Messages

My husband has considered family law, hasn't made definite plans yet.  We often discuss his doing pro bono work in family law--for dads who are in the position we are in now....  His ex wife was a bit taken back when he said he was going to do family law--he would just wipe out her attorney and the ex knows it.  A big factor in deciding to go to law school was that we had some really crappy attorneys (not just family law) and my husband simply said, "I can do better than that."  And he will!

As for requesting the modification, I think we will still wait a few weeks until we get standard visitation back.  That alone should drop CS considerably.  Our state has new CS laws, which include parenting time percentages in the calculations; they were enacted shortly after my husband lost his parenting time.  Then we will wait for CSD to do their thing.  It's all a big guessing game.  But I will surely let you know what comes of it.

We are actually in Oregon.  I know the name is confusing--I lived in Oklahoma for a few years and LOVED it!!  

BTW, Oregon plays Oklahoma today in Norman.  Go Ducks!  Go Sooners!

My husband called caseworker back, and she will be sending out a modification form.  Go figure!  My husband did not share many details of the conversation, so I am guessing it was not a very long discussion.  He had mentioned a work-related injury in Jan 2002 which left him on complete disability for 8 months until he was declared "medically stationary."  (He was released to work, but with certain limitations--in construction that doesn't cut it.)  Caseworker says that should have been enough to change CS order.  That's what we thought 18 months ago.  We'll see what happens....

Currently, my biggest frustration with the "system" is that it is not flexible in any way.  OK--so my husband was injured on the job, on disability, and then a became full-time student.  We waited a full year after the          before we applied for modification, then it took CSD 8 months to do anything, and they kept the same amount as what we paid when my husband was working full-time at $14/hour.  Meanwhile, OUR family has had to cut our bills by more than half.  It was our decision to go back to school, and we have made major changes to make it possible.  If SDs were in our home, they would deal with the changes as well--and be more than adequately provided for.  But since they are in BMs home, we are the ones that suffer more.

My SDs are 10 and 11--the days of dealing with CSD stretch out long before me!!  I'm sure BM will jump all over the modification the day my husband graduates from law school.  But who knows, maybe SDs will want to live with Daddy then....

For various reasons, we attempted to have CS modified about 18 months ago--wasn't finalized until exactly a year ago.  CSD did their own thing and decided the amount shouldn't change, we couldn't afford an attorney to appeal, etc. etc.  So we left it there.

My husband is a full-time student.  We live on financial aid and my small income from child care.  So, our CS payments have been very irregular in the past few years.  (Quite frankly, because of our income and our children, our tax return is only about $1200 less than a year of CS--so even IF we paid nothing all year, we wouldn't get TOO far behind.)

We have been trying the past several months to speak with a caseworker about arrears and set something up to begin paying them off, and to avoid other actions by CSD.  We've sent letters, emails, and phone calls and had absolutely no response by the state people or by the county DA who officially does the enforcement.

So, yesterday my husband got a voice message from some new caseworker in the DAs office saying something to the effect of we obviously can't afford the ordered amount, and haven't been making regular payments, would we like to go through the process to have the amount lowered?  What?!?  (State law says you can only ask for a modification every two years, or if there is a significant change of circumstances.)  My husband's theory is that she thinks he is a woman, because his name can go either way.  But, hey, we'll call her back and see what happens!




BTW, I have to add that when we met, my husband was almost obsessive about paying CS.  When he made extra money in his own business, much of it went to his daughters and BM.  Since he has not had visitation in over 2 years now (BMs false accusations), and since BMs attorney costs for the trial to take the children away equaled a whole year of CS, and since BM subsequently tried to raise CS since my husband was not "exercising" visitation, and for many more reasons I am sure many of you also experience, my husband's desire to pay CS has diminished greatly!  He still wants to fulfill his responsibility, but just not with the same vigor and vim, I suppose.

I plugged the numbers in our state CS calculator and the difference of paying support for one child v. two children was $1.  Also, when we had our second child, we were credited $1.  Go figure....

My husband's court order specifically states that BM is to provide appropriate clothing for when my SDs are at our house.  She has never done it since I have known my husband.  Partly, because my husband holds his daughters to different dress standards than BM does.  There have been a few times that clothes she sends them in ended up in the trash....  

You also sometimes just have to pick your battles--clothing is just not worth it for us.  We have not had parenting time with my SDs for nearly two years and are on the verge of starting up again.  We will likely ask BM to provide clothing at first (my SDs are now 10 and 11--old enough to pack their own bags for the weekend.)  We can gradually build up the wardrobes again, with trips to secondhand stores, WalMart, maybe some outlet stores.  My husband is a full-time student, with CS order based on full-time employment, so things are really tight for us too.

Oregon is a real mess!!  So relieved last summer when they changed the CS laws to include NCP parenting time in calculation--about time!  Unfortunately, it came at a time when my husband has no parenting time because of CP's false accusations....

We've gone through the whole mess of modifying child support twice.  Both times, we've gotten completely screwed.  The last time MAY have been different with an attorney.... but this is Oregon, and I am married to the non-custodial father....

And the whole visitation/custody issue is no different for fathers here.  My husband just went to the last court-ordered joint counseling session with his daughters yesterday.  The order came down because of ONE supposed incident of abuse--even CP and SDs admitted nothing else happened, and counselor later conceded that the "incident" was not abusive.  CP was "only" asking for supervised visits--judge stopped visits altogether (after 6+ years of standard EOW--no problems or issues whatsoever), ordered anger management, then joint counseling, THEN supervised visits, with the ultimate goal of restoring regular parenting time.  What a joke!

We have requested payment records from CSD a few times in the past and have copies of their records through May 2004.  In the past, I have just looked through the payments to make sure all that we had record of were listed on their records.  Then I looked at the bottom of the summary sheet to see the total amounts billed, paid, and owed.

Well, today we got a statement/June bill for CS, and the arrears amount was nowhere near what I had calculated.  So I sat down and started looking at the papers again.  I AM SO CONFUSED!!

There are columns for "amt sup billed" "amt sup recd" "diff btwn recd/paid" "amt sup paid" and "date."  They are listed in chronological order--more or less--and after each year there is listed a Year Total and Case Total for each of the above columns.

OK.  So first of all, I am wondering why there is a difference between amount recieved and amount paid?  I understand that they can charge interest on arrears, but NONE of our monthly statements have indicated any interest charged or any other fees, and yet for the case the total is $277.80.

Secondly, I noticed that the numbers on the summary sheet are different from the numbers listed in the above-mentioned columns.  i.e. the Case Total listed on every page is different from the total amounts listed on the last page.

Thirdly, I took the numbers CSD provided for "amount billed" and "amount paid" for each year, totalled them up, and came up with completely different numbers than either the case totals or the last page totals.

Fourthly, when I look at the differences between the Case Totals and the totals on the summary sheet, the gap is increasing--in February 2003 the "amt billed" was off by $1804 in May 2004 it was off $3202; in February 2003 the "amt paid" was off by $266.15 in May 2004 it was $1410.92.

What am I missing??  I WILL be calling/writing CSD soon (they also did not record a pretty hefty payment from last month--seized from our account, so it's not as if the check got lost in the mail.)  But I was wondering if ya'll had some explanations for this complete nonsense??

Maybe if the numbers were off a few dollars, or even a few hundred... but we are talking a few thousand--and almost $1300 difference in what I calculated my husband owes in arrears--which of course is the key figure right now.

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

"Manipulate" is the best way to describe it.....  My husband's ex tried to increase his CS because he was not "exercising" his parenting time--because SHE denied him visitation.  She also tried to get him to pay more for HER college education (part-time, nights--doesn't affect her income at all), but my husband doesn't get any break for being a full-time student.

Where is the website that posts pictures of CP's who consistently deny NCP visitation or take off with the children or alienate children from the other parent??  If child support is all "for the kids," why doesn't society and media give the same attention to visitation issues, which are truly about the children's well-being rather than CP's finances?  Oooh the frustration of being the wife of NCP.....

In our state, credit is given to CP or NCP if either has children from another relationship in their home.  In our case, it made no difference in CS amount. (We went through modification process when our first child was about 1, and again when our second child was 1; BM has one child.)  Other factors played a far bigger role--such as child care costs for BM, insurance costs, parenting time, etc.