Child Support & Custody Support Group

This community is dedicated to those involved in child support and custody cases. There are a myriad of challenges involved in any case and this is a safe place to talk about what you're going through with others who may be going through the same. Join the group and seek advice, find or provide a listening ear, or just share your feelings in this support group.

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mrschizzy 06/30/2011

My husband won custody of his youngest son 2 years ago, with it being finalized a year ago when she consented to the temporary agreement that the judge put in place in 2009. This woman always has an excuse for everything and she is totally irresponsible and unreliable. My stepson is special needs and she constantly cancels his tutoring and occupational therapy at the last minute. These are things that are court-ordered and she's also supposed to be contacting my husband before she cancels an appointment to see if he can get their son to his appointments. She is also supposed to pay a portion of his expensees for tutoring, activities, etc. She was regular with payments until last summer when she got "fired" from her summer job (she's not a teacher, but she works in the school system) and she fell behind on paying us for her son's services. She currently owes $742 in back pay for that. Outside of that she was not paying any child support and she refused to come to an agreement on a figure with my husband, so she forced it to court and my husband asked for child support to include her portion of the extra expenses because she hadn't been paying them. Even though my husband makes about $1200 more per month than she does, the child support order had her paying $542 a month. Now it's 4 months later and she wants a reduction because she is "unemployed" over the summer and because her job was cut from 35 hours per week to 25 hours per week (less than part time). Well, she's not really unemployed over the summer because she has the option to spread her pay out over 12 months and she doesn't. She should also not be able to get away with paying child support on a part time salary when she was working full time and is able to work full time and my husband has to work full time to support the family! Why is it fair for her to get to work part time and pay lower child support when my husband can't do that? She's always moaning about her car being unreliable, blah blah blah. She does have an old car, but the point is, she's always got an excuse. It's someone else's fault or it is her car's fault, or whatever. I can't believe she wants to drag this crap back to court after only 4 months of paying child support. He is her child and she should support him financially just the way my husband would be expected to! My husband sent an email to his caseworker that notified him of the hearing and he cc'd his attorney on the email as an "FYI" and apparently the caseworker went back to my husband's ex and told her that his attorney was copied on the email and now she is telling my husband not to involve his lawyer. What the heck? It is none of her business who he copies on his emails and was it legal for the caseworker to disclose that to her??? I'm so sick of the court mess and all of this drama!

satcom66 06/30/2011

I. don't know about your specific state laws but basically, no, it is not reasonable for your husband to work full time and his ex to work part time. She needs a really good reason for this.

What you want to do is have her income "imputed". It's her choice if she wants to work less but you can probably ask the court to calculate support based on her ability to earn, not what she actually earns. You will probably need to prove there are jobs available and she's qualified for them. Definitely involve the attorney. Even a letter from him might convince her to back down.

deleted_user 07/01/2011

There's no need for imputing of income. There's already an order of child support, and what needs to come now is contempt, incarceration, and a purge amount. Courts do it to men every day; do it to women as well. Child support is the right of the child, not the right of the payee and children are entitled to financial support from both parents. Sorry, but it's NOT her choice to not work, if she has a child to support. The court will easily grant a motion for an order directing the payor to become employed, and within a specific period of time. If the payor fails, then he/she is subject to incarceration for contempt, and a purge amount of the total amount in arrears. I will agree with satcom66 in that you need counsel. If you can't afford counsel, then both you and your husband need to get as educated as possible in the law and the local statutes governing child support, so you can make the best possible legal argument. Check with your local court; in my jurisdiction there are attorneys at the court that will consult with you for a very reasonable fee ($60.00 per hour).

Mrschizzy, you and my wife should trade war stories. I have a 7 year old daughter, of whom I recently won custody. She had been living with me since June, 2010, but the final order came on February of this year. My ex-wife has been unemployed for three years and even the court realized she refuses to become employed. Fortunately, my law practice allows me to support my daughter 100% and I really do not need child support. But, when I didn't have custody, I paid enough in child support, and did everything for my daughter, including, but not limited to, doing her homework during the weekends of visitation (her mother would not do it), and take her to the doctor and buy her medications, also because her mother would not do it. I even made full childcare payments while my daughter went to Kindergarten and first grade, because I didn't want to deal with my own court battle (I go to court enough as it is). Now, when my ex-wife is ordered to pay support, she'll be approximately 25K in arrears from the get go, for all the credits I was given (for overpayment of child support) when my daughter came to live with me.

Your husband is not alone Mrschizzy. It's not a situation often contemplated, or seen, but it does happen. Ironically, dead beat mothers are no different, asides from their gender, than dead bead fathers. I despise them both.

Good luck to you!!! Let me know if I can help in any way.

SG62

mrschizzy 07/01/2011

We live in North Carolina and here, there is the Child Support Enforcement agency (CSE). They have an attorney who represents them on their cases and that is free of charge to anyone who uses them to seek support. The other major benefit to going through CSE is that they set up wage garnishment, so her payments come directly out of her check when she does earn income and they also have the right to intercept tax returns to cover arrears. The question is not will we be represented, but by whom because we do have the choice to involve our own attorney to work with CSE. My husband has experienced definite bias by the case workers with CSE and in the past has not felt like he was being given the same attention to his case that a woman would receive. He got so upset after one of his meetings with his last case worker that our attorney offered to send a letter to the director of CSE and so he did and he got a new case worker assigned and she did a good job in establishing the order that exists right now. Now he has a different case worker and she is obviously not much on email because she hasn't returned any of his messages (he only sent 2 in a week) and he finally called her yesterday and she confirmed she had gotten the emails (how hard is it to respond??) Anyway, she seems to understand the case and did tell my husband that she had a conversation with the mother and told her that it is her responsibilty to pay and that she should stretch her paychecks out over 12 months, We will see what happens, I guess. Our attorney wants $1000 to take care of it for us and I'm not sure we can come up w/that amount of money in enough time for him to handle this. I don't really want her to go to jail, I just want her to accept her responsibility. It's nice to know I am not alone in dealing with this! I'm just afraid the court will take "pity" on her and go easy just because she is a woman. I sure hope not...

deleted_user 07/02/2011

You are definitely not alone on your frustration level. I am a witness to the fact that the courts are not always easy on females. Some people just know how to get away with more. Does this woman have a high conflict personality? My ex is unemployed and I (the mother) am expected to pay him child support even though I have 72% custody. I'm also expected to pay for part of his attorney fees even though I can no longer afford my own. He also owes me over a grand for a small claims judgement I won. And he's ex-military...what a disgrace. He seems to think that the rules only apply to everyone around him, but not himself. He really is sick in the head and it's very unfortunate for our daughter.

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