FUMING!!!!!
I am so angry right now I'm not even sure how I'm seeing straight to type this. I'll give some background so you'll understand why I'm so mad.
A's father and I met when I was 21 and on the rebound from a very ill advised, too-young-to-know-better, abusive marriage. I was in the process of getting divorced after finally getting fed up and finding the courage to get out. My father had died a couple of months before and I found out that while I was in Florida for my dad's time in the ICU and eventual funeral, my husband, back in Texas, had been out with 3 different women. He even took one of them to the movies the night my dad died and didn't call me until 2 days later. My ex was a real peach.
Anyway, I met A's father and he seemed nice, treated me better than my ex, took me to nice places, etc. Six months into the relationship, I found out I was pregnant shortly after finding out he had a crack problem. (I could sure pick 'em when I was young) I had just gotten him to go into treatment the week before I found out I was pregnant. To make a very long story short, we stayed "together", but never living together or married because he lived in a halfway house for recovering addicts, for 2 years after our son was born. Then I finally decided that if I was going to be a single parent anyway, I might as well not have to deal with his bs at the same time. I walked away and had no intention of ever looking back. But being the control freak he was and still is, he decided to try to sue me for custody of A. Needless to say, he didn't get it. What he did get was an order to pay child support in the amount of $365.25 pre month, or $170.42 every 2 weeks.
Fast forward close to 15 years and that's still what I receive in child support. In those 15 years, he has managed to stay clean and now makes a very nice living as a lobbyist (perfect career choice for this slime ball, believe me). Over the years, he has played games with the support and had it not been for our local support enforcement agency, I'm sure he would have stopped paying entirely. Last year, I talked to him about increasing the amount of support he was paying, since A is now in high school and his needs are much greater now than they were when he was 2. We agreed on an increase of less than I had asked for but more than he wanted to pay, but it seemed reasonable ($700 a month). I asked him to draw up an agreement with the new amount and he said it wasn't necessary. Shortly after that, I found out that he had cancelled A's prepaid college plan and gotten a refund on it 8 years ago and never bothered to say anything. So, A is now less than a year from going to college and his college fund is non-existent. That upset me a bit.
So I hired a lawyer to get the college fund taken care of and I mentioned the child support adjustment. She informed me that our state has specific guidelines for child support based on income and the reason he didn't want to draw up an agreement is that working for a law firm like he does now, he knew that the amount we agreed to was not within the guidelines. So she said she would take care of getting the child support modified at the same time she got the college fund straightened out. (FYI - our mediation agreement way back when specified that he would pay for the prepaid college fund for A. It's not something that is normally required but it was part of our agreement and A has been counting on having that money to go to a state university). The lawyer first wrote him a letter in July to try to get this settled without going to court and all that. He responded by filing a bar complaint against her with some of the craziest allegations my lawyer or I have ever heard. That upset me a bit too.
Today, after months of trying to get information out of him, I finally received his financial affidavit. It's kind of ironic that it came in the mail on the same day I received my usual child support check for $170.42 (it comes every 2 weeks thanks to support enforcement). His affidavit states that me makes ............... are you ready for this???? $279,000.00 a year or about $23,253 a month or $10,796 every 2 weeks!! But yet this is the same guy that cut A's child support back to the original $170.42 every 2 weeks when he got my lawyer's letter. He's sitting there crying poor mouth and sending less money to his son than what he spends on dry cleaning and haircuts a month (according to his financial affidavit). That totally pisses me off!!!
So now I'm going for the jugular. He's going to pay back child support to at least this time last year when he first agreed that child support should increase. He's going to pay me back for all the health insurance I paid that he was supposed to provide but never did. He's going to pay me back for all the medical expenses I paid that he was supposed to pay 70% of but he never did, no matter how many times I asked. He's going to PAY!!!!
Can you blame me??
A's father and I met when I was 21 and on the rebound from a very ill advised, too-young-to-know-better, abusive marriage. I was in the process of getting divorced after finally getting fed up and finding the courage to get out. My father had died a couple of months before and I found out that while I was in Florida for my dad's time in the ICU and eventual funeral, my husband, back in Texas, had been out with 3 different women. He even took one of them to the movies the night my dad died and didn't call me until 2 days later. My ex was a real peach.
Anyway, I met A's father and he seemed nice, treated me better than my ex, took me to nice places, etc. Six months into the relationship, I found out I was pregnant shortly after finding out he had a crack problem. (I could sure pick 'em when I was young) I had just gotten him to go into treatment the week before I found out I was pregnant. To make a very long story short, we stayed "together", but never living together or married because he lived in a halfway house for recovering addicts, for 2 years after our son was born. Then I finally decided that if I was going to be a single parent anyway, I might as well not have to deal with his bs at the same time. I walked away and had no intention of ever looking back. But being the control freak he was and still is, he decided to try to sue me for custody of A. Needless to say, he didn't get it. What he did get was an order to pay child support in the amount of $365.25 pre month, or $170.42 every 2 weeks.
Fast forward close to 15 years and that's still what I receive in child support. In those 15 years, he has managed to stay clean and now makes a very nice living as a lobbyist (perfect career choice for this slime ball, believe me). Over the years, he has played games with the support and had it not been for our local support enforcement agency, I'm sure he would have stopped paying entirely. Last year, I talked to him about increasing the amount of support he was paying, since A is now in high school and his needs are much greater now than they were when he was 2. We agreed on an increase of less than I had asked for but more than he wanted to pay, but it seemed reasonable ($700 a month). I asked him to draw up an agreement with the new amount and he said it wasn't necessary. Shortly after that, I found out that he had cancelled A's prepaid college plan and gotten a refund on it 8 years ago and never bothered to say anything. So, A is now less than a year from going to college and his college fund is non-existent. That upset me a bit.
So I hired a lawyer to get the college fund taken care of and I mentioned the child support adjustment. She informed me that our state has specific guidelines for child support based on income and the reason he didn't want to draw up an agreement is that working for a law firm like he does now, he knew that the amount we agreed to was not within the guidelines. So she said she would take care of getting the child support modified at the same time she got the college fund straightened out. (FYI - our mediation agreement way back when specified that he would pay for the prepaid college fund for A. It's not something that is normally required but it was part of our agreement and A has been counting on having that money to go to a state university). The lawyer first wrote him a letter in July to try to get this settled without going to court and all that. He responded by filing a bar complaint against her with some of the craziest allegations my lawyer or I have ever heard. That upset me a bit too.
Today, after months of trying to get information out of him, I finally received his financial affidavit. It's kind of ironic that it came in the mail on the same day I received my usual child support check for $170.42 (it comes every 2 weeks thanks to support enforcement). His affidavit states that me makes ............... are you ready for this???? $279,000.00 a year or about $23,253 a month or $10,796 every 2 weeks!! But yet this is the same guy that cut A's child support back to the original $170.42 every 2 weeks when he got my lawyer's letter. He's sitting there crying poor mouth and sending less money to his son than what he spends on dry cleaning and haircuts a month (according to his financial affidavit). That totally pisses me off!!!
So now I'm going for the jugular. He's going to pay back child support to at least this time last year when he first agreed that child support should increase. He's going to pay me back for all the health insurance I paid that he was supposed to provide but never did. He's going to pay me back for all the medical expenses I paid that he was supposed to pay 70% of but he never did, no matter how many times I asked. He's going to PAY!!!!
Can you blame me??
posted by Ann @ 2:24 PM
10 Comments:
At 11:50 AM,
Anonymous said…
All you're complaining about is money...no offense, but like most custodial mothers, it sounds like that is what motivates you. I get the impression your attorney is handling this and your son's father has plenty of legal ramifications ahead of him. Is your son healthy? Happy? If he is, you really have nothing to fume about because no amount of money can replace bad health or unhappiness. I'm not saying A's father shouldn't pay; you make it sound like "getting him" is more important than your son.
At 1:09 PM,
Ann said…
First of all, I'd appreciate it if you would not comment anonymously. I don't care that express your opinion, even if you attack me, but please have the courtesy of at least identifying yourself. Be man or woman enough to not hide behind "anonymous".
That being said, I probably should have told more of the background, but if you knew me at all, you'd know that money is not that important to me. I was born poor and I'll probably die poor. That doesn't matter to me.
I was a single mom to A for many years and like many single moms I struggled to provide for him, many times working 2 and even 3 jobs.
For almost 15 years, I never asked for any kind of extra help from his father and I had sit back and listen to him tell A that I was using the child support money on myself. I purposely waited until A was older and wouldn't be in a position to have his dad "take it out on him" if I asked for more support. Technically, I could have gone back every 3 years and had the support modified but I knew how he was and I felt that protecting A was more important than whatever extra money I might get out of his father.
Now, A is driving and is a senior in high school and 1 salary (now 1 & 1/2 because I work part time, but child care eats up most of my salary anyway) for 5 people, plus car insurance and all the extras that go along with senior year, just wasn't cutting it. So I asked A's father to help and instead of helping support his son, he lied to me about the college fund, cried about how expensive his new baby is, and attacked me and my lawyer to the bar.
The amount of increase I asked for is less than 1/3 of what the state guidelines say A should get based on his income, and then I even settled for $100 less just to keep the peace. When I found out about the college fund and he flat out lied to me about it, I had no choice but to get a lawyer to make sure A has the money to go to college. All his father had to do was pay the extra $335 a month that we had agreed on for 18 months and make sure A's college fund was in place. With his income, that should have been no problem. Instead, he chose to attack me.
Just as a few examples, he accused me of not caring for my son because I make him do his own laundry. (He's 17 and about to go to college, if he doesn't learn now when is he going to learn? Although I do still fold his clothes, he puts in the washer and dryer and puts it away). He accused me of using A as a live in babysitter and said I only care about my "new family" and that I view A as a burden. He told the bar that he didn't know why I was being "dense" about the college fund and that he was the only one concerned about our child's education because I see no value in a college education since no one in my family ever graduated from college (not true, by the way). He also made statements about it not being his problem that I am "not working and have gambling related problems in my family." (My brother is in Gambler's Anonymous which has absolutely nothing to do with me, A, or his father - he just through that in there to sling mud). That's only a small sampling of the things he has said and done.
You say I "make it sound like 'getting him' is more important than my son." That's not true at all. I'm extremely grateful that my son is healthy and happy and is growing up to be a fine young man that I am very proud to call "son". However, I have plenty of reason to be angry with his father. A deserves to be supported financially, and his father has the ability to do that. What I asked for was extremely reasonable but I got attacked, bad mouthed, cursed at, and maligned to my son by him. So now I'm mad and I want to get even. I'm human, when you cut me I bleed. NO amount of money will make up for what he's said and done but he will pay now.
At 8:15 AM,
Marni said…
I don't think you need to justify your actions against this "anonymous" person. You do what you need to do... make that ass-hat pay for lying to you and denying your son what is rightfully his. Especially that college fund... what a dickhead for doing that to A.
Best of luck! Let us know how it turns out...
At 12:33 PM,
Granny said…
Why are they always anonymous?
I don't attack people on their own blogs but if I were ever to do so I'd have the courage to sign my name.
It's about responsibility of course and anonymous has his head up his butt.
Notice I assume it's a guy?
At 9:41 AM,
ccw said…
Holy shit!
I cannot believe that A's father has the nerve to pay less than $200/month when he makes that much money. I would be furious.
My ex is weird about the child support amount. He has never missed or paid late and frequently gives me extra money for clothes but he is adamant that he amount not be changed even though it's been 6 years and he's had two raises. It makes no sense to me.
As for anon, get a life! The reason to be mad is that A's father is putting money ahead of A. The man took A's college fund. Seriously, he's a sleaze.
At 10:29 AM,
Ann said…
Thanks Marni, Granny and CCW for your support and understanding.
The college fund was definitely what made me go after him. How dare he steal my son's future like that!! I'll keep you updated on how it turns out.
Meanwhile, we should know in a week or two whether or not A was accepted to his first choice for college. He applied for early decision and we're hoping that his 1380 SAT score will help overcome his somewhat weak 3.2 GPA. Fingers crossed!!
At 1:16 AM,
Biddie said…
Go for it, Ann. You don't have to justify yourself to anyone. Good luck!
At 7:21 PM,
Anonymous said…
I am not a guy and I don't have my "head up my butt". I am, however, a stepmother to a wonderful 6 year old girl and my husband dutifully pays child support in addition to us providing her health insurance and saving for her college education. My husband is not required to save for her future but we do it regardless.
I didn't ask for justification and I’m sorry that Ann felt as though she had to justify anything to me. I wasn’t looking for a justification, but more importantly, I do not need one. Likewise, I don’t need to justify my two cents and nor will I. “Comments” are just that. Comments. Two cents. Opinions.
As for posting the comment anonymously, including my name would not give you any more information about me other than what my name "could" be. Would it help if you knew that my name is Stephanie, I am under 30, married, have a stepdaughter, and a daughter who is 6 months. I am a college graduate and, ironically, work in the state child support recovery office.
That being said, ad hominem attacks aren't necessary when all I did was make an observation of how Ann's frustration was coming across. Being the sounding board for a child caught in the middle has given me the opportunity to see matters in a different perspective, that being one of a 6 year old.
Again, I apologize to Ann for offending her and making her feel as though she felt she had to explain herself.
At 1:00 AM,
Ann said…
Stephanie,
I was not offended in general by your comment. In my original post, I probably just should have explained more about why I was so mad at him. It's never been about the money. If it was I would have tried to get it adjusted years ago. I didn't do that for exactly the reason you state, I didn't want A to be caught in the middle of it, especially when he was too young to understand and would have blamed himself for any conflict.
The only part of your comment that offended me was your blanket statement, "like most custodial mothers, it sounds like (money) is what motivates you". That is blalantly unfair to all custodial mothers out there. Sure, there may be some that are only motivated by money and view their kids as a source of income. But most of us struggle to provide for our kids and do without so that our children get what they need, regardless of whether or not or how much the father's contribute.
It sounds like your husband and you are doing wonderful things for your step-daughter and she's very fortunate that you are. But that is not necessarily the "norm" and I'm sure you see mothers on both ends of the spectrum in your work at the state support office.
Unfortunately, I think that also clouds your perspective on the issue, because when you are contacted by the custodial mothers, they are looking for their support checks, so of course all they talk to you about is money. If you had ever been on the other end of that, counting on support to buy your child shoes or clothes or help pay the rent to keep a roof over your child's head because you can't work enough hours to totally support yourself and the child. Or your check was less this week because you took your child to the dr and missed a few hours or a whole day of work. If you ever counted on a check that didn't come because your child's father decided he didn't want to pay right now or changed jobs to avoid paying support, then maybe you'd understand that money is not the MOST important thing, but it is important. I hope you are never in a situation to find out what I'm talking about but I know some of the ladies that commented defending me sure have.
By the way, thanks for reminding me in your comment that having my son happy and healthy is the most important thing. I try to never lose sight of that especially since I see so many very sick children at work, but it's still good to be reminded sometimes.
However, I am still going to make sure A's father pays for what he's done and said.
At 12:19 AM,
Granny said…
Hi and thanks for the comment today and the kind words. We're hanging in somehow and the support of virtual friends helps more than you will ever know.
Ann
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