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Spy Gear: What is your Partner Using to Monitor You?

Unfortunately, it happens in some relationships where one person is unfaithful to another. If you suspect that your spells or significant other are cheating on you then this is a huge blow to the level of trust that the two of you have for one another. Whether the relationship can continue likely requires some degree of intervention or direct questioning about the cheating. Very few among us could continue with a relationship where they believe that there is significant other is cheating on them. This is true whether in a marriage or dating relationship.

In the world of Texas family law, this is a question that typically arises more so in divorce cases than in child custody cases. The reason being is that cheating and infidelity typically do not factor into child custody cases to the extent that it does and a divorce. In divorce cases, cheating and infidelity that only impacts conservatorships discussions if you have children but also issues related to the division of your community estate. For example, what if your spouse spent a great deal of money on their significant other? Buying gifts, trips, and things of this nature could have resulted in a wasting of community assets and a great blow to the finances of your family. This is in addition to the psychological in emotional components of cheating.

We are likely all familiar with television and movies where one person suspected another of cheating on him or her. Sometimes the plot line of the movie or television show revolved around the innocent partner going to extreme lengths to determine whether or not cheating was occurring. Dressing up, hiding out, and generally going to a lot of trouble to determine whether cheating was going on can be entertaining for us as viewers but in real life can be disheartening to have to experience.

In a divorce scenario, the assumption for most people that I have encountered as an attorney is that if you can discover proof of infidelity or adultery in a marriage that this proof certainly assists you in gaining an advantage in your divorce. However, while this can be true, it is not always the case. In some circumstances, the evidence that you acquire may tend to show that adultery has occurred. What you and your attorney would need to focus on is whether this evidence is admissible in your court case and can be used to bolster your arguments.

Much of the time, evidence that you obtain during a divorce regarding infidelity could be determined to be admissible by a family court judge. This means that the evidence that has been discovered may not pass certain thresholds in terms of being able to make its way into the official evidence of your case. There are lots of reasons why this may be true. Today’s blog post is not going to focus on why evidence may not be able to make its way into admissible evidence in your divorce. If you have questions about the admissibility of certain evidence, you have dug up then you should contact the attorneys with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan today. We can talk to you about your divorce, and your circumstances and discuss the admissibility of evidence in a divorce. Specifically, we can focus our attention on what a family court judge but likely rule regarding the evidence that you have in your possession showing infidelity.

On the other hand, the subject of today’s blog post is going to be based on what technology is available currently to keep track of a spouse that may be cheating on you. The blog post could be written from the opposite vantage point as to what technology is your spouse using to monitor your habits and keep track of you in your daily life. Whatever vantage point is more appropriate for you in your relationship is how you should view today’s blog post.

Our office does not specifically endorse any of these methods. Rather, we are simply pointing out that there are technological advantages that you can avail yourself of currently. Hooking up paint cans to the rear bumper of your spouse’s vehicle and poking a hole in the bottom to show where he or she goes at night is no longer necessary. However, there are moral, ethical, and legal objections that can be made to these types of data collection and tracking that we are going to go through today. Ultimately, you come on your family and your attorney needs to be comfortable with the evidence that you procure using these methods.

Since all of us are in different situations and have different perspectives when it comes to our ethical and unethical behavior, I imagine that most of us will have different positions to take on this subject. However, we wanted to merely highlight some of the more interesting ways that people are keeping tabs on one another these days. If you have specific legal questions about evidence or utilizing one of these methods of tracking, then you should contact the Law Office of Bryan Fagan today. Our licensed family law attorneys can offer you a free of charge consultation six days a week in person, over the phone, and via video. These consultations are a great way for you to learn more about the world of Texas family law as well as about how your family circumstances may be impacted by the filing of a divorce or child custody case.

To spy or not to spy, that is the question

For some of you reading this blog post, the idea of tracking or spying on your spouse gives you a sick feeling in your stomach. Marriage is supposed to be built on a foundation of trust and if you have misgivings about the behavior of your spouse then you may feel like you are already in a losing position. This is before you utilize any of the information that you can find in this blog post or any other news article on the Internet. Your marriage was supposed to be one where any problems you faced were faced together in a collaborative environment with your spouse. Finding yourself reading a family law blog post regarding spying on your spouse is not exactly where you envisioned your relationship ending up.

still, others reading this blog post likely have fewer misgivings about learning as much as they can about spying and keeping tabs on a spouse. For example, you may have been cheated on earlier in your relationship and now are looking to build a divorce case. It is a reality in many relationships where you may have overlooked or even forgiven your spouse for cheating on you previously only to find that over months or years that recollection of the cheating never got any easier for you in that you are forgiveness may have been temporary. With that said, it may have been easy for you, relatively speaking, to forgive your spouse at the moment but long-term forgiveness may have proven to be difficult. As a result, rather than forgiving with little hope of reconciliation, you are now trying to build a case for divorce to protect yourself and your young children.

Quote shin, no matter what side of the debate you fall on what we ask ourselves in this blog post is to what extent you can start to collect data and information on your spouse. There are likely legal considerations to this discussion such as what methods are illegal in which ones are permitted by law both in the United States and in Texas specifically. On top of that, we also need to consider your budget, level of know-how when it comes to technology, and the methods that are available to you. Simply put, which method would be most effective for you or your spouse to utilize when it comes to collecting the information? This would seem to be an important factor when determining when or even if to utilize one of these data collection methods. It is not enough to want to or be willing to spend money to keep tabs on your spouse. The reality of the situation is that if you are going to go through the effort to try to do so then you will want your efforts to produce something tangible.

Today we will walk through some of the more common and budget-friendly methods of monitoring your spouse. The information contained in today’s blog post is, again, not an endorsement of any of these methods. Our attorneys do not encourage our clients to utilize methods like this in their divorce and frankly, it is not commonplace to see people use these types of methods to collect evidence of any wrongdoing in a divorce case. However, I think it is an interesting subject, to say the least, and you do see it happen in divorce cases from time to time. With that said, let’s walk through some of these more evolved ways of information and data collection that may become a part of your and your spouse’s divorce case.

Using drone technology

I’m not exactly sure when drones became more visible and commonplace in our society, but it seems like everyone has a family member or friend who is into drone technology. Drones allow you to take photographs of landscapes, real estate, and other targets remotely. The operator of the drone we’d have a remote control on the ground and send the drone up into the sky. Of course, drones also have military and non-information collection uses, as well. However, we will focus our attention on how drones can be used to collect data in the context of a divorce case.

Hooking a camera up to your drone and then flying the drone into the skies is not Uncommon to see currently. Many people in our area operate successful businesses where they will take photographs of real estate, for example, for real estate companies or people trying to sell their homes. There are also elements of drone technology that you can use in a divorce. There are drones and other small aircraft that have built-in cameras used for the express purpose of taking photographs. The degree to which the photographs are clear were the availability to have video taken from the skies depends largely on your budget and the drone that you attempt to use.

Bear in mind that most people who fly drones will tell you that there is a steep learning curve when it comes to using particular types of technology like this. It can be difficult to simply go on the Internet, purchase drone technology and then immediately deploy it to benefit you in a divorce. We would also need to consider the situations where utilizing this technology is beneficial. For example, hiding out in your neighbor’s backyard and flying a drone over your home where you suspect your spouse is having an affair sounds good in theory but in practice, it could be obvious that a drone is hovering above the house during these rendezvous’ sessions. As a result, you may want to rethink your methods of information collection.

Additionally, jumping online or going to the store to purchase a drone may not be in your budget. The last thing you want to do is spend a substantial chunk of money on a drone only to find that it was not able to collect the information that you desired or that the information collected was not admissible in a courtroom. The result would be you have to justify to your spouse how and why the money spent on the drone was utilized. Therefore, this would seem to be a much better option for those of you who have the technology already available to you. Purchasing an expensive drone for the specific purpose of obtaining information about your spouse does not necessarily make sense for many of us.

Keystroke technology

One of the most common ways for technology to be utilized regarding cheating during a marriage relates to computers and cell phones. One interesting and sad aspect of the pandemic from a family law attorney’s perspective is that the pandemic has increased people’s usage of social media. While social media can be used for good purposes it is often used for negative reasons when it comes to divorce scenarios. You may be surprised to learn that a relatively high percentage of marital infidelity begins with social media. Seemingly innocent attempts to reconnect with significant others or friends from high school can result in cheating and infidelity.

As a result, social media use and divorce cases should be closely monitored. I am not saying that every venture on the Internet could be an example of cheating by your spouse, but it is something potentially new to monitor especially if your spouse is not the type to use the Internet for much in the way of performing daily activities. In that case, it may pay to have a discussion with your spouse, informally, about social media and any concerns that you have about him or her using it. You may come to find out that your concerns were overblown based on nothing. However, you may also come to find that you have legitimate concerns based on the conversation.

All of this can be done before using any of the technology or engaging in any of the actions that we have discussed so far in today’s blog post. It is not always necessary to use technology or even go to great lengths to keep an eye on your spouse and their activities. In many cases, you can nip in the bud any of these issues that you are encountering and avoid the need for a divorce. However, that takes some commitment from both you and your spouse as well as the ability to have open and honest communication. As with most things in a marriage it is a two-way street to do this.

However, there are keystroke logging techniques, software, and other means to be able to keep track of the keystrokes on a computer. There are also external ways to track the keystrokes of your spouse on their cell phone. Older methods would have been to use a USB device to plug directly into a wireless keyboard or into the computer itself. However, in this day and age, you can find technology like this available to download onto the computer itself where nothing is visible to your spouse. However, remember that all of this is a two-way street where your spouse may be willing to do the same things regarding your Internet usage as you are considering regarding theirs.

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Other Articles you may be interested in:

  1. Can I Sue My Ex for Hacking My Computer in My Texas Divorce?
  2. Do I Need to Change My Passwords for a Divorce in Texas?
  3. Legalities of spying on a child’s cell phone in Texas
  4. How Social Media Can Hurt You in Divorce
  5. How to handle a cheating spouse in Texas
  6. What is a DWOP or Dismissal for Want of Prosecution in My Divorce or Family Law Case in Texas?
  7. Confidentiality Laws in a Texas Divorce
  8. Spousal Spying FAQs
  9. Cell Phones, Mail, Computers, Spying on your Spouse, and Privacy Rights in a Spring, Texas Divorce
  10. What to do When Your Spouse is Spying on You
  11. Spousal Cyber Spying: Are You At Risk?
  12. Spying on your spouse – What to know in a Texas Divorce
  13. The Dirty Trick of Spousal Spying in a Texas Divorce

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At the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC, the firm wants to get to know your case before they commit to work with you. They offer all potential clients a no-obligation, free consultation where you can discuss your case under the client-attorney privilege. This means that everything you say will be kept private and the firm will respectfully advise you at no charge. You can learn more about Texas divorce law and get a good idea of how you want to proceed with your case.

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