Your Ex Is Texting Your Family and Friends About You: What to Do
Reviewed by Jacob Reed, founder of Verity ·
Short answer
Ask the people who received the messages to keep them and to send you screenshots that show the sender, the number and the dates; better still, ask them to export the conversation. Don't reply through them or post about it. Messages sent to others about you can show a pattern of turning people against you, but they are the recipients' conversations too, so how they are collected, and whether those people will confirm them, matters. Talk to your lawyer about whether and how to use them.
Hearing secondhand what someone is saying about you is painful. The useful response is quiet and organized.
What it looks like
- Messages to your parents or siblings calling you unstable, a liar or a danger to the children.
- Messages to a new partner, warning them off or sharing private details.
- Messages to friends asking them to take sides, or to report back on you.
Pulling other people into the conflict is a pattern of its own; see triangulation in texts.
Collecting them properly
- Ask the recipient not to delete anything, and not to reply in anger.
- Ask for screenshots that show the sender's name and number and the dates, or an export of the whole conversation.
- Write down who received what, and when you found out.
- Ask whether they would be willing to confirm the messages if needed. Some won't want to be involved; respect that, and tell your lawyer.
Don't fire back
Replying through relatives, or posting your side online, adds your words to the record and pulls more people in. One calm message to the person spreading it, or none at all, is usually enough; your lawyer can tell you which.
How these messages fit a case
The other parent's own statements offered against them are often not hearsay, but someone has to show the messages are genuine, usually the person who received them. See are text messages hearsay? and authenticating text messages. Whether any of it is legally actionable on its own is a question for a lawyer.
Putting it in order
Your own conversation with the other parent is the record you control. Verity reads your export in your browser, without uploading it, numbers every message in date order and flags patterns such as triangulation; with a recipient's permission, their export can be numbered the same way.
This is general information, not legal advice. If you are in danger, call 911; the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788.
Keep your own record in order
Drop in your export and read every message numbered in date order. It is read in your browser and is not uploaded.