Phone Calls

[Nope]

If BPD mom can't immediately get ahold of the kids she has taken to calling and texting every possible phone multiple times and leaving multiple messages. We sent her an email asking her to stop doing this and her response is that she has a the right to talk to her children. According to the order she may call and calls are to be returned in a timely manner. But exactly how much can she use the phone for harassment purposes like this? We told her in an email that she is to call once on either the kid's cell phone or the house phone and leave one message.

It's a tough situation because on top of having an order that allows her to call or text there are aldo three mandated phone calls per week. We make sure she gets those. But the kids don't want to talk to her or text her because since we got majority time (90/10) she has been completely disinterested in their lives and gets mad at them for being happy here and constantly grills them for information. So the kids turn their cell phone off and don't check it. Even when we ask them to leave it on. It's not like we aren't understanding of their anger about how they are treated and it seems invalidating to tell them they will be punished for not leaving the phone on. Neither kid is old enough to feel safe telling their mom they are unhappy with her behavior towards them, so they turn the phone off to send a passive agressive message.

[livednlearned]

Court treated the phone call/communication thing with a bit of an eye roll in my case. My ex had something similar in the order to what your's says, and N/BPDx accused me of alienation even when we were following the order. He would pump S13 for information, so S13 would clam up, and N/BPDx assumed I was standing a few feet away trying to intimidate S13. If N/BPDx couldn't reach S13 for whatever reason, (like your kids, he didn't want to talk), he accused me of obstructing the calls and alienating him. As if I needed to do anything to make their relationship suffer 

Now that you have custody and things have started to lean more in your favor, it's not likely a judge would take junk like this from biomom seriously. One of the turning points for me with this stuff was realizing that negative/annoying communication meant more documentation for me, and once things started to go well in court, that just made my lawyer's job easy.

If biomom files anything to say her calls were obstructed, it wouldn't go far is my guess, knowing what I've read about your custody situation. At the most, maybe a light hand slap from a judge to admonish both parties, but not likely to lead to anything. Every time she leaves a message, add it to a log. It's a hassle, but at least you're documenting things, including any verbally abusive messages she leaves. The volume of emails/texts/voice mails in my case was so extreme that we quantified things, and then just selected 4-5 of the worst messages to convey the tone of them to the judge.

The non-legal part of this is helping your kids deal with the communication in a way that gives them long-term skills. I tried to teach S13 (10-11 at the time) to use phrases he could pull out if he wanted to draw a boundary with his dad. But that didn't work out very well, which I should've known. It was hard for me to do that during the marriage, so I was idealistic to think S13 could do what I wasn't able to. And then S13 started using my own phrases on me. 

It bothered me that S13 learned to say things like, "I'm tired" or "I don't feel good" just to get out of things with his dad. He has started to do it at school instead of saying how he really feels.

[Nope]

Court treated the phone call/communication thing with a bit of an eye roll in my case. My ex had something similar in the order to what your's says, and N/BPDx accused me of alienation even when we were following the order. He would pump S13 for information, so S13 would clam up, and N/BPDx assumed I was standing a few feet away trying to intimidate S13. If N/BPDx couldn't reach S13 for whatever reason, (like your kids, he didn't want to talk), he accused me of obstructing the calls and alienating him. As if I needed to do anything to make their relationship suffer 

Now that you have custody and things have started to lean more in your favor, it's not likely a judge would take junk like this from biomom seriously. One of the turning points for me with this stuff was realizing that negative/annoying communication meant more documentation for me, and once things started to go well in court, that just made my lawyer's job easy.

If biomom files anything to say her calls were obstructed, it wouldn't go far is my guess, knowing what I've read about your custody situation. At the most, maybe a light hand slap from a judge to admonish both parties, but not likely to lead to anything. Every time she leaves a message, add it to a log. It's a hassle, but at least you're documenting things, including any verbally abusive messages she leaves. The volume of emails/texts/voice mails in my case was so extreme that we quantified things, and then just selected 4-5 of the worst messages to convey the tone of them to the judge.

The non-legal part of this is helping your kids deal with the communication in a way that gives them long-term skills. I tried to teach S13 (10-11 at the time) to use phrases he could pull out if he wanted to draw a boundary with his dad. But that didn't work out very well, which I should've known. It was hard for me to do that during the marriage, so I was idealistic to think S13 could do what I wasn't able to. And then S13 started using my own phrases on me. 

It bothered me that S13 learned to say things like, "I'm tired" or "I don't feel good" just to get out of things with his dad. He has started to do it at school instead of saying how he really feels.

Thanks for this. It's just soo enraging to have to even deal with this at all. When she gets like this and when the kids don't even want to talk to her because of her behavior toward them, I have a very hard time forcing myself to remain nice and even. If the kids wanted to talk to her then it would be them suffering. But since they don't, and for good reason, it's hard to find reasons to push them to do "the right thing" in the court's mind. And they are also incapable of having boundaries with her. It's because they know they are incapable of it that avoiding her is the easier thing to do.

Hurling accusations and taking no responsibility is exactly what she always does. She doesn't have the money or even the lawyer with which to take us back to court, but she constantly acts like we are one mistake away from getting hauled in. The other "problem" is that we still have a GAL assigned to our case even though there is no pending litigation and we've had a really strong advocate in her and we don't want to give her a reason to think we are being difficult or uncooperative. At the same time, the order doesn't say the phone *has* to be left on. Just that the kids should have one for the purpose of receiving phone calls and text messages. It also says that calls should be returned in a timely manner. But this rule she has decided to enforce that the phone must be on at all times is not in there at all. Still, are we being uncooperative if we point that out to her?

[livednlearned]

the order doesn't say the phone *has* to be left on. Just that the kids should have one for the purpose of receiving phone calls and text messages. It also says that calls should be returned in a timely manner. But this rule she has decided to enforce that the phone must be on at all times is not in there at all. Still, are we being uncooperative if we point that out to her?

I think if you point it out she will stop immediately 

I know what you mean about how annoying it is. It took me years before my stomach no longer lurched when I got messages from my ex. Too bad there isn't a way to send some callers to voice mail but not others. BPD Voice Mail Messaging System     "Sorry, I can't take your abusive call right now. Please leave a clear message so when I play this in court everyone can hear."

[ForeverDad]

she constantly acts like we are one mistake away from getting hauled in.

Been there, done that.  Extinction bursts, hopefully they'll fade in time but perhaps not unless the professionals get involved.  It won't get the court hot and bothered but does put us in a tizzy since we try to always do the right thing and fear doing one thing wrong.

[whirlpoollife]

X2bh is able and does call kids three times a day. Court ordered twice to narrow it down to that with time limits. I have to monitor 90% of the calls otherwise he will just stay in the phone, so much for court orders. He was leaving voice mails every time kids did not answer. I never answerd if it  was him.  Checking the voice mail and hearing his voice was a pain in the ears.

I emailed him on a mutual website, Our Family Wizard, to ask him not to leave voice mails on my phone. He replied with question marks , continued to leave voice mails. I emailed again with same. No other reaction from me.   He left some more voice mails but then stopped.

My next step is to ask my custody L if I can ask h to stop calling on the landline phone and only use kids cell phones to call kids. i would not be blocking access and if the kids didn't answer, it would just be between kids and their dad.

I wish you luck

[Nope]

I think if you point it out she will stop immediately 

I know what you mean about how annoying it is. It took me years before my stomach no longer lurched when I got messages from my ex. Too bad there isn't a way to send some callers to voice mail but not others. BPD Voice Mail Messaging System     "Sorry, I can't take your abusive call right now. Please leave a clear message so when I play this in court everyone can hear."

Actually, she's always been real big on the court order being the absolute letter of.the law. She tends to just drop it when we tell her that there is nothing in the court order regarding what she is saying. I think we'll just shoot her out another quick email sticking to the point that she has now been informed in writing that multiple phone calls and messages are unwelcome. She'll continue to rant that since she feels DH did it, she'll do as she pleases but in all actuality it'll probably stop at least for awhile.

Oh wow! I love that answering machine message! That would be hysterical!

Been there, done that.  Extinction bursts, hopefully they'll fade in time but perhaps not unless the professionals get involved.  It won't get the court hot and bothered but does put us in a tizzy since we try to always do the right thing and fear doing one thing wrong.

Exactly. Though honestly if it wasn't for the GAL still being on the case, we probably wouldn't care so much. We need to put the GAL in the loop about what's been going on but it's always so expensive and we are always the ones stuck paying for everything.

X2bh is able and does call kids three times a day. Court ordered twice to narrow it down to that with time limits. I have to monitor 90% of the calls otherwise he will just stay in the phone, so much for court orders. He was leaving voice mails every time kids did not answer. I never answerd if it  was him.  Checking the voice mail and hearing his voice was a pain in the ears.

I emailed him on a mutual website, Our Family Wizard, to ask him not to leave voice mails on my phone. He replied with question marks , continued to leave voice mails. I emailed again with same. No other reaction from me.   He left some more voice mails but then stopped.

My next step is to ask my custody L if I can ask h to stop calling on the landline phone and only use kids cell phones to call kids. i would not be blocking access and if the kids didn't answer, it would just be between kids and their dad.

I wish you luck

We are supposed to be using OFW so that she has access to the kid's full schedules. She's only signed into the site once, has never viewed the calendar and refuses to acknowledge that it even exists. Of course, that's probably because we also use it to keep her updated on medical bills she owes us money for.

Unfortunately, when there are court mandated phone calls it's never just between the kids and their parent. It won't be the kid that gets hauled in for contempt when these calls don't happen.

[ForeverDad]

From my latest order issued nearly a year ago, you're familiar with the magistrate I had most recently... .

Father also asked that the Court reinstate the word "reasonable" with respect to telephone contact.  The Agreed Entry filed {date} 2011, provides that "each parent is permitted to have telephone contact with the child everyday when the child is with the other parent, between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m."  It then provides that "the parent" shall initiate the call for the regular telephone contact, without indicating which parent.  It is clear from reading the prior Decision of the Magistrate in {date} 2009, to which father referred, that the parent who is not exercising parenting time initiates the call.  Father fears that he will face ultimatums or further litigation in the event of an occasional lost call or the rare times the phone is out of range.

This magistrate does not generally find it in the best interest of a child for the parent exercising parenting time to be leashed to a certain time frame during which he or she must make the child available during his or her parenting time.  This magistrate would generally prefer to include "reasonable" telephone contact, without having to dictate a particular half-hour when the call is made; however, in the light of the intense level of conflict between the parties, it may be necessary to do so.  Further, Father indicated that the current contact order was agreeable to him, once the word "reasonable" is added.  The court finds that Father's fears of further litigation or ultimatums are justified.  Therefore, the Court will grant Father's request.  This magistrate would hope that the parties will not use telephone contact as leverage to keep the child from any activity beneficial to the child, such as a movie, play, sporting event, etc, and that the parties will exercise some flexibility and recognition for the child's best interest to participate in cultural or extra-curricular activities.

For some unknown reason we never tried OFW.  After we separated in 2005 I found history files on the computer that my ex had blocked me on her email account.  To this day, over 9 years later, I believe I am still blocked.  Still, I always email her important parenting information such as expenses and vacation notices and then follow up by hand delivery or sending paper copies mailed with Certificate of Mailing.  She instead preferred the phone so she could yell, scream, demand and hang up on me.  Well, until my lawyer during Summer 2013 sent her lawyer nearly a dozen recordings as examples how she would both rage and manipulate exchanges to her benefit.  A few months later on Trial Day 1 her lawyer insisted he had never received the CD of recordings we planned to use in court, but interestingly soon after we sent the recordings she cut way back on phone calls.  Starting August 28, 2013, she switched to texting.  Yes, the timing is clearly suspect.  I think the record for her texting was on the 17th, she sent 41 texts in about an hour, while I had sent just 4.

[livednlearned]

Actually, she's always been real big on the court order being the absolute letter of.the law. She tends to just drop it when we tell her that there is nothing in the court order regarding what she is saying. I think we'll just shoot her out another quick email sticking to the point that she has now been informed in writing that multiple phone calls and messages are unwelcome. She'll continue to rant that since she feels DH did it, she'll do as she pleases but in all actuality it'll probably stop at least for awhile.

What about having a form message that you send her each time she sends excessive messages. Just brainstorming here, but what if the first email message said, "Biomom, per the court order, the kids are not required to be available at any time. If you would like to coordinate a different time to reach them, please use OFW."

Anytime she tries to contact you another way, maybe send the same message, or something even briefer. "If you would like to coordinate a different time to reach the kids other than what is stated in the order, please use OFW."

[Nope]

What about having a form message that you send her each time she sends excessive messages. Just brainstorming here, but what if the first email message said, "Biomom, per the court order, the kids are not required to be available at any time. If you would like to coordinate a different time to reach them, please use OFW."

Anytime she tries to contact you another way, maybe send the same message, or something even briefer. "If you would like to coordinate a different time to reach the kids other than what is stated in the order, please use OFW."

See, there is the rub. The magistrate completely arbitrarily decided on a specific call time that absolutely would never work with the kid's schedules. What saves us is that the order specifically states that the party receiving calls must be flexible to accommodate their schedules. We sent the BPD an email explaining the schedule and asking which available options given would work best for her. She never responded to that email at all. So we've been more or less playing it by ear and having yhe kids call on the appropriate day at whatever time most clearly works. On days it'll take longer to make dinner, I have them call before. On days dinner will be done quicker, I have them call after. On day there is lots of homework, I have them wait until after they talk to her to dive in. Etc.

What caused this particular blow up was a slight deviation from the normal routine (about twenty minutes) and the fact that SD11 turned the phone off. I'd rather not let her use this a see an excuse to lock us in so that I'm planning meals, rrips to the store, hgelp woth homework, etc, around her. And even though it seems like it might be a better idea to move the call time to later in the evening, we never knoe when she's going to upset them and they'll need significant time to calm down before they can sleep.

I'm hoping the whole thing blows over for now. The kids are going to her place for Christmas so things are about to get much uglier about more relevant issue shortly.

[ForeverDad]

Keep in mind what she would claim if Dad was trying to call his kids and leaving VMs, texting or emailing excessively, wouldn't she be claiming very vociferously it was Harassment?  Now, while 'harassment' is strong language in a legal sense and not to be used lightly, Dad may need to use such terms judiciously (and not incorrectly of course) so the GAL and the other professionals don't pooh-pooh what she's doing in letting her moods, feeling and perceptions rule her day - and your lives.

[Nope]

UGH! She just simply doesn't care that proven reality doesn't back up what she is saying! I'm serious. Here is her latest response.

"I will remind you that as per the order I am allowed to call the children and text them. But how would they know that I did so if the phone is constantly off. As the parent you should make sure that the phone is continuously on since by it being off is interfering with my allowed parenting time. I again will remind you that on several occasions in the past you would text my phone excessively will I was working demanding that I have the children contact you since their phone was off, I kindly did so and never gave you rudeness over it. I also remind you that it is your responsibility as the parent to ensure that the phone calls come on all the slotted days at a consistent time as so not to interfere with anyones plans or activities and that it be upon you the adult to let me know of any changes to the children's schedule since that does cause an interference with my parenting time and not the children's responsibility but do. I am allowed 30 mins of text a day and 30 mins per child of talk equally an hour, you suggested 4-5 or 5-6 and I didn't say a word about it so I expect that the calls should be coming in during those times on all of the slotted days."

First: Yes, she is "allowed" but only the three calls are mandated. More calls aren't mandated and texting, while allowed, isn't mandated.

Second: He's never "demanded" anything. He always asked to "please speak to the kids". We showed text after text of her nasty responses (if she responded at all) in court. And we are talking about his one measly phone call per week that she was in contempt for not always letting him have anyway.

Third: Again, about what she is "allowed". Is it really on us to explain that we are only required to do the three and the extra is between her and the kids?

Fourth: We did ask her which would work for her and she didn't respond. So we've been winging it. I might suck it up at this point and tell her calls will come in between 6:30 and 7:30 and be done with it.

[WhatTheFrank]

As tedious as it may be, document, document, document.  The more information you are able to provide for the courts, the better they respond.  Courts have no time for hearsay or he said/she said/sha said(!is this case).  If you can prove that the child has stability and the actions of the other party are destabilizing, things will usually sway in your favor.  Usually, unfortunately common sense judicial system isn't available everywhere.

[Nope]

Ultimately we decided not to respond. Let her think she's "won" but you can't reason with a person incapable of being reasonable. She's obviously disassociated and all she wants is engagement. She's been warned. It's the best we can do. The professional involved knows what the truth actually is.

[david]

I would not respond either.

If my ex makes false claims like that I will, if it isn't too time demanding, get evidence to disprove her claims. If she claims your phone is turned off and you have your phone records showing you did receive and make calls during that time that should be enough. The more of this you have, in case you go to court, the better off you will be.

This is one of the reasons I only communicate through email. Ex can make whatever claims she wants in an email and she can not prove any of it. Her outrageously false claims are easily disproven. When I am talking to her she is so good at switching topics and going in multiple directions it is hard to keep track of. I stopped talking to her over 4 years ago because of that.

It does take some time to gather evidence but I figure ex isn't going away anytime soon so I need to be prepared.

[livednlearned]

It's so weird reading other people's BPD email messages -- the tone is so eerily similar.

Anyway, I wouldn't respond either. Imagine her as a 5 year old kid trying to insist why she gets to eat the whole cake. She is trying to think of anything she can until something sticks and you give in. Except the logic is ridiculous and she's a child. That part of her message is accurate -- she keeps referring to you as the parent. 

When I got nutty emails from my ex, I would just quote the order exactly as it was written and send it to him. I can't say that always worked, but I knew that if things ever came up in court, I could always say that I referred him to the court order.

[Nope]

  Her outrageously false claims are easily disproven.

That was what made us realize there was no point in answeing. In court we brought in screen shot after screen shot of her completely rude behavior when DH wouldn't get his one phone call and would text her once about it. It was all brought out in court. Everyone has already seen it. And she's already acting like none of that happened. The magistrate flatly called her a liar repeatedly in the finding. But it's like all of that simply never happened. Nothing sticks. There is no point.

[ugghh]

For sure an extinction burst, i had one of those 40+ text days on the same day my exuBPDw created an incident in her head to bring a false RO.

First document, document, document.  Like LivedNLearned, when my exuBPDw tried to come into court for the RO claiming that I was harassing her, it became rather comical when my L showed her L the folders of documentation showing that in both emails and text messages she literally  her contacts to me outnumbered mine to her by a count of 10 to 1. 

As we were in process of the divorce, off and on I would block my ex's phone number on my cell phone when her behavior crossed the boundary.  Finally about 4 months post divorce after we had resolved pretty much the last of the financial settlements, I blocked it for good and have never looked back.  She can call the number but if she does it immediately goes to voicemail which is then stored in blocked voicemail folder that I can listen to at my convenience not hers.  That same block prevents all texts.  When I moved out I chose not to get a landline, which leaves her only the option of email.  Even then I have had to block several of her email addresses on the filter at work as she insisted despite my requests otherwise to mail copies of every email to both my personal and work emails.

By far these steps have contributed greatly to my piece of mind and allowed me to begin the process of recovery from her years of abuse and insistence on controlling how and when I chose to communicate.  As a bonus she is never brief in her emails and just continues to be the gift that keeps giving in terms of adding to my file should we go back to court.

On the landline, if you uncomfortable disconnecting the line completely, I would suggest you might want to look into some of the newer technology  that could at least make life easier. 

You could block the number - www.amazon.com/Incoming-Call-Blocker-Display-Blacklist/dp/B0089IHBE8

or you may want to look at some of the computer based answer machines that allow for custom mailboxes /messages depending on the number imptec.com/csfeatures.htm or www.voicecallcentral.com/advancedcallcenter.htm .  Cannot personally vouch but looks like they both have free trials.

You may also be able to pay for call blocking from the phone company if they provide your voicemail.

Good for you for not responding.  No it is not your responsibility to educate the BPD about exactly what their right are under the parenting plan, she can go and pay her own L to do that.  To quote an old saying, "Keep your powder dry" and just keeping documenting away.  For what it is worth, when I did have my phone available to receive her messages, I would never respond by phone always by email, so I at least had a record on my side. 

":)ear uBPDw, I am emailing to acknowledge that I received your voicemail message left at 1:15 pm, as well as prior messages left at 1:14pm, 1:13pm, 1:12pm, and 1:10pm.  As we have previously explained the children have cell phones upon which you may leave them messages directly.  Multiple messages left on the home answering machine will not serve to have them call any faster as we only check this machine once each evening after they have already gone to bed, whilst they always have access to their  cell phones.  We of course will take note of and pass along to them  messages left on the home machine as schedule permits.  Sincerely, the sane parents"

[Panda39]

... .only use kids cell phones to call kids. i would not be blocking access and if the kids didn't answer, it would just be between kids and their dad... .

My SO's D14 is having a problem with this.  If she doesn't answer her phone immediately or turns her phone off her uBPDmom grounds her and takes away her cell phone on the weekends she has her visitation. (Which is a fate worse than death for a 14yo girl)   D14 has been attempting to create boundaries but it's hard to do with an adult when you are just a kid   

I absolutely agree that texting and the never ending calls are maddening.

[livednlearned]

":)ear uBPDw, I am emailing to acknowledge that I received your voicemail message left at 1:15 pm, as well as prior messages left at 1:14pm, 1:13pm, 1:12pm, and 1:10pm.  As we have previously explained the children have cell phones upon which you may leave them messages directly.  Multiple messages left on the home answering machine will not serve to have them call any faster as we only check this machine once each evening after they have already gone to bed, whilst they always have access to their  cell phones.  We of course will take note of and pass along to them  messages left on the home machine as schedule permits.  Sincerely, the sane parents"

This is perfect. I like the inventory of calls and times they were left. My lawyer would've loved that 

The only thing I would've done different with my ex is to not mention how many times, or when, the voicemail is checked. I didn't want to give him any details because he had a habit of making mountains out of those molehills. I tended to be more vague, as in "the landline is not a reliable way to leave messages that the kids will receive." I had to be much more vague about what I did, and very specific about what he did. And then even more specific about consequences if I needed a reply. That way I wasn't waiting on responses from him, since I often wrote that in the event of no response, I would do xyz.

But I think it depends to some extent on what your custody situation is, and whether or not things are going in your favor. Sometimes you need these emails to demonstrate your character and how you deal with things and in other cases, like mine, it's ok to err on the side of brevity since they had N/BPDx's number.