Phone Contact - Vague or Specific?
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This came up on another board I frequent and I was in the minority, but it is something important to consider.
When it comes to the phone contact issue, you will have conflict of varying degrees. It’s easy to use as a weapon by the psycho-ex and can really get under your skin (if you’re not careful). Not being able to speak with your children for any extended period of time can be very upsetting whether it’s a few days, a week, or Heaven forbid - longer.
Early on, as an NCP, we had boilerplate “reasonable phone contact shall be permitted by each…” in the court order. PEW would not answer the phone when she was home. She would not facilitate callbacks. It was a nightmare.
When we went to court at a subsequent hearing, I had laid out a more specific plan: frequency, times, responsibilities for call-backs… that would we both be bound by. The judge didn’t enact that and initially I was disappointed. Over the long-term, though, I believe she did me a favor by leaving the standard language in place. My mind was changed after reading some interesting horror stories from others who had struggles with more specific phone-contact language in their orders.
When the topic came up again, I offered my current thoughts on this issue:
With phone calls, too specific can become FAR WORSE than too vague. After all this time, I’m glad the judge refused my specifics and left the “reasonable phone contact” in place. Why? After dealing with a severe lack of communication early, I soon learned that giving what I got would ultimately turn things around. So now, reasonable phone contact means PEW gets as good as she gives.
This does NOT mean I engaged in a strict tit-for-tat with her. It just meant that I didn’t go “above and beyond” like I would normally (and take that “high road.”)
I am [now against] specifics with regard to phone calls because they are “contempt traps” - and the BPD [or high-conflict ex-spouse] will use every violation of the time/day standards, no matter why, as a means to escalate. From filing petitions, to demanding make-up phone call time, to calling on off-days. If the order says “between 7 and 8 on Tuesday” and your child has scouts, football, cheerleading, volleyball practice and you miss that time - you’ve violated the order [if you haven't accounted for every possible exception, and there are many].
It has been my reading experience that firm times and days cause FAR more problems than the boilerplate “reasonable.” Reasonable is (to me) as good as you get.
Many PEWs and PEHs have a very unhealthy obsession when it comes to contacting the children during the other parents’ custodial time. The stories I have read are, as usual, heartbreaking. They’ve included “phone call assaults,” forcing children who are not interested in talking for an hour (due to their age) being made to stay on the phone because the order says “an hour,” parents demanding make-up time if they don’t get their fully allotted order-specific duration - the list is long and bothersome.
This article serves as another in a long line of caveats. When you are working on the language of your court order(s), do a risk analysis. You won’t think of everything, but it’s been my experience that the PEW will find some loophole or word or sentence that can be exploited into another terror campaign. Still, do your best. How might the language of your proposal be exploited by the other side to keep you engaged?
I call it, “thinking in BPD.” I stole that from the horrific Clint Eastwood movie Firefox, where he was required to use mental commands to operate a stolen Russian fighter plane and he was advised by his conspirators to, “Remember! You must think in Russian! You MUST think in Russian.” It was the only way the plane would fly and the only way he could protect himself.
You must think in BPD. If you’re not dealing with a mental illness or personality disorder, the advice is the same, simple, and at the same time, scary - try to think like your ex or soon-to-be-ex and work protect yourself accordingly.
January 10th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
What I did find more helpful was a clause in the court order that gave a minimum. Ours says “at least once a week”. That way, the time can be flexible and you’re not stuck to a ‘reasonable’ contact order that an EX can interpret as once a month.
Unfortunately, my DH never really wanted to call his kids. There was so much hostility between him and his ex that he couldn’t even bear to ask to talk to the kids because it would turn into a fight and he would hear her in the background coaching the kids what to say. So he just stopped calling.
January 11th, 2009 at 12:08 am
This is a hot topic in our world. Well, it WAS a hot topic.
There have been many times when the ‘ignore’ button has been hit by the exwife when we have called her cell phone. Her landline has been connected and disconnected more times than I can count. Days and weeks would pass between phone calls and we grew desperate.
We wanted to control this issue. Mainly due to the fact that we are in a different state than the children and our visits have more than a few weeks/months in between them than if we lived in the same state.
So we asked the exwife if she would be willing to have the children available 3 specific days a week to talk. That way we wouldn’t interupt their life and it would be scheduled.
I laugh now at our hopes thinking that this would actually work! She didn’t answer, the kids wouldn’t call back for 2 days or more or never. We were right back to where we started.
I like the idea of providing the same level of communication as the ex does when the children are in her care. But how far is too far? What if she she doesn’t ever let you talk to them? Do you do the same to her? We’re not in that situation…but what if it got to that. I hate feeling as if I’m stooping to her level…
January 11th, 2009 at 7:20 am
My ex comes under the heading of night mare. she never wanted my son untill she realised she could use him as a weapon against me.I was training as a paramedic when he was born and part of my training was working on the road with various other medics at different locations. I found out later that she was sleeping with my training officers after i moved to the next one.
But anyway she anounced one day that she was leaving taking J— her daughter from a previous relatonship and leaving S— my son. I wish she had ! She is a total controll freak the whole world has to revolve around her the police have removed her new partners kids form the house because she was abusive towards them and she has somehow managed to convince everyone that its was my new wifes fault ????? never been there.
Oh yeah Contact sorry about the rambling but i have so many stories i dont no how to get them out in a clear manner as a lot of them run concurrently. Ringing to talk to my kids is not an option it will always finish in a fight before i talk to them and then i listen to her in the background coaching them and listening to what i have to say to use against me if she can. I am lucky in one way She is not as clever as she thinks she is so in the settlement i manged to bluff her out of the house the boat the landcruiser and she got a car and 20 grand so i have ample money to drag her arse into court anytime i like but that affects the kids because she is till thier mother no matter how loopy she is they still love her and everytime something happens she manages to blame my new partner whom the kids love but cant show it. Rock and a hard place but im now on a winner my son is a bit of a computer wizz at 11years old but he isnt aloowed to use the laptop at his mothers very often as it is his older sisters who is given everything and can do no wrong. So brought him a laptop for xmas that will give some of his confidence back well the look on his fave when he opened that box worth every cent and his sister M——- told himn the it was P—-’s idea my new wife he was so excited i told him i would have it all set up with the programmes he needed by the time he went back to his mothers It was his pride and joy and it gave him some independence as she had taken the mobile phone i gave him so he could call me, i had set the laptop up with msn so he could talk to me as i am usually not far from a pc as part of my business and he was as happy as i had seen him for a long time new years eve they rang their mother to say hello (the only time they asked to) and he proudly told her wat her got and nothing was said about it. well a week later its time for them to go back to their mother and we had the usuall invention of the the required time and the mandatory callng of hte police because they were 10 min late according to the invented time for handover so the police ring work and the staff tekk the poice that they wont give out my mobile no and the fight that leads to because i have changed all the mobile phone nos to stop the abuse calls and explained to the kids that i wont tell them my new mobile no because then they wont have to lie to their mother about not noing it and refusing to give it to her which they wouldnt becaue they are scared of her. And then i recieve a call from my mother saying they have rung there looking for me as well anyway i drop them back on the way i say bget your stuff togethher and i willquicky drop u off and go so they dont start a fightm the kids are ok with this as they are sick of it all too
so i give them a kiss and out they get and i take off down the rd to turn around well im coming back up the street and S— is standing on the side of the rd Crying i stop wats wrong mate i say Mum wont let me have the laptop here it has to stay at your house i said to him its your laptop and uyour xmas present so u keep it there and i drove off thinking that she would not dare do anything else to upset him well they grabbed the laptop and prceeded to chase me around the local ara trying to get me to take it i lost them eventually and went to work couple of days later i noticed a couple of emails from shan on the owrk puter so i asumed that she had given in and returned the laptop. Yet Agian i was wrong he rang me because he had left his glass’s in my car and needed them to read i asked about the emails and he said theat the laptop was at my place and he was using a friends computer i told him no it wasnt his mother must have it and i am now waiting for them to get back from holidays to find out where it is. sorry not quiet sure if i ever did get to the point but it was kind nice to get some of it out remebering that this is only 3 weeks of the last 7 years. God help us all !
January 11th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
I was part of this discussion on the message boards. In my situation, I wanted to control this issue, and I was grateful that the judge set up a specific time for phone calls: once a week on Tuesdays at 7:00pm. We just made sure that the kids were available for PEW to call at that time when they were with us, and it was helpful the next time we went to court because PEW had been systematically denying contact. The fact that she wouldn’t even allow a once-a-week phone call, in addition to denying my regular parenting time, went a long way toward demonstrating to the judge that she wasn’t being anything close to reasonable.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Thunderstrike - can you tell me how you were able to prove the PEW had been systematically denying contact. My DH’s whackjob exW has been doing this regularly for 4 years running now. I’d love for him to have documentation to be able to slap her down as needed.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
No matter how specific a court order, phone calls will still be interrupted by deliberate distractions, noise, etc., and the kids being stared down as they are spied on and forced to feel uncomfortable by a mentally unstable and controlling parent.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Exactly SC. I couldn’t agree more. It goes without saying that BM is listening to my kids conversations with us. Which makes our conversations boring and uncomfortable…but I’m getting to a point where I just want to say F#$% it! And be myself! But the only ones that really get punished are my kids when they hang up the phone and the interrogation begins!
January 14th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
Mtngirl - try contacting your phone company. You should be able get copies of your phone records with detailed call information - both incoming and outgoing. Then you just have to go through them and highlight the calls to & from the ex.
January 15th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
mtngirl, You’ll never be able to “prove it” beyond a reasonable doubt. Fortunately, that’s not the legal standard in Family Court. All you have to do is show that something is more likely than not. First, keep a log of all phone contact, whether you get to talk to the kids or not. Second, telephone records can be helpful, especially if they show that any connected calls lasted only a minute or two (shows that you were most likely hung up on or denied contact). Third, just keep it in your back pocket until you can throw it in with other issues. In my case, I was able to show that PEW denied me my custody time by kidnapping the kids out of the county (the police report confirmed it), that she wouldn’t allow me to get the kids examined by a dentist, and that she boldly and brazenly tried to dictate the terms of any agreement and refused to entertain any negotiations or compromises (emails and letters confirmed this).
In that context, the phone calls almost became academic. With all the stuff I could establish, the likelihood that she denied telephone contact was pretty high. Oh, and I don’t think she even denied it. She was convinced that she could do whatever she wanted and that the judge would back her up. Boy, was she WRONG!
January 18th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
God where do I begin. My BF psycho exw has pulled so much in this respect. Our order states reasonable as well. We have 50/50 custody but our weeks are split and we get every other weekend. In the beginning we would try to call but we would get one word answers and knew that PEW was listening. His daughter even told her counselor that PEW was putting her ear to the phone to listed to the conversation. When she called we always tried to answer and allow her to talk and if we missed the calls we always returned them.
Recently the counselor wanted us to call every night because the PEW has made such a big deal about this but we were the ones being denied the calls. We had actually stopped calling because it put the child in an arkward position.
Counselor wanted us to call every night. We of course followed. PEW did not as always. The rules are only for us. I even went so far as to keep a log of calls and how long the calls were. We were supposed to limit it to no more than 10 minutes. She was keeping her on the phone for sometimes more than a 1/2 hour. Daughter is 8 years old. One night she told us she was not listening to PEW she was reading a book.
Lately she has called less and less so we have been doing the same.
We have a parallel parenting counselor sho is pretty much worthless. He listens but does nothing. He leads us to believe that he sides with us but who knows. She usually cancels her appointments so it does not do much good.