I am an amateur and have several questions.

[latindohko]

I am currently living with my girlfriend whom i have two kids with.  One is going to be 2 on september, and the other is 3 months old.  We had our eldes t through medical because at the time we could not afford our own insurance.  Unfortunately it has reached a limit where i can no longer live in the same roof with her.  

I work two full time jobs and try to go to school full time as well, so i am constantly tired.  Because i make more money than she does i take care of a couple more bills than she does i.e. food, cell phone, utilities, etc.  All she is responsible for paying is the car (which we are both co-signers), half of the rent, and finally her own bills.  I have been working my A*S off to pay off debt that both her and i accumulated and have been successful at it, however, she is now going to be 3 months late on the car that we both co-signed.  This just makes me so angry that i only get about 2 hrs of sleep if i am lucky.  Her lack of financial responsibility and unwillingness to be more proactive with her financial responsibility have just made me say "I want out".

She constantly subtly "threatens" me by saying stuff like: "All i have to do is say that you hit my kids and the courts will grant me full custody", "because Damien (our 1st kid) was born with medical ins, you will have to pay double the  CS", etc.  I would like to know a couple of things:

if she takes me to court to file for child support, how likely am i to get 50/50 custody?  Apart from some speeding tickets, i have no criminal record, there is no signs of abuse to my kids, nor my girlfriend.  I am a very strict dad, but i never abuse any of them.

If i were to quit my 2nd job because she is taking me to court for child support, how likely is it that the courts will take into account my ex-2nd job's income in calculating child support?  if they take it into account, when will i have to quit so that it will not happen?

Do i have any say as in where they live?  Meaning that if i say that they (my girlfriend and kids) cannot leave the state (we live in CA by the way), will the courts comply with my request, or am i powerless in the matter?  She has threatened me to move away if we end up separating.  

If she tells the courts that she cannot work for whatever reason, am i going to be responsible of her part of bills?

[lilywhite]

California has a very well-developed child support calculator called the Dissomaster.  There are online versions.  Plug in the numbers.

SB 156 was signed into law in California which allows a custodial parents to move.  

As to custody, if you work two 40-hour a week jobs and go to school full-time then you couldn't possibly have had time to take care of the child half-time.  There are 168 hours in a week - according to what you said above you spend 95 hours a week either at work or at school, leaving only 73 hours not including things like sleeping and eating.  Half of a week is 84 hours.  Who IS taking care of your children?  The court will generally award the children to the primary caretaker before you split.

What do you mean by being strict with your children? Also what do you mean that your child was born with medical insurance?

If you have jointly-held debts, the creditors will come after you and her.  And they won't divvy it up.  If she has no money, they'll expect you to pay 100%.

[latindohko]

Having throughly thought about how my time is mostly given to either work or school, if she decides to take me to court for child support, i am definately going to have to quit my second job so that i can show the court that i am willing and able to spend the time my kids are with me WITH me.  I am going to try to get joint custody so i know that i need to quit one job in order to be able to spend 50% wih my kids, if i get joint custody.  However, will she be able to make the judge take the income from the 2nd job (if i quit) into consideration for paying Child Support?  

Because my girlfriend is in maternity leave she has been taken care of both babies.  However, i have been trying to get her to go back to work because she has many bills piling up like the car, which i have decided to not help her anymore.  Three months behind the car payment shows how unrealiable she is handling money.  Can the courts take this into consideration?  Meaning, can i request the courts to make my girlfriend sign a contract or something that tells her to not be late on paying the car payment, because if she is making late payments while we are living together, what is there to stop her from missing payments when we separate?

Because of my two jobs and lack of sleep my patient is very short, so if my lilttle one would take my cell phone, drop any type of liquid on the floor, etc, i would raise my voice and/or spank his hand.  My co-worker told me instead to try instead sending him to time-outs which have work even better than expected.  i haven't raised my voice or spanked his hand in 5 months.  Regardless of what anybody may think, i was raised in a culture where even teachers were allowed to issue corporal punishment to whatever extent they deemed necessary.

i have told her already that i am not helping her pay what she owes for the car, even if it is repocessed.  I know that it will definately kill my credit but that is a chance i am willing to take.  I work in a debt settlement company so i know how what to do once the car is repoed.

about the medical...because neither of us had our own insurance we used the state's 'medical' insurance.  Tania sent this subtle threat "if i take you to court, because we used medical to deliver Damien, they will make you pay for the expenses".  This surprised me a bit, because she showed me that the bill was about $21,000 to deliver Damien which Medical covered all of it.  My question is am i going to be responsible to pay back the state the $21,000?

[lilywhite]

First, I'm not a lawyer, so my advice is just advice.

As far as my experience with judges, and unfortunately I spent almost 8 years in court, this is how it works.

There is civil court where you ask a judge to settle an argument based on the law in your state.  Then there is criminal court where you do something illegal and the judge can send you to jail.  Not supporting your children (and all of us, married, divorced or single, have to support our children or go to jail) is a criminal charge and you can go to jail if you refuse to support them.  

Back to civil court - Judges are not going to order you to do anything like go back to work or stop doing X and start doing Y.  You basically invite them into your life by filing suit (or being sued).  You are not married, so there is no divorce that you have to do.  

A judge will not order someone who is asking for child support to go back to work.  They may order child support based on what the person would make if they went back to work, though.  A judge won't order you make your car payments.   If you don't make car payments, the car company can sue you for not doing what you agreed to do.  And a judge would get involved and give you your options.  But this is all civil court and not criminal.

I seriously doubt that the judge will make you pay back the insurance UNLESS you lied to get it.  My daughter and her husband both work and their son gets free insurance.  It's not welfare, but I think it's called CHIPS or something.  It is available to all children whose parents' income is below some number and who do not have insurance available from work.

If you ask the judge to determine who has custody, the judge is going to follow what you were doing before you decided to split up.  If you spent 5% of the time with the children and your girlfriend spend 95%, a judge is not going to give you custody.  Quitting one of your jobs and then asking for 50% custody is not going to work probably.  

If you signed an agreement to pay for the car, the car company can sue you if you don't and take away the car.  You might want to reconsider that decision not to pay the car.  

I think corporal punishment is a bad idea.  It doesn't work as well as time outs and I don't think it's right to hit children.  You never know what a judge will think about that, so it's best to do time outs all the way around.