.
My DH used to put in on a
My DH used to put in on a calendar that was used specifically for documenting. He put EVERYTHING down. He would write when she called, when she saw ss, what ss said about the visit, if ss called her and she didn't answer, what she said to DH, ect. DH also saved ALL emails.
From my experience with
From my experience with having to document things concerning my skids and BM, our attorney told me to write everything down and be a specific as I possibly could. For example, when BM calls...I write the date, time, who she spoke to, what BM said, and what whoever spoke to her response was. I also keep every single e-mail that BM sends me and every e-mail response I send her. DH & I are still trying to figure out a way to record the phone conversations so that the records of them are more accurate. Because there are times when DH talks to BM and she gets him so angry, that he forgets some of the things she said to him. We also have a calendar just for marking the dates of contact & visits. Because in order to use it in court against BM, you need to be very specific. Good Luck!
As far as phone recordings
As far as phone recordings go, we record every phone conversation with a digital recorder with the phone on speaker phone (we don't own a landline phone). Not only can you set the date and time on the recorder so that it maintains the time and date like a watch, you can also upload the audio files to a computer (which we do) and back them up on a zip drive (which we do as well) and label them with their content or the speakers. I also print out SO's call logs from his cell phone company so that if we ever use the recordings we'll have the cell companies records to back up the date and time. I may go overboard but I figure better safe than sorry!
dh thought about doing that
dh thought about doing that but someone told him that unless the person being recorded knows that they are being recorded that you cant use it in court.
"Life favors the risk taker."
EVASION
The law regarding phone
The law regarding phone conversations differs in different states. SO and I are in one state, BM is in another, in both states, the law says that as long as one of them knows they are being recorded, it is legal to record the conversation.
Here is an excerpt from an article addressing this very thing: "Once a court determines that a conversation is private, and covered by the statute, then it will consider various exceptions. The most common, and most litigated, is consent. Federal law allows recording of phone calls and other electronic communications with the consent of at least one party to the call. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have followed federal law and permit individuals to record conversations to which they are a party without informing the other parties that they are doing so. These laws are referred to as "one-party consent" statutes, and as long as you are a party to the conversation, it is legal for you to record it.
Twelve states require, under most circumstances, the consent of all parties to a conversation. Those jurisdictions are California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Be aware that you will sometimes hear these referred to inaccurately as “two-party consent” laws. If there are more than two people involved in the conversation, all must consent to the taping. The more accurate term is "all-party consent."
The situation can get hairy when a person in a one-party consent state calls and records a conversation with a person in an all-party consent state, but does not get that person’s permission. There are several factors that go into which consent law applies. It is generally safer to assume that the stricter, all-party consent law will apply where either the caller or receiver is in an all-party state".
- http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.com/the-legality-of-recording-conversa...