BPD and surveillance/video taping/GPS trackers

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

 

My husband's ex has BPD and they share a child together. During his visitation, she has videotaped him during the pick up while trying to hide it. She has hidden GPS trackers in the child's bag and put trackers on the child's body. Today during a video chat with his child, my husband saw his ex hiding with her phone videotaping him talking to the child. He is never doing anything untoward and has no history of such. She videotaped him without his knowledge throughout their marriage.

Why do they do this and how should this best be handled?

We are about to have the little one (she's 5) for a week next week and I'm freaked out that we are going to be watched/listened to. It just creeps me out and it makes me feel resentful that I can't feel totally comfortable in my own home.

She's been told to cut this stuff out in no uncertain terms and still tries it.

[julesw]

 

My husband's ex has BPD and they share a child together. During his visitation, she has videotaped him during the pick up while trying to hide it. She has hidden GPS trackers in the child's bag and put trackers on the child's body. Today during a video chat with his child, my husband saw his ex hiding with her phone videotaping him talking to the child. He is never doing anything untoward and has no history of such. She videotaped him without his knowledge throughout their marriage.

Why do they do this and how should this best be handled?

We are about to have the little one (she's 5) for a week next week and I'm freaked out that we are going to be watched/listened to. It just creeps me out and it makes me feel resentful that I can't feel totally comfortable in my own home.

She's been told to cut this stuff out in no uncertain terms and still tries it.

[kells76]

Hi julesw, welcome to the group. This is a place that "gets it" that this level of coparenting conflict is beyond normal range. You'll find plenty of other stepmoms here, too (myself included), who understand your position.

Gonna ask a few questions right off the bat, just to get a better sense for what's going on:

My husband's ex has BPD

Not that it necessarily matters for the boards here, but did she get a diagnosis? Is that documented somewhere? Of course, when problem solving daily stuff, it's the behaviors that are challenging, not the label, but for some circumstances it plays a part whether she was diagnosed.

During his visitation, she has videotaped him during the pick up while trying to hide it.

Do you know if your state is a "one party" or "two party" consent state? You may already know this -- some states require both taped parties to consent, some don't. Finding that out can help you understand your options going forward.

She has hidden GPS trackers in the child's bag and put trackers on the child's body.

Sadly, that's not the first time we've heard that. The on body tracker -- is that like an apple watch or something? fitbit?

Today during a video chat with his child, my husband saw his ex hiding with her phone videotaping him talking to the child.

Is there an official parenting plan in place? What does it say about "telephone" contact between parent and child? Anything about privacy?

Why do they do this and how should this best be handled?

The first part of your question is a longer discussion, which even if I can't get to, I know other members here can pitch in on.

The second part will depend a lot on where your H is in the legal process with his kid's mom.

I'm assuming that there is an official custody arrangement and parenting plan?

If so, how long has it been in play, and is it pretty "boilerplate" or are there special custom additions to it?

We are about to have the little one (she's 5) for a week next week and I'm freaked out that we are going to be watched/listened to.

Does Mom have required/mandated calls with your SD5? If so, when and for how long?

How well does she hide the electronic stuff? Can you pretty much find all of it every time?

There are definitely ways to work with this, as creepy and intrusive as it is.

It just creeps me out and it makes me feel resentful that I can't feel totally comfortable in my own home.

110%. That's what gets me about my H's kids' mom too, the intrusiveness, like you can't actually be apart from them, they're getting into your private life.

She's been told to cut this stuff out in no uncertain terms and still tries it.

Who told her and how? Lawyer? Email? Documented letter?

...

Based on what I read from you, I really think things can get better, or at least less worse. It can happen, though sometimes it takes a combination of non-intuitive moves, more tools & skills, and sometimes legal assistance.

Welcome to the team! We'll be here for you.

-kells76

[julesw]

Thank you for your kind reply. I really appreciate it.

No, she has not gotten a formal diagnosis, but she's textbook. I wish we had a diagnosis. She would never go to therapy when my husband tried to get her help.

We are in a 1 party state. :-/ But we did get a lawyer to write up a letter about the gps trackers and surveillance during our visitation time.

Oh really, many here have dealt with the GPS on the child's body? That's sad. It seems really detrimental to their mental and emotional health. These were those small Apple trackers, so I made sure the function in my iPhone that detects the trackers was on, but she could have another brand now or in the future. I'm really curious as to others' thoughts on this kind of stuff. This child is only 5, so I'm picturing a long road ahead with all kinds of intrusive tech gadgets to spy on us. "Regular" stepmoms seem to have a hard time with the video calls and the ex seeing into their home. For us, it's a real threat and not just an annoyance. She lies in court, lies to police, weaponizes things that are innocent, and uses the data she captures in her surveillance as "evidence." And she's believed. 

There is a boilerplate parenting plan...we are working on getting it updated based on what we've dealt with with her. But right now all it says is each parent gets one video call a day when the child is with the other, 15 min max. She has full physical custody after lying in court. My husband does have visitation, every other weekend schedule. The thing that sucks is she gets $2600 a month in child support from my husband, and so we don't have a ton of money lying around to pay for lawyers. I paid for the last lawyer and decided it was going to make me resentful to continue as very little was actually coming of it.

How well does she hide it? Nothing has been too hidden so far. But I don't know what I don't detect, ya know?

Anyway, sorry for the word vomit. I'm clearly upset again after more boundary-crossing which is a huge trigger for me (and probably most people with boundaries!) Thank you for reading and responding. I have a therapist but I don't think she gets it. And my husband is in survival mode and minimizes and makes excuses for this stuff -- also he lived with it and accepted it for years -- so it is hard to get on the same page and make a plan.

[PearlsBefore]

You have a PM, click "Pvt Mail" on the green bar up at the top - it's impossible to find

[ForeverDad]

I'll cite a different situation some parents have with visitation and that solution may help you to an extent.  Some parents complain that the clothes they buy for the child never appear in subsequent visits, the child arrives only in old or outgrown clothes.  Their solution was to wash the arrival clothes, set the bag and clothes to the side, enjoy the time with the child and when return time comes to dress the child in the clothes from the other home.

Have you tried to put all the arriving clothes and objects in a container, whether steel or a plastic type (anti-static?) known to resist electronics?  Then ignore it for the visit?  At worst the mother would track the house, unless trackers are placed on things the child needs during the visit.

While rare, there have been a few cases reported here by members where the court got so peeved with the parents constantly filming the kids that they were ordered to stop.

I recall that when my son was 6 my ex managed to get a magistrate to order daily calls with his mother, but a few years later a different magistrate said that was too much and removed the daily contact and reset it to the county's parenting guidelines of "reasonable" contact.  However, in your case, you currently only have alternate weekends and the daily contact is good for your husband, so don't try to change that piece.  Daily video contact is good for your husband.

[julesw]

Sorry, double post and I don't see the delete.

[julesw]

Thank you. Yes, he's fine with the call situation. In fact we were remarking that it was amazing that she didn't try to mandate unlimited calling and video chats during their legal battle. She's probably regretting that now. We were just really unnerved to see that she was filming his call with his kid for seemingly no reason. It was a standard chat, "tell me about school today?" type of thing, and he was just sitting there, as normal, in our home, clean and tidy...nothing to see here kind of stuff.

Ohh and your comment about filming the children reminded me of something else. She demanded that for this visit that hubby video chat proof that he was brushing the little one's teeth at night. (Last big visit, she sent a 12 para email afterward detailing everything hubs did "wrong" and she claimed he brushed her teeth wrong and that she had a tangle in her hair --- which, she ripped out of the child's head and took a photo of -- that one really got me. I had tangles growing up and my mom never ripped them out of my head, she gently brushed it out until it was untangled. She clearly ripped her kid's hair just for the photo for her documentation--sick). Anyway we said absolutely not and that it was part and parcel of parental alienation, communicating to the child that her dad isn't fit to care for her, and also that it was just very, very strange and we refused.

I like the container idea. I was told by someone to wrap devices that came in the house in foil, ha!

I guess I need to stop worrying so much about it since we aren't doing anything wrong. It just really stinks to feel like my home is bugged by someone I supremely dislike because of how she treats people (violently).

Except I hope it's ok to say this -- she scares me. She pretty much ruined my husband's life with false accusations and she used her recordings to back up her outlandish narrative. 1/3 of his income goes to her now and she took their child. He spends every day feeling guilt that his daughter is going to be really messed up. I don't want to end up in his shoes. If I had one wish it would be that she leave him/us alone or that he could go no contact but it's just not possible. I fear a lifetime of strange antics, false accusations, or worse.

[kells76]

I'm assuming that your SD5's mom has never admitted that she GPS tags stuff?

My first thought that is probably most practical and lowest conflict is same as ForeverDad's -- check incoming stuff, keep airtags/GPS in a foil box (), send back when parenting time is done. Amazon does sell a few items billed as "GPS detectors" but I would probably do some due diligence first to see how effective they are.

My second thought might put Mom in a double bind: what if every time SD5 came over, you removed all the airtags... and kept them? I wouldn't necessarily throw them out, just keep them in that metal box.

I mean, what's she going to do -- complain to you that... you stole her tracking devices? She'd have to admit to it, then.

...

Couple of thoughts on her demand emails:

Last big visit, she sent a 12 para email afterward detailing everything hubs did "wrong" and she claimed he brushed her teeth wrong and that she had a tangle in her hair

One of the non-intuitive skills we can learn here is that not every email needs a reply. It's so tempting to "set the record straight" and say "That's not true" or to otherwise engage with the crazy email rants.

Was there anything actually parenting logistic related in the email? Sometimes it takes digging.

What many of us here have had to learn is to decrease our reactivity to ALL. THE. BS., hone in on if there is anything in the rant that is about parenting, reply ONLY to that, and ignore the rest.

She wants engagement, and even negative engagement (an argument, etc) is still engagement. You don't have to "feed the beast".

An example of how that might look is, she sends this:

"Blah blah blah, you both are literal demons, you never brush her hair, also send me proof of how bad you are at brushing her teeth, can you pick her up at 3pm instead of 4pm on Friday even though you are always late and high on drugs, P.S. I hate you forever"

In the past, you may have wanted to "correct the record": "No, we are NOT demons, I have NEVER done drugs, and I have a LONG record of us being EXACTLY on time. I don't appreciate your criticism and it isn't helping raise SD5. Please be more positive in the future and do NOT accuse us of things we haven't done". Right? That's what we want to do.

Now, though, you have an option:

"Sure, we'll pick SD5 up at 3pm. Thanks, -julesw"

You didn't give any validity to her crazy accusations by engaging with them. You didn't give her the reaction or engagement she wanted. You focused ONLY on parenting logistics and dropped the rest.

This is a path forward. It's hard at first but then I promise with practice it becomes easier, more second nature. You will spend so much less time "wrestling a pig in the mud" and much more of your energy focused on what SD5 needs. We have been through the same stuff. DH is SO much better now than 10 years ago at letting Mom's crazy blame go and focusing on logistics.

(Of course, if you still have a L, or anything legally active, check with your L if a one-line denial response is necessary in your situation.)

...

Edited to add: I notice that you mention she is violent. So, the above thoughts are not "final" -- more of "yes, you can do this", but it'll be in addition to more tools/skills to protect you, you H, and SD5 from her violence. I'm mostly tackling one slice of your whole picture right now, so I just want you to know that I see that there's more going on.

[julesw]

Thank you!

Unfortunately I had a relationship with a narcissist in the past and my mom is also one so I am very familiar with just not responding  my husband on the other hand…it has been an uphill battle helping him to understand what he does and doesn’t have to respond to. I’ve given him the One Mom’s Battle sheet with the canned responses and he uses that. Things improved immensely after he stopped JADEing.

I refuse to talk to her. I want to be like a ghost to her. I was forced to sit down with her one time early on and I was polite and kind but she treated me like garbage. She used the meeting as a time for her to give me a hard copy of the divorce decree where she had highlighted what she wanted me to pay attention to. Most of it was like stuff I was supposed to enforce in our home. Yeah no. She didn’t chat or ask me any questions or treat me like a human being. Like you might do with someone who would be spending time with your child? So yeah I do not write or otherwise interact with her. But we DID set up a husband and wife joint email we made her use, so ostensibly she thinks we are both reading her messages, and that helped a bit too.

Love the idea of just keeping any surveillance devices we find. That’s hilarious.

[livednlearned]

It's rough when you have FOO damage from personality disorders and then it comes into your life again through the back door. I feel for you. It's the same for me.

I know this seems like a device/surveillance issue, but it feels, too, like a setup for parental alienation.

One thing I really took to heart was Richard Warshak's advice (author of Divorce Poison) about teaching kids the difference between what lying is, what privacy is, what's a secret, being safe, and something else. Forgetting, maybe?

With Warshak's advice, I started to come up with scenarios and then together with (then) S9,  we would work through the subtleties so that he developed his own habit of mind of about which was which. Since pwBPD distort the definition of "lying," I had to figure out how to help my son think for himself and that stuff really stuck.

For example, we had popsicles in the fridge and he wanted his friend to come over. I asked him, "What if friend came over and wanted a popsicle, and you said no because you didn't know I bought them. Would you call that a lie? Or is that something else?"

What if I knew there were popsicles, but I didn't say anything because I knew friend's mom said she didn't want him having too much sugar.

We would run through those kinds of scenarios and do the same thing while watching shows together. I don't know if it's because we did that kind of thing, but at 21, my son has an innate sense of right and wrong that is so much more nuanced and insightful than most people I know, including myself. It was really helpful as he got older and kept receiving messages from his dad. I remember when S21 was in his teens he said, "For someone who accuses so many people of lying, he sure tells a lot of lies."

I know it doesn't solve the problem of being recorded by bio mom, but eventually you may want SD5 to understand why you remove devices when she comes over. You are not "hiding the truth," you are "keeping things private."

My ex gave our son a tablet when he turned 10 and it was accompanied by a list of bizarre demands. Like a lot of NPD/BPD things, it made me think he was projecting his own behaviors so I assumed he was using the devices for surveillance himself. One of the items was that I was not to install a keylogger on the device, which was the first time I had heard of such a thing. Sometimes pwBPD gift you things so I took that as a gift and treated all devices as guilty until proven otherwise.

Some police departments have a cyber unit. If you have one, or can talk to someone, it may help figure out small measures you can take. I lived in a one-party state but found out little things I could do like use VPN to mask my IP address. Over the years our son got pretty informed about phishing and other things that could download garbage onto his devices, not from his dad but just in general.

I don't have a lot of faith in family court to solve these issues.

I had to spend a lot of time in family court (n/BPDx was a vexatious litigant and former trial lawyer  and saw a surprising number of families complaining about controlling / surveilling behaviors with devices. Family court is woefully uneducated about what people are even talking about, much less how to handle things. I even heard one lawyer say there is no such thing as privacy anymore.

Not that it won't make a difference in your case, because it might. Even when I discovered laws outside of family law that were applicable, it just made legal headaches worse trying to cross-walk those issues over to family law, if that makes sense. For example, we were in a one-party consent state, but you cannot install software on a device that you don't own. Meaning, my ex trying to install spyware (like the app to catch cheating partners) on my son's phone, which was paid for by me and on a plan I paid for, was considered a felony. The best my family law attorney seemed able to do was threaten to escalate things if he was in fact doing that. And if I wanted to prove he was doing that, I had to hire a forensic investigator to show that there was software uploading data in large packets at midnight, a sign of surveillance software.

It seemed easier to set up a rule in our house to remove all devices.

We didn't have GPS issues, but I'm curious about keeping them, which laughter aside, what is to stop you from doing that? So many things went to my ex's home that I never saw again. It's so common with step families that it seems to be part of the landscape. What would mom do, write emails demanding you give back the devices she uses to track SD5's whereabouts? I would simply write, "We have a different philosophy about trackers. We make sure we're aware of SD5's whereabouts at all times -- technology can fail and we would not want to assume a device is better than us at knowing where SD5 is. It might be easier to keep track of the trackers by keeping them by the door at your home. We'll do our best to return them when SD5 is with you but there may be times they get misplaced."

Would that work?

[julesw]

Yeah I love that..the way you worded it.

And it took me about a year and a half in therapy to get at what you said initially -- that I had finally got out of the personality disorders of my FOO and that's why this situation bothered me so much -- I didn't realize I was going to be dealing with BPD and just triggered daily.

[BigOof]

She has hidden GPS trackers in the child's bag and put trackers on the child's body.

Same thing happened to me. It comes from their fear of abandonment, but more importantly, it is a form of domestic violence.

If the behavior repeats (two or more times) and she's physically following you, it's stalking and you can have her criminally charged.

https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/penal-code/pen-sect-646-9.html