Over the past 4 months I have struggled with the contentious issue of child custody and child support. In reality the issue goes back much further and I discussed some of the situation with Harmony from this board last summer at an Apostofest. When my divorce was finalized 4 years ago my ex and I agreed to joint custody arrangements (legal and physical). Because of the difference in our income I was still obliged to pay child support and I have done so ever since.
However, from even prior to the divorce my son has spent the majority of time with me and over the past four years the portion of time he spends with me has increased. My ex has chosen to move further and further away resulting in my son spending all week nights with me and only seeing his mother one evening a week at best and alternative weekends. Over the past year my ex has failed to pay anything towards our son's expenses, school supplies, school sports, lunch and special school activities. I never asked for her to contribute towards his summer camp either and I buy the majority of his clothes. Her reason is her ill health and her not working very much. (She lives with her boyfriend in the new townhouse they bought last year and I think child support pays their mortgage.)
In January this year my ex informed me that she had filed her taxes and claimed our son as her dependant despite the fact that I had paid her $8,000 in child support for the year and she had not paid anything towards child expenses. On top of that she had decided to seek more money from me and now had the county social services involved who decided to take child support directly from my company payroll. As a result of this I sought legal advice and had a lawyer friend recommend a good family law attorney. As a result I found out that by virtue of a mistake in my divorce agreement I was actually paying double the amount of child support. My lawyer also stated, after researching the matter, that I had very good grounds for having this addressed and for having the court award full custody to me since in practice that was already the case and for my ex to pay me child support!
A further problem I felt was the very real chance that the loss of child support would cause enough hardship for my ex to cause her to leave the area completey and seek support from her own family. That would cause further upset to my son. Therefore, Mrs Thirdson and I discussed the matter between ourselves and with our laywer. We agreed to offer a considerable cash sum to my ex in exchange for her agreeing to give up custody. She will have the same visitation rights as she has execised for the past year. In addition I will not seek child support from her. My lawyer thought our offer to be very generous, at least enough for most laywers to advise my ex to accept it. My ex agreed and last week the court agreed with my request to change the custody arrangements.
It is a huge weight off my mind. I can now have the child support payments cancelled and will no longer have to deal with the social services who have treated me as a deadbeat dad everytime I have approached them. My son will be 18 in three years time. So the whole issue goes away then anyway. At least now I can save more money towards his college education, I won't be counting on his mother to pay much.
Thirdson