Document, Document, Document (or “Sequence of Events”)

To protect myself from the devil's exaggerations, misstatements, accusations and out-and-out lies, as well as to document its abusive behavior and many blatant violations of our court order, we began documenting EVERYTHING, and have since captured the devil's past, present, and continuing transgressions. We call this monster our "Sequence of Events" (or "SOE").

Why keep your own SOE? To establish a pattern of behavior to substantiate your claims or to refute hers. This is an absolute must if you're in a heated custody battle.

You should not only write down the egregious things that she does, but the things that you're doing, too. Your goal is to not only document the crap that you've got to put up with from her, but to capture what you're doing right (taking the kids to soccer practice, accommodating her request for a schedule change, paying your share of work-related childcare, doing homework with the kids, etc.).

And, of course, you should be doing everything "right" right now. Don't give her any ammunition to add to her own sequence of events!

But if you do mess up (call her a name, pick the kids up late, or whatever), document that, too, along with an explanation. Why? Because when she throws that up in your face (and she will), you'll be able to refer to your SOE and say, "Wait a minute, that's not what happened. Here's the way it really went down..." If you don't document the incident, she holds all the cards: she would be able to make a random accusation, and if you don't even remember the incident so you won't be able to defend yourself. Well that won't happen to you because you have an up-to-date SOE!

And if you're good about documenting everything, you can even protect yourself when she makes something up...because if you didn't write it down, then it didn't happen! Right?

Following is a recent email in response to the devil as an example of how we were able to destroy it with FACTS (which we wouldn't have had without our SOE). It was in the throws of a histerical tantrum and demanding reimbursement for expenses that I'd already paid for:

Devil:

If you’re done with the histrionics now, why don’t you take a minute to read through all of this, and you’ll see that everything that I was trying to calmly tell you on the phone tonight was true.

On 9/7, you sent me an email asking for $42.50, which was half the cost of [Child 2’s] little league: “I need a check for [Child 2] to sign him up for Little League. The price is $85 which we can split, if you can please have a check ready for me because the sign ups are September 23 5:30pm to 8:30pm Roundtable Pizza.” (And then you didn’t sign him up on 9/23.)

On 9/10, I paid for a 3-month rental for [Child 1’s] trumpet and bought her sheet music for a total of $73.08, which [Child 1] then called and told you about.

On 9/11, I gave you the following explanation along with a check (#1051) made payable to you for $5.96 in response to your 9/7 email: “[Child 1] was supposed to get an instrument over the weekend, due date is Thursday. [Child 1] said you were planning to take her to a music store. I am not interested in purchasing an instrument or renting a new instrument, I would prefer to split the cost renting a used instrument.”

Little League & Instrument Rental Expenses
Cost 1/2 Cost
[Child 2’s] Little League $85.00 $42.50
[Child 1’s] Trumpet Rental $73.08 $36.54
Each Parent’s Share $79.04

I Paid (for Trumpet) $73.08
Less My Share Owed $79.04
I Owe You $(5.96) (Check Attached)

You’ll Pay (for Little League) $85.00
Less My Reimbursement $(5.96)
Your Share Comes To $79.04

This means that we’ll each spend $79.04 toward the kids’ extracurricular expenses.

And then on 10/21, I left a check (#1032) at daycare made payable to Art Class Vendor for $62.50, the amount of which I paid in full. You didn’t share in any of part of this cost, and the plan was for you to pay the entire $62.50 cost of [Child 2’s] next art session…which, so far, you haven’t done and are now, in fact, trying to get me to pay half of.

On 10/29, you sent me a follow-up email to your 9/7 email, even though, to my knowledge, at least, you still hadn’t registered [Child 2] for Little League: “…[Child 2’s] baseball was $92 for sign ups and not $85.00…”

So, as you can see and as I calmly stated on the phone, I don’t owe you anything for [Child 2’s] Little League or [Child 1’s] trumpet rental, and it’s your turn to pay for [Child 2’s] art classes.

Angel