Have you checked the state calculators to see how much he would actually owe if CS was determined through the courts? The CS formulas are insanely high, and with 3 children he might actually owe almost $1500 a month depending on what he earns. My BM also doesn't work, and DH makes less than 35k a year-- I know that IF he owed full CS, it'd be something crazy, like $600 a month and that's for one kid with a father who barely makes enough to get by.

$1,500 is not a lot of CS for three children who your DF has EOWE.

Go to your state's online child support calculator. What does he say he should pay per his income? You will read many NCPs here pay anywhere from $700-1,500 and more for one child. CS is usually based on a percentage of income.

It will do you no good to be upset over CS. I mean, no SM enjoys watching money float out the door every month, but it's the children's legal right to be supported.

Your desire to have more money for future children does not negate the basic legal rights of the current children to be fully support per state law and guidelines. When you marry this guy, you marry his CS. It isn't going away. It doesn't get lowered because his new fiancé or wide thinks he pays too much.

You're awfully young to be saddling yourself with three children , a man full of debt and CS until these children are adults and of age.

Oh boy....

Your very young and my best guess is your parents are NOT pleased with your current state. I am sure he is a great guy. Good Dad etc.

Interesting observation on my part, you wrote he is a ssgt . And not SSGT. which is proper and respectful.

Anyway. Please take your time, really think this thru and realize all of this is not going to end until the kids are adults. Child support will increase as your boyfriends rank goes UP. When he deploys and he will, bm will maintain full physical custody. Doubtful if she will allow visits with you. VERY sad.

DH next duty station could be 1000 miles from the kids and I bet HE will be expected to pay for 3 RT airline tickets Spring Break and all of Christmas Holidays.

YOU wrote they had an 11 year marriage,,,,magical number is 10 (not combination of 10 if divorced then remarried) for VA retirement benefits which BM is also entitled to if DH goes to 20plus years.

Miss, if you want to forever be broke then stay the course. IF you are deeply in love with this man expect tough roads ahead for the next 15plus years... EVEN if you get married and have kids.

BM's dad, retired military. AND is gifting his baby girl lawyer fees and SUV's. YUP she will remain a stay at home mommy, homeschooling the children until they are ready to go to college which DH may also have to pay.

PLEASE find another never married GI around your age. Your life will be so much happier and you can travel the world with him AS his first and only wife without kids. Awww think of the possibilities.

Much respect for our Military Families.

PLEASE keep us posted and GOOD LUCK

When in doubt, consult an attorney. They can put in all the numbers and give you a good estimate of what his CS payment should be. I would assume that the military could provide him some legal assistance on this...?

Keep in mind, too, that each state calculates CS differently. Some states take into account both incomes and overnights. Some are flat percentages. Some only look at the NCP's income. You can't rely on what someone in another state does because that state may do things completely differently.

It will help your mental state if you quite worrying about what BM is doing. You can't stop her Father or fiance from spending money on her. Also, how much they help her won't make any difference in how child support is determined.

It sounds like you have only been physically with your SO for 6 months since he was deployed for 6 months - which is not very long for you to be already involved in his child support issues. The biggest red flag is the fact you have not met his children, yet you already think they won't be a problem. There is no way you can know that without meeting them, and it often takes a few months before children's true feelings show up. Read around this site to know how much trouble kids can cause in a relationship.

My advice is to take a step back before you get too deep into this relationship. At the very least, you need to meet and spend some time with his kids before you get in the middle of his CO issues. Your 20's are a time to figure out who you are and what you really want out of life. You are young to tie yourself down to someone with so many kids and money issues.

RUN!! Chef voluntarily overpaid his CS (3 kids) to the tune of ALL his income--married for 10 years to the stay-in-bed Girhippo. It's sooooo not worth it. Almost 14 years of impoverishment for Chef in which he'll never recover. 2nd families ALWAYS come 2nd. Not to mention BMs who are high conflict, despite getting handsomely paid to not work.

Unfortunately NCPs get hammered with CS far more often than not and getting it changed is difficult.

In our case my DW was the CP with full physical and legal custody while the SpermIdiot was the NCP with 7wks of visitation (5wks summer, 1wk winter, 1wk spring) and paid CS of $110/mo for a year, $133/mo for 9 years, $785/mo for a year and then $385/mo for 7 years. No matter what he did to try to lower CS it just went up each time he tried to get it lowered. This is a characteristic of the income shares model that most states use a version of in thier CS calculation formulas. It is based on the combined incomes of the BioParents and the % of parenting time each parent has. If the CPs income goes up and the NCPs does not... CS often will increase. If the NCPs income goes up... CS will increase. Parenting time is a significant factor.

Your SO screwed up by not defending himself during the divorce and the odds of getting much of a reprieve are slim and none IMHO.

But... good luck.

You’re 24. Find a childless man and avoid the hell of this situation. You’re in for it with this mess. Read the site if you don’t believe me.

Normally, I'm all for divorced moms getting out of the SAHM gig after the marraige ends. But your bf and the mom have decided to homeschool their kids. She wouldn't be able to work a normal job and continue homeschooling.

That CS does not seem too high for a man who wants his 3 kids homeschooled...

Ilikepies,

Have you ever watched the 1986 movie An Officer and a Gentlemen? Great movie showing struggles and dynamics of not only Officer Candidates but the 2 types of women in Soldiers lives.

Oh yes, there are still two types of women in military communities. They are very easy to pick out.

Call your local child support office and ask them the questions you want answered.

Good Luck

You need to consider the fact that he may never give you children. Having a vasectomy reversed is possible but the chance of him producing a child after reduces with every year since he had it done.

Stop looking at the best case future and consider what the worse is.

You might end up living with a man who's 9 year's older than you, unable to give you a child, while he pays high amounts to his ex wife who has primary custody of his children and currently home schools them, is ok playing the minimal parenting role in his current children's life.

She had every right to alimony when they divorced so you're lucky he's not paying that also.

What do you guys have if nothing changes. Is your relationship good enough the way it is? What is the possible worse case that can happen? Are you ok with that?

Your 24. I basically restarted my life at that point. You can too if you want. You can find someone who doesn't have a prestarted family. Who isn't paying for kids that stay with his ex. Who has more chances of giving you a child.

OR

You can accept this may be all you get... What you have right now.

Sounds like being a stay-at-home mom is the life you'd like to have - in fact, it sounds as if you'd like to have his ex's life! Marry better and you can have it. Otherwise, what you get the life you choose. Stop boo-hooing if money is so important to you and go find someone who can give it to you. His situation is what it is. You're not even engaged and you're jealous of his ex, resentful of him supporting his kids, and grousing about how you'll have to work for a living! You're calling his ex lazy for raising a gaggle of kids, teaching a gaggle of kids and working freelance. What the hell have you done??? Gone to school for a few years??? Wow! You're a work horse!

You'd better stop counting his money (or lack thereof) and start worrying about how his little darlings are going to take to you. It sounds as if they already put a stake in the heart of one girlfriend. You might get the heave ho when they give him the say so!

Really, you sound petulant and conniving. You've spent six months with him (or a year if we want to paint a better picture) and you've got it all figured out, don't you? You sound way too immature to even consider getting married. Get out, work a few hours, live on your own, pay your own bills and manage your own household, and find out how much work parenting is before you call her lazy. You give women a hard time and a bad name.

By way of background, I was a military spouse and spent decades living and working inside the military community. There is a world of difference between being a civilian living in a military town and being an actual part of the military community and culture.

If I've done the math correctly and you've identified his rank correctly, he is a 14-year staff sergeant. Did he lose a stripe(s) somewhere along the line?

You have some very fanciful ideas about what military life is like both CONUS and OCONUS. If you think you will find employment overseas easily, think again. As others have mentioned, you will not get a job on the local economy due to very restrictive foreign status of forces agreements, and trying to get a job on base is extremely competitive. There are often military spouses with advanced degrees working menial jobs (like in the exchange or commissary) just to get out of the house and make a little income.

Even when you are in the States it's not always easy to find a job. Despite all the "Support the Troops" rhetoric and military spouse hiring programs, many employers don't want to hire them because they know they will usually be moving in a few years' time. Time is money in the corporate world and they don't want to spend precious training or other resources on an employee who is transient when they can hire a longer term local who is more of a sure-thing. Like it or not, that's the cold hard truth. Employers certainly won't point-blank tell you that but you will find yourself wasting a lot of time in interviews where "you were right up there on the top of the list" (so they say!) but another candidate beat you out by a slim margin. When you start your career that will most definitely be a factor to consider if you are a military spouse.

I can't believe you are looking into so many details of Space A travel, making plans for potential overseas visitation orders, etc. when you haven't even met his children yet!

You've looked into what countries YOU think would be good for your career and yet you have absolutely NO say over this whatsoever. Quite frankly, your boyfriend doesn't either. They can send him anywhere they need him including more deployments. And yes, you may wind up in a place in the middle of nowhere with not much around but the military installation.

It sounds like you are getting dribs and drabs of information about military life and not all of it is correct. Mix that up with your fanciful ideas of how you will control this situation with his ex-wife and kids, and you are bound for disaster.

You seem to be overly focused on his ex-wife and your expressed desires to manage that situation. You can't and you never will. You are obsessing over it now and you aren't even engaged. You are adamant you want children and want him to go through reversal. But have you ever had yourself tested to see if YOU might have any fertility issues? If not, you should do so. Not just for this guy but for any guy. It is vital information if having children is a deal breaker for you, especially if you are looking at a man who will have reduced viability due to a previous vasectomy.

You should also face up to the fact that you do not have the kind of personality traits (take-charge, control decisions) which will work well in a relationship with a man who has THREE children and an ex-wife. Like it or not, both the ex and the skids are going to be a part of your life FOREVER if you marry this man. And YOU don't get any say or control over much of what happens in that regard, whether it's child support, visitation, or anything else.

Oh, and just in case you aren't clear about this - the ex wife WILL get half of your man's retirement for the rest of her life should he make it to 20 years. She was married to him for 10 years so the LAW says she gets half his retirement. I know retirement may seem a long way away but just imagine trying to raise your own family one day, maybe struggling financially and seeing YOUR kid(s) go without, but knowing that his ex-wife is getting half of his retirement pay.

If you think it will all end when the youngest kid turns 18, think again. Go over to the "Adult Stepkids" forum and read for awhile. You will see that many stepparents are still having issues with skids who are in their 40s and 50s! Plus horrible heartbreaking stories about how adult skids use grandkids as leveraging tools to manipulate for financial gain or just to be cruel. Is this what you envision your life to be when you are in your 70s?

You are 24 years old, for God's sake! Get the hell out of this relationship and focus on your education and setting life goals for yourself. These are truly some of the best years of your life, DON'T WASTE another day on this dead-end relationship. Go out and find a nice, young, childless guy who wants to take the same path in life that you do. Imagine the difference it will be to go through all those wonderful "firsts" together with this kind of guy - marriage, home buying, childbirth, etc.

Not like the guy you have now, whose path has already been made in stone for him by another woman and three children.

Every day that you waste in this relationship, is a day when that ideal man for you may be passing you by. Don't lose that opportunity!

"But it sickens me to think Im going to be busting my a!! to take care of my kids. But you get to live off MY husbands money."

OK, he's not your husband. He's not even your fiance. You've spent six months with him. Get a grip.

You hardly know this man and yet you have already developed a scheme to reverse his vasectomy on someone else's dime, decided where you want him stationed, decided he must demand lower child support, researched how and when his kids visitation can be, decided his "lazy" ex must get a job (but not the one she has), and signed onto a stepparent forum when you are not even married and YOU HAVEN'T EVEN MET HIS KIDS!!!!

You are the second wife of nightmares.

You need more help than this site offers.

You are unbelievably anxious and overbearing about a new relationship. Maybe you should talk to someone who can help you through that and slow you down before you upset all the lives about which you're making decisions. Focus on yourself. Good luck.