We finally found a lawyer! There is some good, some bad and some terribly ugly, but the positive thing is that we found the woman for the job.
She said that finalizing the divorce will be cake. Easy and quick. BM and her lawyer have refused to cooperate with my fiance, but they can't refuse to cooperate with her and she'll move it so fast their heads will spin. (She was a bit annoyed that this has been going on for 4+ years.) As it turns out, there is literally NOTHING left to do but file the precipe to close the case because this supposed "property settlement" that BM and her lawyer have been alluding to for years is non-existant! Neither BM nor BF own any damn property and, according to them, the debt to BM's father is a personal loan to BF and therefore has NOTHING to do with the divorce or property settlement. We've sort of thought all along that this property settlement was dealing with their marital debt to BM's father, but they claim it's all on him and he'll just agree and say "yep, it's 100% my debt" and then turn around the day the divorce is final and file for bankruptcy and his slate will be wiped clean.
As for the child support modification, this lawyer was outraged that BF could be left with so little to live on and said that there is no reason to think that he won't get it drastically reduced what with his new family to support (although our second daughter won't be included in the calculation because the hearing is about 3 1/2 weeks before my due date... we'll see if she comes early, otherwise we'll have to modify AGAIN.) Anyway, the unfortunate thing is that all my financial info will be disclosed to BM which gives me such an icky feeling because it's none of her business how much I make. Ugh. Oh well, they need it to calculate his obligation to both families because it's based on both parents' incomes in our state. So be it. I'm just glad to finally not be the only one contributing to our household expenses anymore.
Now for the depressingly ugly. Custody. Best case scenario, we file an emergency petition at a time when SD is in our care to protect her from her monster -er mother- and with all our scads of proof and unanimous support from Family Based Therapy and the clinic and the psychiatrist, and without a fight from BM (YEAH RIGHT!), the court will take 3 to 4 MONTHS to go through the evidence and decide the case and we are looking at a bare minimum of $10,000 in legal fees, which we. do. not. have. Then, you factor in how hard BM will fight back and the sky's the limit as to how much that will cost. Plus, the lawyer suspects that awaiting trial, BM would be able to get SD back within a week even with PROOF that SD is in danger in her care. Innocent until proven guilty, I guess. Plus, BM has unlimited resources, time-wise and money-wise. She doesn't have a job or anything else on her plate, so she has all the time in the world to scheme against us and she has her daddy to write the check for her expensive lawyer to screw us over.
So that's the reality of our situation. We had a good cry over it and now we're rethinking how we can otherwise save SD, since getting physical custody just isn't feasible, at least for now. The lawyer is consulting with some of her associates, whom she calls the "superstars" who have written books on custody battles and the like, and she will get back to us with their input. In the meantime, we are looking at modifying the custody order for SOME more parenting time because he hasn't had a single holiday or vacation time with his daughter EVER. And in the new order, we will have every visitation spelled out until she's 18 because BM has proven that she refuses to even discuss anything above and beyond the EOW, 1 night a week plan. We're going to go for keeping her all 3 months of summer and see if we might land somewhere in the middle. We'll specifically spell out every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every school break, you name it, over the next 6 years so that when BM refuses access, we'll just slam her with contempt.
What's nice is that this lawyer, in just an hour and half meeting with my fiance, seemed so passionate about the injustice of it all and so sympathetic to what we're going through. And we could tell that she really wanted to help us do the right thing, which is why she offered to go talk to the "superstars" about our case. I guess now we'll just pray for a miracle.
I'm confused, are you
I'm confused, are you married to this man or just his fiance'? If your not married, why would your income need to be disclosed to the ex-wife? That would infuriate me, because it's not her business and with today's amount of confidentiality and personal privacy policies, I wounder how that would be allowed?
~Cheri~
Just his fiancee
Sorry for the confusion. This is just for the child support modification and it doesn't matter if we're married or not because the way it is calculated in my state is by taking both parents' incomes and determining who is responsible for what percentage of the pre-determined amount of money the state says it takes to raise a child.
For example, if our combined income is $100,000, you find on a chart how much the state says we should be spending on raising our child/ren, let's call it $1000/month. (If our combined income was $50,000, then maybe it would be $500 per month for example.) If I make $60,000, he makes $40,000, then our split of the support responsibility would be 60/40. He would be responsible for $400/month to support our kids together.
Soooo, you take that number (which can only be calculated by submitting ALL my financial info to the court and therefore to BM) and when calculating the support owed to his first family, you subtract that $400 out of his available income. It will really save us because up until now, he's been spilling out 60% of his income (the maximum allowable by law) to support them and his remaining income doesn't even cover one month of daycare for our daughter - let alone mortgage, condo fee, utilities, food, his bus pass to get to work, etc etc. I pay for all of it and I'm stretched very thin! I did some research and found that with 2 families to support, the maximum allowable by law to support BOTH families is 50% of his income. So, once we split it up among all his dependents, his payments will likely be reduced to about 1/3 of what they are now, so we can finally get out from under this 2-ton boulder of financial strain.
LONG answer for a quick question!
Caitlin, this is basically the same as in our state...
...only we were allowed to consider our unborn child and I was about seven months along when we went to court. It would be a shame if the stress caused you to have, I don't know, "false labor" or something a day or two before court and it had to be rescheduled.
~ Anne ~
"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission."
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Good idea
I don't want to have to go through this twice. It's so silly that they won't consider our unborn child when I'll be almost 9 months pregnant at the hearing! I'll look into whether postponing is an option or not.
I'm sorry for your financial
I'm sorry for your financial situation, but when you talk of filing bankruptcy to avoid your financial obligations, it makes me mad. There are so many people in this country who feel like you obviously, because it's done like it's nothing. Well, it is something, and filing bankruptcy is the coward's way out. Instead of bankruptcy, there are so many alternatives to pay your debt rather than running away from it. Be an adult, and face the financial problems you have made, you'll sleep better at night.
I disagree with this, too.
I come from a poor part of West Virginia and I hear horror stories about family and friends from home who are hard-working "adults" who take care of their families and their debts, but who have had their lives destroyed by strikes and lay-offs. What do you do when the job is gone, there's no money coming in and you can't afford to move to where the jobs are? How do you rebuild your life or even continue to live your life when your livelihood is gone? Sometimes bad things happen to good people and it's simply not their fault, just a twist of fate. That doesn't make them a coward, it makes them a victim of circumstances beyond their control. Maybe this anon poster would sleep better at night if she pulled her head out of her ass and stopped being so judgmental. Sometimes financial problems aren't "made" by the debtor, but are made by things like getting screwed in a bad divorce, being taken advantage of by a hostile, blackmailing ex-wife, getting laid off from your job, being affected by a strike that puts you out-of-work for months at a time, being in an accident or developing an illness that prevents you from working or maybe even not getting the child support you are owed. Who asks for this kind of thing to happen to them?! No one!
What if you can't afford insurance and your child gets cancer? I guess you should stop being a "coward" and be brave enough to say no to chemo, radiation, surgery and any other treatments that could save your child's life, because that money would be better spent on your debt, because YOU asked for this cancer to invade your child's body and you wanted this debt to wipe you out financially forever. What a crock of shit.
PLEASE TAKE AWAY THE ABILITY TO POST ANONYMOUSLY. It just really pisses me off when an ANONYMOUS poster has the audacity to call anyone else a coward. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
~ Anne ~
"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission."
-Eleanor Roosevelt
YEAH! What she said!
Anne, you go girl. You said all the things I was thinking - thanks for making the point so thoughtfully and eloquently.
And damn straight about the anonymous posters. It's not often you see that kind of nasty childish name-calling BS from registered posters, isn't that right?
Boy do I have something to say...
I DIDN'T file for bankruptcy when my ex left me with 'the bill' (he used my credit cards left and right while I was at work, he sat on his a$$ home charging in my name...) and I wanted 'to do the right thing' by doing all those so called alternatives you mentioned, and I AM STILL PAYING out of the wazoo because some dumb a$$ attorney advised against it... only to find out from another... I SHOULD have filed pronto, but now the laws have changed in my state where I can't... so, I'm stuck with my ex's bill... can't get blood out of a turnip, and I don't bother with it because it's better to have him out of my life, than dipping into his non exist wallet...
I certainly don't see it as cowardly...
Man has the intelligence to change his life,
Sometimes, he just fails to use it...
Anonymous-
i dont think she was saying that they were going to file bankruptcy I believe it said that was the fear the other parties had - that he would claim responsiblility for the debt then turn around and file bankruptcy
You're right
You're right, my income is not his income. My income is not actually being factored into THEIR CS case, it's being factored into OURS. Yes, we're an intact family, but he still has an financial obligation to it, and the only way to determine that obligation is to look at both our incomes. Then, when addressing THEIR CS case, whatever financial obligation he has to our family is factored into the calculator and will reduce his CS payments because he has less available income. Am I making sense?
It burns me up too that she will be privy to my personal finances. It makes me want to hurl. But I have to do it if we're ever going to get to a point where he can contribute to our household because for the past 3 years, I've been the sole provider and this is the only way to change that.
I agree Cruella.
I don't get how they can factor in her income into the equation. She is not a parent in this case, and not even a step-parent at this point. She shouldn't be responsible for any finanacial obligations to a step-child that technically isn't even that yet. It doesn't make sense to me either.
~Cheri~
Hmm...
I don't think that they are factoring in her income into BM and BF's CS... but they are factoring in the fact that BF and Caitlin have a child together. They, meaning BF and Caitlin are the parents, they both have to contribute to their child's welfare. Based on that, BF will have less to contribute to BM because he has an obligation to his child with Caitlin too... I hope that clears up some confusion. (Caitlin may have to disclose this information to BM because it will affect BM and BM has a right to the information- somehow...)
In my state, they don't factor that in. If you have children with other women... they don't care. You have to pay x amount of x number of kids per 'family' based on both parents wages. Sucks. Supposedly, a new spouses income isn't suppose to be factored in... however I know first hand that they do factor in a spouses income... in our case it would make CS less. How, we don't understand that, but whatever.
Did I get it right?
Man has the intelligence to change his life,
Sometimes, he just fails to use it...
Yes! Thank you!
StepMom, you get the grand prize for figuring out the riddle of multiple-family CS in my state! I guess I wasn't being clear because even after explaining a couple of times, people still weren't getting it. Thank you for taking the time to make sense of it.
Honestly, it's a GOOD thing. If we had known this 2 years ago when we had our first child, we could have saved thousands and thousands of dollars to go toward OUR family. I am more than happy to divulge my financial info to the courts in order to keep more of BF's income - it's just too bad that BM will also be present - the lawyer said that there's really no way to keep it private from her prying eyes. She'll be sitting there watching the numbers being punched into the calculator, we can't put a blindfold on her. But to be infinitely clear:
MY INCOME DOES NOT FACTOR INTO THEIR CS CASE. We use both our incomes to figure out his obligation to our child/ren, then they use both their incomes MINUS his obligation to our child/ren to figure out his obligation to their child.
You know...
wishful thinking, but maybe just maybe, they will retro act the CS to your daughter's date of birth...
That would mean that BM would have to PAY YOU the back pay. Could happen, but probably not. In our case, that's what happen with our BM. She filed for more support, turns out she was making MORE money than DH, that she was being all sly and conniving about it, but really she lost more time, and she was ordered to pay DH in back pay starting when she got her raise... we just got lucky. Maybe the judge will have had enough of your BM's shenanigans and do the same with her to just make a point. LOL. Doubt it, but could happen...
Man has the intelligence to change his life,
Sometimes, he just fails to use it...
Don't get my hopes up!!
OMG, how happy would we be if that were to happen?! The way I understand it is that it is only retroactive to the date you petitioned to modify, BUT if the judge is anything like our lawyer, he/she may be royally pissed off at how BF was totally screwed and try to make things right by taking it all the way back to August 05. I mean, it's just heinous that BF was left with less than the Federal poverty level to support himself AND his second family. We're also going to bring up the fact that BM racked up over $5000 in therapy bills and then slammed us with the balance, further reducing BF's take home pay. The lawyer said that this information will really help our case.
We're just hoping to reduce his arrears to a manageable level. Since her initial petition was retroactive, and he was beyond maxed out, he's only been able to put an extra $50/month toward arrears, which is like trying to chip away at Mount Everest with a toothpick.
Seriously, if it weren't for me, BF would be homeless.
Ok, looks like I need to clarify
Sheesh, these anonymous posters! Jumping to conclusions, judging others before getting all the facts, and just being rude. Let me address this. (And thanks to loony and papergirl for coming to my defense - you guys are so sweet! And in fact, both of you are wrong, so all the more reason to clarify!
)
Ok, the "debt" I am speaking of was, at the time, a marital gift from BM's father to support their family in a time of need. They did not purchase a home with this money, but yes, it was to pay the rent and other bills when my fiance was out of work after 9/11. (BM doesn't work - she is bipolar and her therapist says she is unfit to work, although she volunteers at every single last one of SD's school functions, sports and extracurricular activities, a luxury I would LOVE to afford but never will because I work full-time to support my family and HERS! If she is fit enough to handle all this volunteer work, then why can't she handle even a part-time PAID job, hmm?)
Now, this debt is around $65,000. Why is it this high? Well, because BM doesn't know how to EARN money, but she sure knows how to SPEND it. When your husband has been laid off, do you go out buying big ticket items like fancy rugs you don't need and a new couch to replace the old one you didn't like anymore? I'm going to guess that most of us are sensible enough not to do things like that. Not BM. She went off on manic spending sprees with Daddy's money and now her ex-husband is being held responsible for it. Blech!
BM continues to spend other people's money out the wazoo. She racked up thousands and thousands in debt to SD's psychiatrist that SHE chose, knowing that a)the psychiatrist did not accept insurance and b)that BM didn't have the money to pay her. So she slams us with a bill after a YEAR of treatment and you know what? We're going to pay it, because this psychiatrist doesn't deserve to NOT be paid for her excellent work with SD. We had no idea that she had been basically working pro bono all this time. We worked out how to get her reimbursed for 50% through a program with BF's insurance (thank GOD!) and the other half, he elected to have taken from his paycheck. You better believe that this will be addressed at the child support modification hearing too, baby!
So, he IS being an adult. He takes care of his debts AND hers, even though he shouldn't because he's a good man. As for this $65,000 to BM's father, it just ain't gonna happen. He doesn't have it, nor will he ever, and just on principle alone he shouldn't be responsible for what BM spent. If they were still married, this wouldn't even be an issue, but now that they're not, BM wants her inheritance back that she already spent. Boo frickin' hoo! The only way we see to take care of this is for him to file bankruptcy and I'm sorry some people think that's the "coward's way out" but I see it as the only sensible thing to do in this case. Those people are vultures and I'm sick of being BM's cash cow. SHE is the one who needs to learn a thing or two about financial management, not us.
****stepping off soap box****
Exactly!
That is why the Anonymous post was so annoying. Judging ME for my fiance's ex-wife's spending habits? Puh-lease!
Ok my take..
First of all ANON poster, who are you to judge any of us on here. I personally had to go bankrupt after my divorce, why you ask well maybe because with all the debt and my young naive way, I let my ex have everything because I wanted out and I thought that he would help me and his kids with certain things. Well that did not happen. SO let me tell you, at 23 two kids and $280,000.00 worth of debt and making $8.45 an hour working taking care of my kids, like um the roof over there head and the food they needed and clothing and all the other stuff I went bankrupt and I do not feel bad about it at all. I had to do what I had too to survive and make sure that my two children did not go without.
Anne said it all, why post anon if you say that bankruptsy people are cowards. You have no clue what any of us go thru until you have walked a day in our shoes.
I guess the saying is true..
Opinions are like assholes and everyones got one..
Happy
" make sure you tell the people you love most EVERYDAY.. Its important not only for them to know but for you to tell.. Life is to short to be miserable..
Well one last comment
you say filing bankruptcy is being a coward- how about posting under anonymous - isn't that being a bit of a coward?
I feel your pain...
I was a complete idiot and thought that ex hubby would keep his word and pay off a couple of credit cards that were in my name so we didn't put it into the divorce papers(we filed without lawyers thinking it would be easier WRONG) anyway now I am being sued for one of them and the otheris 3 months behind so now I guess I am expected to shit about $4,000 to cover them both. My credit is now so bad I could get a gallon of milk on credit (lol) I get divorced and am still being screwed by him it makes no sense.
Bankrupcy is not the coward way out it is sometimes the only way out.
Anonymous seems to be the coward by posting that way maybe they need to step up to the plate
Live for today,you may not have a tommorow
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