It is all based on numbers. I wish there was something encouraging that I could say. You can state all of this with the judge but they are going to take both your pay statements and base it off of that.

It does suck because a lot of times they will include the overtime. Can you cut back on the overtime temporarily? Get an affidavit from your boss that it is not guaranteed or will not be an option any longer? I would try anything, nothing to lose by trying.

Some states do consider another dependent when configuring CS.

Read up on all CS laws for your state so you will be prepared and have any documentation that needed and be ready to argue anything that will help your cause, but it is a numbers game.

If your life is anything like mine, the more prepared you are, the thing you are prepared for is less likely to happen! Not prepared? The hammer drops.

Somehow, in 16 years, my husband skated by with psycho, greedy, crazy BM only trying for modification once (I am still not sure how that happened, she is all about the money)- and it was denied! My husband truly believes we were protected by God all those years.

Good luck!

Having been there some years back, yes, the odds are the witch will want more. It's always amazing to me too how these women are not expected to do better, but the men are.

With that said, YOU need to sit down and truly calculate all your costs. No, Texas doesn't take into account all of your costs, but some of the mediators that you go to MIGHT. When my DH went to court, we wrote down all of these things which I believe helped him in a way, although at the end, he did still have to pay more than what they witch deserved or needed.

1. how much do your REGULARLY make
2. do you actually LIVE in Texas? or does she live in Texas and you don't? because if so, you need to make sure they deduct your state taxes as well...in Texas, since they have no state taxes, they don't really deduct them for anyone else, but THEY SHOULD
3. how much do you work on overtime? is it a steady, guaranteed thing?
4. how much extra do you have to spend on gas, parking, uniforms or anything similar directly related to having that extra income?
5. make sure that if you do have to pay more, that not only she gets to claim the kid in taxes each year...check with the IRS, etc. as to how much the actual extra income she gets from claiming the kid on taxes and then push to get at least every other year tax deduction for yourself

There are many little loopholes that although don't help you much and might not be specifically spelled out in the law, you can attempt to fight and again, sometimes you will at least get some type of consideration for those.

PS - when my husband went, we were able to get the CS office to consider and lower Net Resources based on the fact that taxes were MUCH higher were we live, that the standard of living in TX vs where we live was MUCH lower, ie. 80K in Texas buys MUCH more than 80K where we live, that my DH had to pay for parking just to go to work and most in Texas do NOT pay for parking (we got them to consider it similarly to uniforms and other dues that he had no choice but to pay because of his work) Unfortunately, we forgot about the tax deduction and well, I think we probably could have gotten that one since so many nowadays get every other year tax deductions.

Good luck...the aholes in Texas CSE and money hungry ex's really are pathetic.

PS - read this whole site, understand every single thing so that you can feel confident and they don't pull a fast one on you

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/FA/htm/FA.154.htm#154.001

When you go well informed to a mediation hearing, believe me that just like if you took a lawyer, you will get less screwed than if you don't...that's the reason people hire lawyers...but you can learn everything yourself and they won't be able to pull a fast one on you like they do to most

CMW, is there any chance your boss could pay you the overtime in cash? I knew a guy that was in a pinch like you and his boss (also divorced w/ a greedy ex lol) agreed to pay him partly in cash.

I got this link for you, the most relevant thing in it is probably where it says that if you are supporting other children in multiple households, that can affect your CS.

Every three years for modification is the standard in Texas.

Look further into how the other children in the picture will affect your CS. I presume it will make it go down but I don't know and it doesn't say if stepchildren will count towards "supporting other children."

The other thing you need to figure out is your overtime. Generally, CS is based on ALL income, including overtime, bonuses, etc. It might be worth it to you to talk to your attorney from your divorce or another family law attorney and make darn sure.

https://www.oag.state.tx.us/AG_Publications/pdfs/qa_ncp.pdf

Dude, sounds like you're royally screwed. But I bet if you quit your job, you can qualify for all sorts of freebees from the government! Why not? That's what the loser BMs do. Get food stamps, medicaid, housing, work part time, if at all AND get to rape the dads for every red cent they earn.

TX has archaic support laws that are straight % based. Overtime is not automatically included in your support amount unless it is on a regular basis and if included, they will likely take an average of the overtime worked. I know some men whose subsequent children were taken into consideration and some men whose kids were not. I don't understand the criteria used by the state courts.

I am very surprised you had to pay alimony. I know women married 20+ years that did not get alimony. Did you negotiate it? TX is not usually a pro alimony state.

I am so sorry to hear this. My husband is going through a lot too with his ex. She is now running up as many bills as possible for us (one example is in my post about "When court decisions don't seem to matter") and that isn't all for us. My husband actually can't even work any longer due to her claims and bringing him to court so he has NO INCOME, lives on borrowed money. We are expecting a baby boy in less than 8 weeks, and I don't know what to do. She is always trying to get the cops to arrest him with whatever she can dream up. I don't know, but would assume they would take the new child into account when calculating child support, but I know they told my husband he would have to wait until next year (Jan. 2013), but we live in NJ. Hey I feel your pain... I am actually a high risk pregnancy and the stress on me and my husband is overwhelming. Nevermind we can not even afford a place to live. We live with my parents, who barely make it themselves. So keep your head up and keep fighting for your kid and your new family. Just keep in mind what they are going through too.

-Cristale54

The more overtime you work the MORE money she will get..... that's what we learned. Going pay check to pay check and only getting $300 left over to live on off of my SO check IF that. HE was going to get a second job. Our lawyer told us absolutely NO. Why would you work just to give it to her IF she asked to petition for more? That will show you make MORE money than your original paycheck.... therefore making it appear you have even more income than her. IT sucks. It's BULLSHIT. The courts are one sided. My SO pays $1500 a month in Child Support. His monthly income is $2200 and that's BEFORE he has taxes etc taken out. Not to mention all the BILLS left over from when they were married. He has paid EVERYTHING. All these bitches want is EVERYTHING you have. And the courts don't care that you can't live. If it wasn't for me and my apartment my SO would be living with his parents. Because at the end of each paycheck he is lucky to have $300 a month to live off of. I know they do take into consideration that there are other children that he is paying for. But seems like in our case that didn't mean crap. One gets $1000 and the other gets $500. His weekly take home is about $950. I do not understand this court system. We have women getting prego then divorces then they move away... then refuse to WORK to support themselves and everything is handed on a GOLD plated platter. Here of course let the state pay for all your food, and oh you need cheap housing? Here have a place for less than 200 a month. Oh you need cash assistance? Well sure have that too. We are at our wits end with it. Men who want to be a part of their kids lives are always the ones who get screwed. Because those BM only want what they are too lazy to provide for themselves... MONEY!

I think HRNYC is a BM. Only a BM would have that attitude!

OP...I feel your pain. My DH is an amazing, hard-working man like yourself, and he has never missed a CS payment. He's paid the same amount of CS for fourteen years. SD will be 18 in less than six months, and we were just served with a FULL custody battle. (SD moved in with us for a little over a year after BM physically assaulted her and left for two weeks, expecting SD to take care of the household and SD's 10 year-old sister.)

BM already HAS full custody (DH had physical custody while SD lived with us, but that terminated when she went running back to BM when we enforced the house rules), so there was no reason whatsoever for such a major court battle. We were so nervous about getting a modification, mostly because SD never stays anywhere very long. We have court coming up this month, and plan to focus primarily on the financial end of things. You can't really force an eighteen year old to visit dad, so visitation is a moot point. Custody falls under the same category at this stage. But we are f*cked if BM gets the CS she's asking for.

BM paid NO CS at all while SD lived with us, and DH was forced to work 20-30 hrs of OT every week in order to support the five of us. Now it seems that the new CS order will factor in all of that OT into his gross income, and we're looking at having to pay almost a thousand dollars a month to a woman that is chronically under-employed (works 20 hrs/week), and has PAS'd out his kid. I feel incredibly guilty because I can't go to work and help with our $$ situation (I am physically disabled, but do not yet receive SS benefits), and my husband suffers from panic attacks over money issues.

The kicker? BM alleges is the custody paperwork that DH's visitation rights should be suspended because "he never spends any time with his daughter". That's because he's working every f*cking waking moment to provide for CS and his family!! What do you want b*tch?! He'd be better off just slicing open his wrists and bleeding out at BM's feet...but even that wouldn't be enough.

So sorry you're going through this. Can't catch a damn break with greedy-ass BM's on the scene.

OP...I feel your pain. My DH is an amazing, hard-working man like yourself, and he has never missed a CS payment. He's paid the same amount of CS for fourteen years. SD will be 18 in less than six months, and we were just served with a FULL custody battle. (SD moved in with us for a little over a year after BM physically assaulted her and left for two weeks, expecting SD to take care of the household and SD's 10 year-old sister.)

BM already HAS full custody (DH had physical custody while SD lived with us, but that terminated when she went running back to BM when we enforced the house rules), so there was no reason whatsoever for such a major court battle. We were so nervous about getting a modification, mostly because SD never stays anywhere very long. We have court coming up this month, and plan to focus primarily on the financial end of things. You can't really force an eighteen year old to visit dad, so visitation is a moot point. Custody falls under the same category at this stage. But we are f*cked if BM gets the CS she's asking for.

BM paid NO CS at all while SD lived with us, and DH was forced to work 20-30 hrs of OT every week in order to support the five of us. Now it seems that the new CS order will factor in all of that OT into his gross income, and we're looking at having to pay almost a thousand dollars a month to a woman that is chronically under-employed (works 20 hrs/week), and has PAS'd out his kid. I feel incredibly guilty because I can't go to work and help with our $$ situation (I am physically disabled, but do not yet receive SS benefits), and my husband suffers from panic attacks over money issues.

The kicker? BM alleges is the custody paperwork that DH's visitation rights should be suspended because "he never spends any time with his daughter". That's because he's working every f*cking waking moment to provide for CS and his family!! What do you want b*tch?! He'd be better off just slicing open his wrists and bleeding out at BM's feet...but even that wouldn't be enough.

So sorry you're going through this. Can't catch a damn break with greedy-ass BM's on the scene.

Sorry for the double post

Google "Texas Child Support Calculator". When you link to the calculator enter the parameters asked for as accurately as you can. This will give you an idea of what will likely happen if your XW takes you back for more CS. I believe that your Skids will help dilute your income and possibly save you some CS money. Non joint children are usually an element of CS calculation and the BK you share with your DW plus your Skids should count.

Someone above said it is all about numbers. This is entirely accurate. It is about hte numbers.

Something you may want to try if she does attempt an ammendment of CS is to force her parents income to be considered as income to her. Since she lives with them and they pay her bills and raise your kid their income can easily be proven to benefit your XW. We were able to do this when my SS's SpermIdiot attempted to have my income considered to have his CS lowered. We counter motioned to have the SpermGrandParents income added to the SpermIdiots for CS calculation purposes since he lived rent free in one of their rental properties, they give him vehicles, they raise his younger three also out of wedlock spawn by two more baby mamas in their home with no help from the SpermIdiot and they pay his CS obligation to my SS.

Ultimately the Judge chose to not use my income or the SpermGrandParents though the Judge did give DickHead an income credit to reduce his CS "Since StepDad makes a considerable income and BioDad should not have to support an artificually elevated standard of living for the child". The income credit only lowered his CS by $50/mo so it was no big deal for us.

Anyway, it sounds to me that your numbers may just work out in your favor with all of hte non joint kids in your home and with all of the help that BM gets from her parents.

Check out the online calculator and see what things look like.

Good luck.