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+just+j+
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Saving my text message conversations
+just+j+
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I think I need to save his texts in case I need them to prove his hostility in court if I ever need to. How do I do that? Is there any way to save them to my computer or a safe back up?
H called. He asked if he got mail, and if I was sending anything he got. I told him, "You have no mail. I sent everything I've gotten so far. What you need to do is go to the post office and forward your mail."
His response? "One thing at a time."
I ask, "One thing at a time?? It takes 1 whole minute."
He says, "It's called being busy. It's called 'budgetting?"
I said, "Budgetting?? What are you talking about? You go to the post office, fill out a simple form and bam. You get your mail and I don't have to send it to you."
He gets mad and says, "You know what, I knew it would be over your head. You don't need to be ugly to me."
I tell him I am not being ugly. I just don't understand why he can't go to the post office and forward his mail. It's one of the first things that people do when they move."
He gets mad and says, "I gotta go. Bye." and hangs up.
He calls back 10 minutes later and rips into me saying that if we can't be civil to each other, he's going to really start hating my guts. I see where this is going. He starts lecturing me about how ugly I"m being and how we have to be nice to each other for DD's sake, blah, blah, blah. And he's saying it in an angry, loud lecturing tone. Like I'm SD. Which I hate. I interrupt not long into the "conversation" and I tell him calmly, "Look. I"m sorry. I really am."
He says, "No. There's no sorry..." and he rips right back into his lecture again.
I cut him off and say as calm as I can. "Look. You don't have to yell at me. I apologized. It was a genuine apology. If you can't accept it, and you want to continue to yell and lecture me, then we have nothing left to say."
He says, "I'm not yelling! It's called setting your littleass straight!"
That's when I say, "Okay. If that's how you're going to be, then I have to go. Bye." And I hang up.
I text him and say, "if you can't accept my apology, then I'm not listening to you lecture me."
He replies, "Kiss my ass. Go call yr boyfriend".
This while I am texting and sending, "I'm sorry. I really am." After I send, that's when I see his Kiss my ass text.
The only thing I can figure is I made him feel stupid. I didn't mean to. I was damn annoyed. If he does not know at 50 years old how to handle simple personal business, and can't handle simple tasks while he is not working and has all the time in the world...I can't help him. How did I miss how stupid he is?
He continues to expect me to take care of him still. Yesterday he asked me to help him out with his insurance. I said no, I have my own bills to pay and Christmas. I need every penny. I REFUSE to give him one more dime. And it's like he thinks we're still married. We are, but this relationship and any responsibility I have to him is OVER. I am not giving him an inch anymore. He needs to realize that and unfortunately I think he's going to get real ugly before he accepts it.
"he offered her the world. she said she had her own" - poet Monique Duval
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Saving my text message conversations
I take pictures with my digital camera that way it shows the time and date the text messages were sent. my cell phone doesn't have a copy/paste feature though so this is the easiest way to do things.
I hear the iphone has a copy/paste feature which may make things easy and some phones offer a computer backup.
Also if needed your attorney can subpena your cell provider for a text copy of the past sent/received messages from and to your phone, however they only hold up to three months then after three months those messages are gone. The information I got from verizon is they need a subpena to give out the past messages and they only provide three months of text. (sorry that may be confusing).
What kind of cell phone do you have?
When I talked to a police officer about documenting harassment he told me I needed to photograph (with a camera) the text message on my phone and have the phone records that match the text messages I received.
Print the phone records with the time received and sent and phone #, highlight for reference. Take screen shots with the time stamp. That way the 2 match up. If you cannot take screenshots, take pictures with your digital camera. (If you have an iphone you just hold the home button and the off button at the top at the same time and it will save the screenshot to your camera roll).
And just a FYI, if you really wana stick it to ex, you can forward your mail online now. HA! YOu actually may be able to do it for him...
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"Karma1969: If baking someone a birthday pie/cake is romantic, I must be a slut."
I recently got an app for that. I think it's called SMS Backup or something. It forwards all my text messages (with date / time stamp) to my e-mail account. My attorney recommended it.
I agree with the PP that you need to stop engaging him. Give him a deadline. "You have until 12/31 to get you mail forwarding set up. After that date I will mark everything return to sender." End of story. No more arguments. Deal with forwarding it for a short time so he has plenty of opportunity to do it himself. If he doesn't then follow through. Easier said than done but it's totally necessary in this case.
He's lashing out because he isn't getting his way. It's stupid and immature but honestly... couldn't you see that coming? From your history it's clear that's his MO.
Stop letting him belittle you with lectures and insults. If he's inappropriate tell him so. If he continues, hang up. I know he isn't technologically savvy but does he have an email account? If so, follow up every single hostile conversation with an e-mail summarizing the situation.
There are numerous apps for saving or forwarding text messages to email. My DH has an iPhone3 through AT&T and it can recall every text ever sent or received (they're saved in a cloud). When I asked Sprint if this was possible, I was told no. I told the sales person I knew they were wrong, since I'd already cataloged text messages from an iPhone going back over a year and a half. It may be part of the service from AT&T, I'm not certain about that. We had to buy the software to download them, it was about $20. And now we have them all saved, chronologically, in a .pdf file. The only downside was the software downloads from today back, so I had to go through and put them in chronological order from the beginning. Each message is time and date stamped with the sender's name or phone number if it's not a number saved in the address book on the phone and we have the phone with all the messages.
I found this out from a co worker who used to work for Apple in tech support.
I don't think these texts are worth saving. If he's threatening you or DD, yes. All these show is that you are arguing.
From what you've said, you two are still bickering like married people. You don't have to keep engaging in a discussion with him. Tell him to forward the mail, then let it be. Whether or not he knows how to do that is no longer your concern, J. Be free!
The bolded is correct.
https://moversguide.usps.com/icoa/icoa-main-flow.do?execution=e1s1
The only thing it asks you for is a cc in the person's name (no charge is made, its just to confirm the name requesting a change matches the card name).
Do you know H address?
BFP #1 11/07/2012 EDD 07/09/2013 M/C 11/22/2012
BFP #2 02/05/2013 EDD 09/19/2013 Arrived via c-section 09/27/2013
I know you're trying to be civil, but so much of that conversation was just firing him up more, and leaving more of an argument to be had.
It sounds horrible, but when dealing with my XH (which doesn't happen much anymore) I text extremely simple things, almost the way you're supposed to communicate with patients with Alzheimer's. Like "you have no mail. Plz file to have your mail forwarded." Facts and simple requests he can't argue with, leaving feelings and opinions out.
Not blaming you or trying to be snarky, but it's so easy to fall into the routine of bickering and engaging XH in arguments, we did it for years... but the cycle has to end, and it's probably got to take a conscious effort to end it.
I'm pretty sure you can changeyour address online now. They send a confirmation to the new and old address.
What are you apologizing for? Quit talking to him. Period. Put your DD on the phone when he calls and when she's done hang up. Anything else can be handled in writing through e-mail's. Don't text. E-mails have date and times and can be easily printed out and harder to manipulate.
*lurker in*
If you have an android there us an app called sms backup that goes to your email, not sure if you can get it on iPhone or windows. I've been backing up all my txts for years. You just set the time interval for how often you want it to back up and that's it. Then you have a running record of your conversations.
*lurker out*
No, I am not surprised by his behavior.
I don't think I am engaging him. He asked if he got mail on our daily phone calls that we make so he can talk to DD. I don't really talk to him otherwise. I don't make small talk, I don't tell him my news. I don't set out to egg him on in any way. When DD went off to play, he asked about the mail. It's a fair question. I informed him in a kind of snotty way he needed to forward his mail, he made an excuse, I got annoyed and was kind of snarky when I responded to his reasons not to forward his mail. I quickly realized what was happening, and he hung up before it went very far. When he called back, the call couldn't have lasted very long. I didn't engage. I gave him an opportunity to accept my apology. He didn't. I immediately then informed him what I was going to do. He didn't stop, so I immediately shut him down.
I can not NOT talk to him. I have a three year old and the agreement is that he would talk to her once a day. DD can't call herself and she can't man the phone. I put it on speaker, and I sometimes have to nudge her to talk to him. That's what we have been doing and for the most part it goes fine. When he gets nasty about something ridiculous as he did last night, I shut it down.
As long as we're civil, I don't have a problem talking to him.
I apologized because my tone was very snarky. I was making him out to be stupid or lazy (even if he is). Even so, I could have been the bigger person and simply said, "Please forward your mail." Period. It also plays into what I'm anticipating, which leads me to my next point.
The only reason I'm asking now to record texts, is so that I can start a running record. I know the nasty things he can say, and if I ever need to use them in court, I will. This is not worthy of it no. But it may be the beginning of something and I"m going to show consistency over a period of time, as well as my willingess to be the kinder, bigger person.
And email is not going to cut it. He does not have a computer. He is not computer literate. Texting is inefficient. He either gets a grip on his attitude, or I hang up on him. It's that simple. If he continues to get ugly or is harrassing, I take the texts and whatever other proof I have to court or I use it to cut the phone conversations down to half, or whatever else I need to do.
Yes, you are engaging.
There is no need to discuss anything other than DD or finances.
You do not have to apologize to him, allow him to call you stupid, or allow him to bring up your boyfriend.
When DD went out to play, you should have hung up. Unless there was something specific about DD to talk about (her health, school, etc.). Mail is not one of those things. When he asks if he received any mail, you can answer "no." If he goes on and on, you can hang up (which you did not this time, even though you insist "I can always hang up." You are not in a relationship any more, and you are NOT friends.
Yes, you CAN not talk to him, if it doesn't involve your daughter. You need to train yourself to behave differently, because until you do, you will have the same conversations OVER and OVER again.
This and the "oh, stbx, dd is SO HAPPY now that we are not fighting!!!" comments show that you keep trying to engage. Cut it out!
Suebear, just curious - are you divorced? and what kind of relationship do you have with your ex? Because if you think just hanging up on him without a polite, "Okay, she's done talking" comment when your kids are done talking to him is okay, then it's no wonder why there are so many issues on this board of exes not getting along.
Was H an ass? Yes. And I was a ***.
I apologizes for being a ***. Not asking him to change his address.
I refuse to be the bitchy ex wife that can't have simple, polite conversation.
Does it excuse him - absolutely not. But I do own my part in it. Call it engaging, but I'm not going to limit my conversation to short, rude statements.
I really want a friendly relationship with him - not friends. FRIENDLY. I don't see why that can't be achieved and I am doing it for DD. Not me. Not him. DD. He wants the same thing too. Maybe that's a rarity around here, but i prefer to have a decent relationship with him.
Are we there yet? No. We just signed the papers. He just left 2 weeks ago. Emotions are still raw.
Can he be a real ***? Yeah. ANd as I stated before, I can be a real ***. And now he knows I won't let him do that. ANd if I"m bitchy, he won't allow me to be that way either. When he starts, I hang up. Period. It never went "on and on".
If H chooses to be a *** continually, that's where I want the history. I hope he doesn't, but if he does, and I need to use it to protect DD...I want to be prepared.
Again - regarding the "DD is doing really well" comment to him. H is really happy about it. Again. I didn't say it in a ha-ha *** way. We had a really good discussion about it. He did NOT take it the way you all think he did. It was a totally seperate polite conversation from the pissy one. That's not engaging. That's having an adult conversation about your child's well being and putting your issues aside and putting her first. Again, I see nothing wrong or engaging about being polite and discussing our child's well being together if we are doing it pleasantly.
By the way, he apologized too today. I accepted it politely.