spouses and illegitimate children Community Group
Dealing with your spouse not only having an affair but a child as a result and how it affects your day to day life and the lives of your children.
It's been a while. I check in to lurk and never post, it seems.
Back in the first year, a couple of gals suggested I claim CS from my H to lower the OW's.
We couldn't, because we were a military family and filing a separation would have cost us our housing allowance and our home on post, among other things.
husband left the military and wound up with a low-paying job. I had to find a part-time job myself just to make ends meet. And even now, the ends aren't really meeting. They adjusted his support payments, but it's still more than we can take. We can't even pay our rent right now!
In our state, it says you are not required to file for divorce or even separation to file for CS, though they say we should be living separately. All of the bills are in my name. We even have separate bank accounts. So it wouldn't be hard to say so.
But I just don't know. I have issues doing things like this. But we're going to wind up homeless again if we don't- and with two children this time.
Are any of the gals who claim CS from their H while still together still in here to talk to?
Back in the first year, a couple of gals suggested I claim CS from my H to lower the OW's.
We couldn't, because we were a military family and filing a separation would have cost us our housing allowance and our home on post, among other things.
husband left the military and wound up with a low-paying job. I had to find a part-time job myself just to make ends meet. And even now, the ends aren't really meeting. They adjusted his support payments, but it's still more than we can take. We can't even pay our rent right now!
In our state, it says you are not required to file for divorce or even separation to file for CS, though they say we should be living separately. All of the bills are in my name. We even have separate bank accounts. So it wouldn't be hard to say so.
But I just don't know. I have issues doing things like this. But we're going to wind up homeless again if we don't- and with two children this time.
Are any of the gals who claim CS from their H while still together still in here to talk to?
I had filed for a legal separation, not divorce, from my husband and claimed maintenance and child support for my 2 kids and me. I did that to control how much she would get in the future from us. I had my support order lined up and my husband took a pay cut at work by switching shifts and positions. I was claiming over 50% of my husbands net income. We had some drama go down with the OW and she ended up taking us back to court to try and get her support raised as punishment. Her last words to me were "I want nothing more then to see you and your d#&n kids on the street struggling." She's said that to me so many times. She had no idea what I had done. Because my husbands net income had changed and now he had another court ordered child support issued to me, hers got lowered. She is now fighting us in court trying to prove we are not legally separated. Almost impossible to do. We have separate accounts and everything else is separated as well. Technically, I guess we are in a lot of ways.
It has been hell this year in court, I'm not gonna lie. Her attorney is out for blood. Our final court date is at the end of this month. It doesn't look like her support will be raised any so now they are trying to get my husband to cover her legal fees. I pray that doesn't happen. Like you, we live paycheck to paycheck and almost lost our home as well. I didn't have any issues doing what I did. I don't like the idea of separating from my husband. That bugs me but then I remember i'm protecting my family and our financial future. It just sucks going back to court so much. It keeps the affair alive in some respects. I have had no time to heal or move on. That's hard. At least I know from here on out I have control on how much she gets. Whenever my husband is going to get a raise, I'll be the first to know. I'll modify my support order before she can. She will not get a penny more if I can help it. She doesn't use the funds for the child. She uses it to buy her designer clothes and Starbucks everyday. $250 per month in coffee. My kids go without so much but she can get her daily caffeine fix. Makes me so mad!
If I had to do it again, I would do the same thing. My life, my finances, my marriage and my family have all been publically scrutinized. She has been allowed by the state of Illinois to see all but I don't get to see anything even though this affects me and my kids as well. I finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank goodness!!
Because she started college, her parents allowed her and the OC to move back in with them. So she has been living rent free and getting daycare for free from her mother (WHO IS A FREAKING PASTOR AT A CHURCH) and continued to fight to raise the support. I told H to go into court and tell them he wanted proof of "Daycare" expenses, because the state forces him to pay 75% of daycare costs when under 4. But he never did. Now the kid is 4 years old, so the daycare option is being taken from her (because now she qualifies for state funded preschool).
From what I have seen on her facebook, she gets her weave done all the freaking time, gets her nails done, and has recently whined about how she doesn't like the new update for her iPhone 5. Without rent, utilities, or daycare to pay, I'm sure I know where my H's money is going. And it makes me fume.
My son is 7, my daughter is 14 months. It is December 8th and we have yet to be able to buy a single Christmas gift, or even a tree for them. My son doesn't even have bedroom furniture- just a mattress and a dresser. All because we can't afford to buy him a new (or even used from a yard sale group) bedroom set! We can't even make all of the rent or bills. H just contacted the DA to fax them a copy of our rental agreement, showing our home is $925 a month and his pay is only $1600 a month! We recently made a withdrawal from our kids' savings account I have so that he could keep gas in the car to get to and from work. I cried my eyes out.
Our lease agreement has both of our names on it, but our utilities are in mine and everything is tethered to my bank account. Aside from his suits in the closet... it really doesn't look like he lives here. His paychecks are direct deposited to my account, though, since I am the financial budgeter.
I want to see that light, too. I want to be able to fix my son's bedroom so he can invite his new friends from his new school to sleep over. I want to be able to buy he and his sister gifts for Christmas. I want to be able to reward him with a toy he's been wanting for getting good grades... it's always "I'm sorry, honey, we don't have the money. We'll get it later." And later never comes. I had the shame of asking my sister in law to buy my son a new pair of shoes and new pants since he has grown out of his old ones, and we don't even have the money to buy him any from the thrift store.
I just want to call the DA and scream "THE LEGITIMATE CHILDREN ARE IMPORTANT TOO, YOU KNOW!"
But in our state, they do not recognize the legitimate family at all. Nor do they consider them. The woman on the line told me "The only way we can help you is if you separate from your spouse and file for child support, yourself." So much for the sanctity of marriage... All that legal binding mumbo jumbo they spew in the courthouse when you get married, and the contract signing... only to say your marriage doesn't matter when someone else jumps in.
Not hey. Stupid phone.
If they were truly looking to do what's right for their child, they would step back and make the situation as harmonious as possible. Be remirseful humble and kind. Give that child every opportunity to grow up knowingtheir father .
Instead they push and push just to achieve revenge. If the man chose his wife and existent family over you, accept that. Move on and find a way to raise your child with reasonable child support. Be fair and reasonable they may just find it works.
My Mother, in her infinite wisdom, left my father due to emotional and verbal abuse- plus he was constantly cheating. She could have taken him for $1,800 a month in child support for my sister and I (he makes a lot of money), and when the courts showed him what she could take from him, he freaked out. My Mother walked up to him and said "I'm not going to take this amount from you. Because I have no idea how you would even manage to survive on what would be left over. And if you can't survive, we can't survive." So she took him for $500 a month. LESS THAN HALF of what the courts told him he should pay! So that he could pay for his condo, his car, and pay off his debt (he had a spending problem and accumulated so much debt, that even with Community Property splitting it between them in the divorce, they still BOTH had to file for bankruptcy) and for his food and utilities and all.
My Mother was smart. If any of the OW had a lick of sense, they would think "Well, as long as he can afford his home payments, utilities, car payments, gas and phone bills so that he can keep up with work, I will continue to get money."
With H's first job he got when he first got out of the military, he was making such good money! But he had to commute to get to work. Between the $400 in gas and tolls to get to work and the $765 they had lowered the child support to to get to work... we couldn't keep up with any of our bills and lost the first place we had moved into. He had to leave that job because we couldn't survive and I couldn't get a job myself with him having to drive that far away. All because she kept fighting for the highest amount she could get with each job. =(
All of these women are vengeful. None of them are reasonable.
How is this happening? Well, it turns out the little b---- is so angry about having her support payments lowered, she turned around and filed again and the state went with what he was previously paying. Great. Unfreakingbelievable.
If you go forward with the separation, change your husbands direct deposit, change any life insurance policies that he might own. Change ownership to you. Get his name off any of your kids accounts. In my case they subpoenaed all of their statements in hopes of proving my husband had money stashed somewhere. I recently went back to work this year because we couldn't afford the child support on one income, they tried to take my income as well until they realized that I filed legal separation and they couldn't touch it. Make sure you have a reason for any large deposits in your accounts (borrowed funds from family) in my case they tried to argue that as income as well. We borrowed money from my mom and uncle. They failed miserably at trying to prove that. Just protect yourself. Consider all resources that they might use against you or your husband. Maybe ask an attorney if you can have her bank statements subpoenaed to show the courts where your husbands money is really going. It's worth a shot. In Illinois they don't look at her income. She could be making a $100,000 a year, not have any debts, money in the bank and they would still make my husband pay just as much in support. Despite his financial situation. It's legalized robbery.
My thoughts and prayers are with you. ((Hugs))
This is also why they do not consider the legitimate family as part of his financial needs, though. They made the law to protect spousal income, but the backlash is not being considered at all. :(
I'm sitting here, right now, with the child support application in my hands.
I left my part time job due to them cutting hours twice and then losing my husband's family as my babysitters. I figured our income and bills. Just for our rent, electric, water, and phone on just H's income, we are $500 in the hole because of OW. They never readjusted his payments after he got his lower paying job. We have harassed his case worker, called the hotlines, gone to the courthouse... it's been months and they are still pulling $800 out of H's paycheck, which is $1600 a month before taxes. All for her.
We can't survive. We have no healthcare. We're on foodstamps. H has had to borrow money for gas to even get to work. I didn't think we could fall any further, but we most definitely did.
What I'm struggling with now is how I feel about filing for child support. Technically, H has to be living elsewhere for me to receive it. My struggle is that I'm not sure I want to pretend, anymore. He lost the big promotion he was up for. He passed up all the better paying jobs because he wants to be home more, so he would rather make $10 an hour than to kill himself trying to protect our kids and keep us afloat like I've been trying to do (I've been looking for another job ever since, but I have no skills. He had me stay home with kids while I followed him everywhere in the military... Nobody wants me.) and I just feel like... I don't even know.