Q. Last Christmas we got our 10-year-old daughter an iPad.  My husband set it up for her and she is connected to his iCloud and iTunes account.  He recently logged in to let her make a Christmas song playlist.  But now all of my husband’s texts come to her iPad.

She had it on the kitchen counter playing music while I was preparing dinner. Suddenly I saw a bunch of messages pop up between my husband and his co-worker.  I scrolled through and discovered they have clearly been involved in an intimate relationship for a long time.  There was discussion about last years Christmas gifts to each other and luxury vacation (I thought he was in Singapore for business two weeks following Christmas – I was very wrong).

What is the best way to preserve what I am seeing so I can prove he is having an affair when I look for a lawyer after the holidays?

A. First of all, you do not have to prove he is having an affair to get divorced. The bigger issue here is how much of the marital assets he is spending on the girlfriend – giving her gifts and traveling to exotic destinations with her.  When you eventually do file, you will need to ask for discovery of his credit cards and bank accounts to quantify how much he really spent on her so that you can be made whole on his wasting of marital assets.

When you are next alone with access to the iPad, scroll through the device and take screen shots.  In that way you can show when you did it and how you accessed the messages so that when he does accuse you of hacking into his phone, you can clearly show you did no such thing.  Change the password on your phone so he does not inadvertently encounter your photos and if you have a shared iCloud account which backs up your photos, go to the Apple store and get someone to help you get your own iCloud account to prevent any back up of your photos to a cloud he can access.  And check out that shared iCloud account to see what else might be backed up there.

Whatever pops up on a family iPad – especially one in a child’s possession is fair game.  However, you don’t want your child to see discover dad’s activities.  Act quickly to document the evidence, then add your child’s iPad to your iCloud account.

Email questions to whickey@brickjones.com