Put Down the Phone!
In this article, we look at why parties going through a divorce will frequently make the same mistakes time and time again when it comes to damaging text messages and lapses in judgment when texting their soon-to-be-ex spouse.
Texting is easy.
“Oops…”
“I didn’t mean to say that”
It takes usually no more than a minute to turn on your phone, get to the text message feature, and put together a vaguely coherent message.
Let’s put an emphasis on vaguely coherent message.
So many times they are usually laden with acronyms and abbreviations, and sometimes very hard to understand if you are on the outside looking in.
But they are easy to send out.
If you were writing a letter, you would have to find paper, a pen, an envelope, a stamp and then sit down and write the letter and sign it and then drop it off in the mail. Obviously this takes considerably more time and usually is met with more thought being put into a letter.
Text messages, on the other hand are sometimes indecipherable.
That is why there are so many of those ‘auto-correct fail’ websites that show all different funny auto-correct mistakes that can really be funny.
But why?
Why, because it is easier and quicker to write something that you barely even read over and then hit SEND.
It’s gone. Never to be seen again, well, until you read it and realize that you made a big mistake that can’t be taken back.
That is exactly what we see in family law and divorces all the time.
When you are going through a divorce, emotions are high.
It is really hard. It weighs on your psyche and it makes you act and do things that you might now always do.
So if you couple that with a smartphone, usually you are bound to cause some hysteria.
So what do we caution people to do?
SLOW DOWN. THINK. TAKE A DEEP BREATH.
Don’t just race though the text message if the thought just popped into your head.
If you want to write it, then write it, but let it sit for a while.
Come back to your phone in 30 minutes and see if it is still a good idea to send it.
This is very helpful for emails, and something we would recommend doing is not putting the email address into the email so you don’t accidentally or impulsively hit send. Wait to put the email address in after you have let it sit for a little while.
SLOW DOWN. THINK. TAKE A DEEP BREATH.
Texting during divorce – Be careful!
If you have children together, you need to keep some form of communication between you and your spouse, but BE CAREFUL as all of these text messages are captured … in writing … forever!
So the moral is,
