Shortest possible version of our backstory..... My fiancee and his ex separated in November 2015. She took off with the kids in August 2016. Divorce papers still not signed. He hired a PI and finally located them and received full custody in December 2016. He has had them full time since. She is behind almost $35,000 on child support. She went an entire year not seeing them, finally reappearing last September - where she also finally signed divorce papers. She was in jail for a while because of property damage to her rental and taking the kids out of state. Then she had two stays in a psychiatric hospital.

Now over 2 years later, my SO is being garnished for her hospital stays. She pays ZERO in child support. When she does come see the kids (she lives in the next state over) we still feed them over the weekend. Burger King, pizza or we have even made spaghetti and taken it to them in the hotel room. The kids know she doesn't have money and ask us to feed them - or she will save their breakfast from the free hotel breakfast and feed them that all day. 

She doesn't work. If you ask the children, they will tell you she is an author. We have no idea how she pays for flights, bus rides or hotel stays for days at a time. The oldest broke his spacer in his mouth. $500 to fix it, out of pocket because insurance already replaced one. I tell him constantly to keep his hands out of his mouth, he finally successfully broke the piece off last night. 

As our pastor at church said yesterday, "Press on".... we will press on to make the best of a sometimes hard situation. We love each other and have been fortunate in our blending experience. Stupid past lives.... but I'll press on.......