Me and my husband have 3 children together and he has 2 children from a previous relationship. They were never married, I don't know if this makes a difference. But he got laid off from his job and has to pay child support out of his unemployment benefits. His gross is only 324.00 a week and child support is 135.11 leaving us with 188.89 a week. I am not working, my children are too young and I also home school. His childrens mother is married and she has been working full time for the last 2 years and her husband has a job working for general motors in michigan. Her income alone, is more than my husband's unemployment check. She also has 2 other children and her husband has 1. A total of 5 children in their household. We just recently moved from Michigan and relocated to Tennessee, He is trying to land him a good job where this payment would not be an issue. In the mean time, our entire income tax was taken because he had gotten behind a few months last year. Their should have been something left over from our income taxes but their was nothing. He even got another bill in the mail with payment coupons for an $8,000.00 commitment for 378.00 a month. I have no idea who contact for this. It looks like a mistake. Maybe one of her other children were billed to him. How do I get this information to find out what this $8,000.00 is for and how can we lower these payments, being that we just relocated to another state? Someone please help, he will not even contact the friend of court, every time he would contact them in the past they would say he's not paying enough or it will cost him court fees if he wants to lower his payment. It seems as if he has given up and accepted this and I am not sure if they will speak with me because I am the wife.HELP

We have a big problem with my husbands ex! She has tried to make our life hell well finally i had enough and i took out a warrant against her for threating to kill me! anyway to pay us back she went to a lawyer to get higher child support and back health care and daycare which is all paid for by the state and in 2004 my husband was told that he could claim his son for eic by her and know she is try to get this money back as well what do we do! I am pregnant and we are broke can she really get all of this money???

DH has all three kids. BM works as a professional in another country. He only gets a little over $100.00 per month per child which in my opinion is an insult. BM is trying to hide her income so she doesn't have to pay her fair share. We caught her in sooooo many lies she may be in trouble with the court. She does NOTHING for the children over and above the insulting CS BF receives. No Christmas, no birthdays....nothing. He is not trying to take anyone for a ride. She is intentially staying underemployed and sitting on her butt beside her pool. I am convinced that if it were her trying to get CS from him the Judge would have made BF get 3 jobs to support his children. They both created these children and they need to equally support these children. It shouldn't be up to the steps to support the skids. The children are on my health insurance so we shoulder that bill too as well as all the medical and dental expenses for all 3 children. BB does NOTHING!!!!!

I agree some of the CS amounts are high and not only one Bio Parent should shoulder all of the financial burden. As a BM I raised my 2 children virtually by myself with very little CS. In my eyes BF got away with murder. All his responsisbility was is to send a check every month. He didn't do a thing for my sons. I was the one working overtime with 2 children. Going to school to get a better job so I can support my children. Staying up hours when the kids are sick. Taking them to every school event and sports events they had. I had only my family to help. His family wasn't around. Same this is happening for DH. She just strokes a small check every month while he does everything else. It takes more than writing a monthly check to be a parent. I feel for the parents who want to be more than a check but are being kept away from their children. That is horrible and selfish of the CP,

I have a SD from a previous marriage. When I married her Dad and found out what he was paying for CS I was appalled. He was only paying $120.00 per month!!!!! I started sending my sd's BM extra money every month and started purchasing all my SD's clothing. After we split the BM never saw another dime of CS again. Well needless to say I made a new friend and that BM to this day is one of my best friends.

I'm sure I'm going through nothing new. I'm just having a hard time dealing with the anger and helplessness my husband's ex is causing. I really just want her to disappear.

We have been married for nine years, and live with my son from a first marriage. My sd comes every other weekend for visitation. She's a great kid and everyone gets along well.

This summer, my husband's ex decided she wanted more cs so she took him back to court. Around the same time, my sd decided she wants to come live with us (she's 12) but bm won't consider it because (I am sure) she wants the money. She assumes my husband put his daughter up to this because of the cs, but he would never do that. BM travels half the month and leaves my sd with her husband. They do nothing for the kid. She sits in front of the television all week long. She's lonely and bored, but bm won't consider losing cs money. Now she's quit her job and stays at home on the cs check while I work. We are still in proceedings over the new cs but we know it will be increasing, just not how much.

Sometimes it's just really hard to feel so out of control. I feel like we are being punished and it's not fair. We take this kid everywhere and really enjoy being with her. Now we won't be able to afford to take her places, but her bm will have another new car and fake tan. I want to kick something. How do I resign myself to this?

I am curious. In the state of Illinois, cs is 28% for 2 children. We try very hard to make sure that everything gets paid on time. My husband had an accident this year and was out of work for over 6 months. During that time the company messed up the cs payments, besides the fact that he was down to 60% of his original salary. We had more than a difficult time trying to make ends meet, and pay the cs.

During this time the BM decided to go for an increase in cs. Since she did not fill out the paperwork properly, the court denied it.

But, now...because of all the problems with the cs and the job (the cs gets paid right from his paycheck), we are getting threatening letters from the cs agency saying pay up or lose your drivers license and any certifications you have have acquired.

We don't have the money. We can barely pay the bills. We have been in constant touch with the cs agency to make sure that they know we are trying...but now this???

I am overwhelmed and very upset. My husband and I are not bad people. We've just had a really hard time financially this year. Why are we made out to be the bad guys?

Another question that has been bothering me. CS is something that is supposed to HELP support the child, not totally support the child. So, my question here is this...does it take a normal family 56% of their income to raise 2 children? If so, then the 28% is justified...but, I find it hard to believe that it does.

So, what gives??? How can the situation be resolved. We want to help support the kids, after all, they are his...but shouldn't the residential parent have to kick in too?

Okay, enough venting for now....

My husband pays a ridiculous amount for child support. According to our lovely state, they say based on what he makes currently he should pay more. Well we have 3 together and 1 on the way- he has to make that much in order to support his other kids, pay the bills and pay the witch her money. She decided after she had her daughter that she was going to stay at home (she is remarried) so she can do all her activities with her friends during the day. Her daughter goes full time to pre school, so it is not like she is staying home to save on day care expenses. I can't afford day care for all of my children, so I am a stay at home mom. I think that the courts should take child support as a case by case basis, it should be calculated accordingly to the situations. and it should be adjusted down once the child is a teenager. Everything is so lop sided- and one parent ends up paying a lot more than the other. In our case we pay totally for our step son, she doesn't work (by choice), so she isn't contributing anything financially to their son.I feel that because of some dead beat parents the ones paying child support are paying through the nose. It would be totally different to pay a higher amount if the mother was a stay at home mother and has to go out and find a job,etc.. but this should only be for no longer than a year. I thought that is what alimony was originated for. it just seems like the courts have just gone the wrong way when deciding on financial issues.

Anyone have any difficulty getting the BF's cs order changed back to the original order (the original was about $80 per week)?

My husband of 2 years is paying 40% of his already meager salary (about $650) for support of one child, which means I have to pay about 85% of our bills. This, needless to say, sucks.

He agreed to this, because he owed some back child support (due to a low-paying job he had for a few years).
BUT - the BM agreed to this lowered amount at the time. And to top it off, the lazy sh*t hasn't worked for at least 6 years, and is not likely to get a job, nor does BF want her to get a job, due to the likelihood he'd have to pay 50% child care (that I guess I can agree with).

Basically she's just living off the men in her life, which my mother taught me was absolutely a no-no (I guess we're sort of feminists in that regard...I refuse to be supported by a man and will always work if I have the ability).

I have no prob with women who want to be full-time moms, but on the other hand I work with plenty of women who are great moms with multiple kids and work full or part-time. It just gets under my skin.

After we got married, BM had a new kid with her new husband, then got pissed off that we bought a pet (which my SK adores and which I freakin' paid for! jeez!), continued to call and yell at BF and finally out of exasperation he just told her to take him to court and be done with it. She wrote a completely nasty letter to the FOC saying that BF 'never' paid 'any' of the original order (completely untrue), and also that the child had 'autism' (it was actually diagnosis of Aspergers which one year later was changed to a diagnosis of ADHD.) I know Aspergers is technically a form of autism, but it still pissed me off that that was the terminology she chose to use.

I think it's disgusting that she used her own kid's health issues to make her appear to be some poor, tramped on ex-wife who has no other support.

When judge called her out on the back support owed, asking how many years he owed, she could not come up with a figure (thank God...) and he immediately shot her down, saying that if no figure was available and no evidence was available, then she couldn't claim that amount.
Is this generally true?

We are stuck with this stupid arrangement (which he now, duh, realizes was too much for him) for 2 more years.

The particular state I live in is notorious for being very difficult to have these orders changed, so I am freaking out even though it's 2 years away.
(I'm sure the BM will be thrilled to also learn we're considering buying a home soon, since the market is so geared to buyers where we are right now. I personally am terrified that she will not back down to the original amount in 2 years).

If I find out she hasn't saved a dime for her daughter's future educational needs, I am going to scream, but everytime the SK comes over they have new clothes, they go to an expensive salon, etc.

Just ranting, but anyone else scared of their own similar situation?

Ok, so this could be longer,I shortened it as much as possible. Hopefully it will help someone or maybe even myself.

My husband's ex wife was cheating with her boss and when she kicked him out of the house, she put in the separation agreement that they would have joint custody and no child support. Within 9 months she was able to get a restraining order (by telling lies in court) and keep the child away from his father for 4 months (even when the judge said to keep the schedule they were on until they could get a custody order), she wouldn't even answer the phone and let my husband talk to his son. She tricked him into signing custody papers in order for her to let him see their son, which underhandedly gave her custody. To make matters worse, she was able factor in daycare, and insurance on the child support which led to the judge ordering a massive amount of arrearrage(remember the sep. agreement? NO child support)as well as 40% of his paycheck every two weeks plus we end up paying an extra amount at the end of the month to make up the difference, because 40% of his income won't cover what the judge ordered.
At the time of the original order, she had their son on his own insurance which was really high. (She refused to let my husband add him to our insurance- she wouldn't give him his son's SS#!) One week after the judge ordered that ridiculous amount of child support, she added her son to her new husband's insurance (which is less than half the cost). And,yes, we've had attorneys and I've spent thousands of dollars trying to get this fixed.
Recently while my husband was out of a job for two months, his attorney filed for modification in hopes to get the amount to actually equal my husbands' previous income, as it SHOULD have to begin with.
This all should have been factored in when we went back to court, however, when she found out my husband's attorney had filed for modification, she decided to have her attorney file a contempt motion for the 832 bucks he had gotten behind on while out of work. She even managed to have his court date continued so that the modification and contempt could be tried together. No kidding, that bastard judge didn't modify anything. He left the payments, even with that insurance change as well as his daycare costs had dropped! To top if off, he ordered CRIMINAL CONTEMPT on my husband for failure to comply with a child support order (when he was out of work!) and had him ARRESTED IN THE COURT ROOM AND TAKEN DOWN TO A HOLDING CELL! He ordered $750.00 or 30 days in jail. CRAZY! Yes, I paid the money Keep in mind that my husband is halfway finished with school to become a cop. This kinda stuff doesn't really look that good, but hey it happens to the best of us. I can only imagine how bad things could get. She will stop at nothing to ruin him. She has his son, 3/4 of his income, and if she can find anything else, she'll take that too.
Oh, I failed to mention that, to your face, she is one of the nicest people you will ever meet. She tattles to her attorney and gets her to do the dirty work. The ex is a %100 victim to everything, yeah one of those types!
What's going on right now? The ex wouldn't shut up about having her attorney fees paid. Our attorney said he didn't think it was ordered as well as it wasn't listed in the signed order. Her attorney sent us an amendment motion to agree to pay the fees. Of course, my husband wouldn't agree to it. When he called the clerk's office, the lady there listened to the recording from court that day, and said the judge did in fact order my husband to pay her attorney fees. So the witch gets another $1,000.00 by feb. 1st.
CRAZY but very true.....One of my New Year's resolutions is to go back to therapy!!!!!! I myself am a 29yr old widow (1st marriage) with three small children (1st marriage), so this really sucks the life outta me. It's just too much to deal with. I've researched and read everything I can think of, talked to friends and family that don't want to hear it, prayed, cried, but nothing will alleviate the pain she causes to my husband and our family. Sorry, but the only advice I have to give to any of you is PLAN VERY VERY CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU GET DIVORCED, THEN BE READY TO ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES. FAMILY COURT JUDGES OBVIOUSLY DON'T CARE ABOUT THE WELL BEING OF ANY CHILD OR THEY WOULDN'T SIT BACK AND ALLOW SUCH RIDICULOUS THINGS TO HAPPEN IN THEIR COURTROOMS. IT'S SO SAD. WHAT GOOD IS ANY PARENT WHO HAS BEEN ORDERED TO PAY SO MUCH CHILD SUPPORT THAT THEY LOSE EVERYTHING, WHILE THE OTHER PARENT SITS THERE WITH BASICALLY 3 INCOMES? THESE CHILDREN WILL BE OUR NEXT GENERATION. WE NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT WE TEACH THEM WELL;

Us? We'll be just fine. It's just a little money, right?

GOD BLESS, YOU'RE GONNA NEED IT!
Melanie, NC

I think the support office really makes worse on mothers paying support.I had a really great job a year ago,( I had to move around alot with the company which is why I felt it was best my ex have the kids, so that they weren't constantly being uprooted) but since have lost it. Child support refuses to change my payments to meet my wage. I'm currently only making minimum wage, although I will be starting another job next week. They had taken so much money out of my last check at my last job, out of my piddly $378 gross I was only able to take home $33. I have no money to eat, can't pay my rent and my phone is going to be turned off. I am completely stressed, How can I pay support if I can't eat and am homeless? I don't believe I shouldn't support my kids, this isn't the issue at all, I've never fallen behind on my support... I just want to be able to live too. I'm worried, because while I'm getting ready to start a new job, for the first 6 weeks of training I'm not paid at all, they steipen me $30 a day for food... if they take the current amount of support, I will not have money to eat for 6 weeks... is there anything I can do?

When my husbands ex wife had custody of their daughter he had to pay $550.00 a month. When she moved out of the state he got custody of their daughter and she wouldn't sign over custody unless she was able to pay $100.00 a month. Last year his ex took his daughter after he allowed her to go with her mother for 4 months. He filed a police report. After that he agreed with his ex wife to allow their daughter to stay until the end of the school year. Just recently his ex wife filed for custody and child support. Their daughter is 16 and will be 17 in Nov. She wants to live with her mother. Is it possible for him to pay $100.00 a month too? He has two other children ages 6 and 3months and also has to take care of me because I'm not working. How can we prove that his ex is all about the money, because when he had custody of their daughter she never came to visit in fact she was able to take trips out of the country more than once a year. Also she has two B.S. degrees and possibly makes more.

Oh my... I wish all of you could come with me to court next week! We all seem to share the same horrible ex-wife! Ours also has a job that pays over $40k/yr, plus $2k/month in CS (by the way, is anyone else bothered that the payor has to pay taxes, but the b-tch, I mean, payee, gets the money free & clear??). Ex also got a substantial sum at the time of the divorce, but, as she has always been pitifully irresponsible w/money, she sank it all into a crappy little house in an area that the houses are probably priced 50% higher than what they are worth. Goes on vacations, goes out to eat/to bars almost every day, spends money like water, etc, on herself. But, like a lot of you, the kids are wearing pants that are too short and grubby, nasty t-shirts. She also bought a brand new car, after telling my husband that she was almost bankrupt. In addition to all of this lovely stuff, she is brainwashing the kids against my DH to the point that he no longer sees his oldest child. The younger 2 are being pulled in that same direction. And, of course, the b-tch wants more money. That has been her obsession for the last 7 years... No matter that my DH pays for clothes, haircuts, school supplies, camp, afterschool care, extracurriculars (ie. sports), tons of other incidentals. He NEVER asks her for her share, but if that silly b-tch spends $30 on the kids, she tells him he owes her 70%. We are going to court for visitation, but she's trying to also make it into a money thing & get CS raised, plus, asking for "back pay" for what she thinks he "should" be paying. The scary thing is, even though we have all kinds of e-mails that show he's tried to get her to do what they are supposed to do (according to divorce decree), she is GREAT at playing the victim, doing her phoney smile and manipulating the sh-t out of just about anyone. I'm hoping & praying that the judge sees through it, but I'm really scared that he won't. The dummy doesn't even have a home phone (b/c she's too cheap) and won't allow the kids to talk to DH on her cell, but when we gave the kids a cell, she stole it. Nice huh?

my husband is paying childsupport and one child, at 350 a month. Me, the step mother is going to school to make a life for my family. My husband only brings home 350 a week. We live with my mother, because we can't afford to get out on our own. He also has 2 other children from another relationship. we do get childsupport on them but it's only 200 for both children. I don't understand how we pay so much more and don't receive much. the mother hasn't had anything to do with her children and wants to give her rights up. I the step mother have been raising her children for 5 years. I am only 21 years old and with their mother would take responsibility for her children too. by the way we haven't received any money from her and she still doesn't serve any jail time. This is a very complicated situation, but I love my husband and my daughter and his children. So that's why I deal with it.All I want to know if you think it is right for my husband to pay so much more for one child and her pay so littel for 2, and what would you do in my situation, by the way me and the children are in therapy.

Well, lets see...I was married in July of 2008 and the "drama" never stops with the biological mom. I get so fustrated at least once a week, because she is a narcissitic person and her life is not fulfilled unless she causes my husband and myself trouble.
My husband has been seperated from her in 2005 when she had an affair on him and divorced in 2006. They have been sharing custody 50/50 since the beginning. My husband told her when they seperated he would always take care of everything for the boys. This was a huge mistake. I get so tired of her calling. She makes things up just to call him and we have gotten so tired of it. She has even gotten to the point to where she calls him at work and my husband thinks it is a customer. We have told her numerous times to stop and she will not. It's like she is still in love with him and she can't stand it if she goes an hour without talking to him. HELP!!!!
Our new drama is...She was fired from her job-(take into consideration she has been fired from about 5 jobs in the past 3 years) and has decided she cannot find a job and doesn't want to work. She has decided to go to DSS get foodstamps and have DSS take us to court to pay her $400.00 a month in child support for 2 kids, after we pay for everything anyway! This whole situation is so irritating and I don't know how to deal with it anymore. I have only been married for a little over 6 months and I am ready to thrown in the towel. My husband is the best man you will ever meet, but it is truly bringing me down. It is making me a very bitter person and I feel like I am going to lose it!
I do not have anyone else to talk to and really need some good advice. I have prayed and prayed, but the drama continues....HELP!!!

My husband pays 50% of his net income to his ex-wife. The fact that she has THREE degrees, but only works at part-time piddly-ass jobs seems to be ok with everyone. But becasue SHE doesn't make much money (she makesjust enough so that she gets the MAX gov't benefit, which in Canada are ALOT) she costs our family alot of money. Here in Canada we pay Child Support and "extraa" ON TOP of CS. The extras are supposed to be split proportional to their incomes. However, because she CHOOSES to make so little money, we pay 86% of all the extra expenses! So another 600/month ON TOP of the 900/month in child support! How friggin fair is that NOT! We have 2 kids to support as well, and all 4 kids to support when their kids are visiting, but it doesn't seem to occurr to whoever made these stupid laws, that by allowing her to be lazy and take gov't money, she is stealing from our family! I wish all the step-moms who see how greedy ex-wives can screw their ex-husband (and his new family) would get together and try to change the laws. I think BOTH parents should be equally held financially responsible for their kids after divorce, not just the dad!

My husband has been divorced from his ex for about 6 years. He has 2 kids and we pay $1300/month for child support. When the divorce was finalized his ex-wife wasn't making all that much $$. 6 years later, she is easily making $300,000/year. My husband makes 150k/year. We feel really screwed as we're pretty sure our money is going to the million dollar house she just bought and not the kids. Plus, we have the kids every other weekend and pick up as many extra days with them as we can. We do all of the driving for pick ups and drop offs - the ex doesn't left a finger.

I guess my question is, is it worth it to talk to an attorney about revisiting how much child support we are paying now that she is making so much more than she was when it was first agreed to?

We're in the state of Virginia.