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Definately check with your state, I have heard that there is generally an age for children of different sex to no longer be able to share a room.  I understand your situation though and have had to get creative for us too.  Dad and I know sleep on the living room pull out couch so the kids have the room they need.

Lynn

We too are currently unemployed and have back child support, and I think that many more NCP's are going to be in the same boat before the economy gets better.

Every state I believe has a low income legal aid.  Call some attorney's and see if they can tell you who that is.  Also see if you have a law college in or near your community.  Most of them have family law clinics where professors and students will help at no or low cost.

Also make sure you have informed the child support office you have been unemployed since "x" date and even though they want you to send them a specific amount and you can't show good faith by sending every dime you CAN.  I don't know if it will be able to stop the suspension, but you will need to try to go to court to try and modify the child support until you are working again.

awakenlynn

I know it doesn't replace the full time you had with your daughter because of your work situation, but at least it looks to be for just a few months.  I would do as the others advised on this post, but maybe talk to the school and do lunch with your child at school once or twice a week and talk to your child's teacher and see if you can be a "room dad"?  It would let you have some time with your daughter even if its not the night time visits and would show the court how serious you are about finding even a few minutes here and there to be in her life until your work schedule is a bit more in your favor.

Lynn

Thank you.  My DH and I are counting down til SD is 18-- 2 yrs and 4 months and child support ends.  Ex is a real pain and always has been.  It has been a month since DH got to talk to his daughter because her cell broke and ex refused to get a new one or to contact us with new information on how to reach either of them.  Unfortunately, we do have arrears at this time and hope to start making small payments on them this next week.  DH is one of the millions laid off, but being in construction we are keeping our fingers crossed that work picks back up in spring.

We can't wait til SD turns 18 and child support ends so we too can have a full paycheck.  But besides that we will know that any money we give SD to help out with college will actually GO to SD and not to mommy's needs.  We too hope that at some time, SD will move closer to us or picks a college in our area.  She has already told us that she can't come live with us now is because she has to take care of her brother and sister--which sadly is true.  Ex hasn't done much to raise any of the kids since SD was about 6.  It was up to here to give the bottle to the babies and change their diapers and responsibility has just increased as she gets older.  She is already so stressed out and busy now she keeps getting sick, her mother has her doing so much advanced work and in sports and extracurricular activities she can't go to bed til after 11pm, works all weekend and has no time to be a teen.  Her mother tells her its all for college, but I just finished college up myself and know most of what she has told her daughter is untrue, all she is doing is wearing her daughter out.  But we keep our fingers crossed and do what we can to support SD until she herself can get out of the situation.

Lynn

Well, we are going to ask for everything and see what we can get.  We talked to the attorney today.  He has to double check some things but we should hear back from him by 12/30!  The courts are swamped.

But I cried alot today.  We only get to see SD 3-4 times a year, so even if we get make-up time later on, ex still won--she got the Christmas visit that she wanted.  She was mad we refused to switch dates unless she stipulated the change and had the judge sign off so this is her way of getting what she wants.

DH spoke to SD, she was upset that she wasn't coming.  We told her we missed her and loved her.  We reminded her that we had had her ticket and had been waiting for her to fly up.  Seems like mommy dearest told her that we hadn't bothered with getting a ticket, but we had told SD weeks ago that we had one purchased and reminded her again.  We told her that if she has any questions we would answer completely and would not lie to her and that we save all of our papers so if she needs it she can look through them.

We told her we would hold her presents here for her (just because if we send them, they won't be good enough according to her mother and most stuff is for her home here).  She was more than happy with that so we can have some 'Christmas" with her even if it is spring break.

We plan on tightening the court order down so ex can't do anything without permission, the only thing she will be able to do is drop SD off at the airport and be happy that it isn't worse for her.  We did the best we could to follow the court order, but I think technically once we told ex the flight that was court ordered didn't exist, she didn't have a choice but to drive SD here.  Since the flight court ordered didn't exist we tried to follow the intent of the court order and keep it as close to as possible and follow ex's wishes to fly SD.  There was absolutely!!! no change in airports for ex, we are the ones that had to go the extra step by driving 5 hours out of our way to ensure that ex flew SD as she wanted.  I am just so sad, this is not going to be a good holiday, we miss SD so much!   

I think that might work; you would break even by taking turns covering a weekend and alternating. 

You said the visits are for 4 hrs, how far away is the driving?  Is maybe bus or train cheaper?

Well, DH got out of work early Friday, we packed up the family and headed to St. Louis.  We blew out a tire halfway there, in-law's came and grabbed the kids.  We kept heading to St. Louis and found out almost there that ex was not putting SD on the plane.  She didn't like the flight so she wasn't going.

We said fine, you are court ordered to fly her or drive her.  Since you are not putting her on the flight then you need to start driving.  She didn't feel like driving so she wasn't going to.  So DH is devastated, her three siblings (all younger) are devastated and I just want to stomp on her.

Hubby talked to attorney Friday, pretty much knowing she was going to do this (2 Christmas's in a row).  Attorney was drawing up the papers and had contacted the judge.  The judge had warned ex not to pull this c***p and had better not see her in court again.  Judge was seriously PO'd.  Ex is going pro se and doesn't know the law, so we are suing for all the costs we lost (gas, airline ticket, tire); I would like the judge to add a bond to each flight for ex to cover when she pulls these stunts and punitive damages (and yes i know that is probably unrealistic) AND to make ex drive her rear drive SD up here for the rest of the court ordered visitation and as an option for her to drive is already available per the existing court order she shouldn't have a problem driving up monday or tuesday.

Lynn

Ex tried the same thing, wanting the money straight to her, but luckily we knew better.  We went straight to the judge and asked for a withholding notice!

We were able to get it, though for the first few weeks while being set up we mailed money orders straight to the child support office.

Now last year she moved things from IL to TX and things got screwed up and both states were taking money.  IL now insists we need DH's pay records (and we plan to get a copy of TX receipts) and present them to the judge to let him know why we hadn't paid.  We couldn't pay because we couldn't afford double the amount per week.

TX knew their order was illegal and didn't care.  So in 2009, we are going to find time to go to the judge and show our records and get IL signed off and closed so ex can't go back later and argue we still owe.

Except for the double support for awhile, we didn't mind it going to TX and again told the court we wanted the withholding notice and we got it.  It took a few months to get started, they had screwed dates and amounts up.  But TX stops CS at age 18 (or graduation of high school whichever is later unless the child doesn't graduate for other reasons) while IL requires the NCP to pay CS through college.

SD is 15 now.  We got our CO finalized in TX in June 2008.  It states we get visitation over the Christmas holiday from 6pm the day the child gets out of school until Dec. 28th on even years.

Ex has until November 1st to let us know if she will be flying or driving SD.  If she drives we are court ordered to meet in a specific city in IL at noon.  If she chooses to fly then its the first available flight after 6pm the day school lets out for the holiday and it must be non-stop.

Ex didn't notify us until 11/3 that she was going to fly SD.  We have been notifying her that the flights that we are supposed to use Dallas to Moline have not been avail for months!  So we picked the next closest airport.  It still leaves from Dallas, but it flies into St. Louis.  Ex finally agreed to the flight saying SD had to fly (ex's husband is coming home from overseas).  So we bought the ticket the same night she agreed.

So we send the ex the flight information as court ordered 10 days prior to the flight.  She waits until Monday--now 4 DAYS before the flight and says she found one Dallas to Moline and if we don't change the flight she won't put her on the flight.  What is the big deal!!!  Either way SD is flying out of Dallas!!!  We had found a flight on the 19th, but ex would have had to pull SD out of school to make the flight and we as NCP's are not allowed to do that.  The second flight is the last flight of the day and according to the airline rules, children cannot fly out the last flight on any day.  She waited so long it will cost at least $500 extra to change the flight and pay the difference.  I don't even have money for Christmas, where am I supposed to find an extra $500!!!

So we contacted our attorney and he told us to mail a letter to ex stating she had agreed to the flight Dallas to St. Louis and that she needs to put SD on the flight.  We also reminded her that the court said she is required to either flyor drive, so if she doesn't put her on the flight, she had better start driving (its a 16 hour drive and usually she drives because ex's family is in IL). 

Ex called throwing a fit earlier wanting to know what we were doing.  DH isn't supposed to answer, but let the voicemail to pick up the message.  He just told her that we mailed (overnighted) a letter to her (it was supposed to be delivered this evening) and reminded her to either fly or drive (nicely).  She doesn't have any other option.  And he hung up when she started her bigger hissy fit.

Now we wait and see.  Our attorney is going to have to go back to court, we don't see any other choice, we have to have some consequences built in when she does this again.

Thanks

Thank you.  She tries this every visit, so most of the time we know it is a bluff, but twice she actually didn't put SD on the flight we had purchased.  One time we called her, she was still in bed and the flight had left 2 hours earlier!

We know we will get some more c**p from her because the flight to get to St. Louis doesn't leave until 8pm and that means she won't get back home til after 11pm.  She doesn't care that it is a 2 way street and that if we drove home ourselves or even to grandparents we have a 3 hour drive ourselves.  She has stated already and a number of times, it has to be to her convenience or she won't do it.  If she feels inconvenienced, she just won't do it regardless of the order.  Thankfully SD is 15 and has gotten wise to her mother.  Unfortunately we have 2 and a half years before SD has graduated and we are fully done with ex.

We are keeping our attorney updated with every step so he can be prepared to go to court as soon as possible.