Hi
Im new here and im sorry if i just jump right in but i need to vent,
I am happily married with 3 of my own children, 2 stepchildren and we do not have any children together,
We have my husbands children 4 1/2 days a week thier mother has them 3 days a week, Since she has them mon,tues and wednesday they go to the school near where she lives ( it makes sense since she takes them and picks them up every day) we pick them up and transport themt o and from on thursday and friday then they go home on sunday evening,
The only good thing in all this mess im about to describe is they have whats called rotational custody,,,basicly she has to keep her nose out of our business when we have them and we have to do the same, she cant even make a dr. apointment or schedule a parent teacher conference on the dads day to have them, But some of the orders in the divorce decree arent clear so we end up doing ALL the transport, pay child support buy both kids school suplies and clothes and she contributes nothing, My husband is court ordered to pay her child support even though we have the kids more than she does and between her and her husband ( in florida they count married spouses income) make more than 4 times what we make, We both lost our jobs with the local newspaper company over a year ago and have been trying very hard to make ends meet, Both of us are back in school so we dont have to make our bad financial situation permanent,,,,finally my husband had to stop paying child support,,,,it was iether that or none of us could eat . Our utilities randomly get shut off, we had a car repoed a few weeks ago we are barely hanging in there so he asked if she could just let us have a break for a few months until we can get our electric back on and get caught up and feed the kids soemthing other than cereal,,her response was to take him back to court, i know 40.00 a week is not a lot of money but when your only bringin home 210 a week and we have to pay rent and utilities and buy food thats a fortune,,,,so today we show up in court and i wait outside while they go in, and my husband is orderedt o pay arrears ( which we knew he would have to) and ordered he continue paying full support starting june 1st, so he has to come up with 190.00 by the first and i have to pay bills, we do not go out to dinner, we dont have extra anything, we had to get the kids clothes at goodwill and they complained to thier mom about it who in turn complained that we were no better than hobos and her kids deserved better ( ugh!!) i use the library for internet and family fun days, we have made a lot of concessions to just get through the next year ,,,,,,im not saying he shouldnt have to pay child support,,,well actually yes i am because we make a lot less money than she does and we fully support those kids as best as we can, we are just 1 more month away from being homeless,,,,,if i dont pay my rent i am getting evicted and ive lived in this home for 11 years,,,,so do we pay child support and risk him losing his liscence and then his job and he will get kicked out of school or do i risk beign evicted??? When he went to court todaay the judge wouldnt let him speak at all even though he saw the financial papers ( our taxes) that showed between the 2 of us we made less than 14k last year
its just frustrating, theres custody issues to but ive rambled on long enough,,,,please dont misunderstand this is not about a deadbeat dad trying to get out of his paying child support,,,he fully supports and cares for those kids every day he can, we even have them extra days sometimes and hes never ever missed a week getting them,
thank you for letting me vent, im sure iw ill go throught his and realize it made no sense and have to edit it, lol....my apologies
