Using Financial Hardship as a Defense to Failure to Pay Child Support
My question involves child support in the State of: NY
TL;DR: I owe a huge amount of arrears (maybe $30k?) that I can barely imagine being able to pay off, I am pretty bad at a lot of adult areas of life due to medical reasons, and am trying to find my way through this and forward.
I think I need support, legal advice, and a plan to move forward with my life, about in that order. Or I feel. Objectively, I probably need a plan, legal advice, and then support... :P
I know I need to get my $#!+ together. I know that. And I know by reading other posts on here that I can expect some negative responses about how I need to, well be responsible and get said $#!+ together. I don't respect victim mentality myself, but I've seem some things said here on these forums that seem overly harsh and don't respect the very real pressures and hardships felt by a father working under a legal system that can be a cruel and blunt instrument that seems out of alignment with justice, common sense, and the actual best interest of children.
I also understand the very concrete reality that the legal system will ensure that things get much worse for me if I don't find a way to improve things. Also that I have an obligation to the children that I created and that I'm responsible for bringing them into the world, and also that I'm responsible for the decision I made at one point - marrying a person when I knew quite well that if things went bad, she would be a terror in my life, but somehow illogically loved her so much and wanted to have children with her. Not only should have I known better, but I did know better. I had the thought clearly in my head, but went with my heart, and now I'm responsible for that decision for the rest of my life.
I wish I were easily able to boil this down to something more concise. I guess the concise version is that I am obligated by law to pay an amount of money in child support that I am not actually capable of paying, I have been led to believe so far that there is little I can do about this, and it is eroding my ability to function as a person, as a parent, and as a partner to another person.
Here are the rough facts:
- I owe around $30K at this point.
- I've been out of work for around 9 months.
- I was at one point making about $75K per year.
- My ex#2, with whom I have two children (10yo boy, 6yo girl), makes around $70K-$80K per year.
- I have one additional child (19yo girl) from a previous marriage to ex#1, who I pay $100 a week to - when I have income. My wages are garnished for these payments.
- My current agreement with ex#1 I'm seeing in court today is $250 per week, plus half of child care, plus half of medical and other expenses.
- My children are at my home 8 days out of every 14 days for at least one meal.
- My children sleep overnight at my home 4 days out of every 14.
- Actual custody arrangement, if it matters: Wed nights, I have one child for dinner from 4PM to 7PM - so they each have individual time. On even weeks, I have both children Thursday night for dinner from 4PM to 7PM. On odd weeks, I have the children from Thursday evening from 4PM to Monday morning. This is how there are 4 overnights but 8 days of meals in a two week period.
- I take pride and joy in supporting my children. I love them. I believe it's important to be in their life. We do homework, activities at home and also out when weather and/or funds permit. I'm involved in their school lives and support them however I can.
- My 10yo son has asperger's syndrome (now classified by the DSM-5 as an Autism spectrum disorder). This creates an extra burden. Homework and school are extra demanding on parent and family support, there are challenging behavioral issues, social situations are also a challenge, and because of this he requires services and accommodations that cost additional money. This goes into the "half of medical expenses" and "half of child care expenses" categories and is not factored into the base $250 a week support agreement.
- I struggle with bipolar disorder. I've been in treatment for 10 years and do the best I can with it.
- The reality of bipolar disorder is that an affected person is going to cycle through periods of being an effective and capable person, and other periods of failing at life - very badly failing at life. Treatment can stabilize this cycle (somewhat or even mostly in good cases), mostly keep it within a certain range, but never cure it and never allow a person to function normally without continued treatment.
- When I am at my best, I have skills and talents that would allow a normally functioning person with those same talents to easily make a six-figure income.
- I try to be my best, but it is a fight I lose sometimes.
- Part of being my best involves taking medication (Lamictal) that slows my brain down, making me more forgetful, more foggy in the brain, and less able to perform as I was before I was taking the medication. However, failing to take the drugs can result in a much worse spiral of mania, depression, and destruction.
- When I am not at my best, I can fail very badly at work and only manage to stay employed by skating by. I also fail at life in these times by not paying bills or fines or fees, or taking care of the important things, being disorganized, and generally much worse at being a person. I work too hard when I am working, then I get behind, then I get in an endless cycle of catching up that burns me out. Things I am capable of doing for a week or two, I get asked to do for months and it isn't sustainable. After 3 years at a job, I am basically done. I move on, but sometimes get fired before I do so.
- My bipolar disorder is, in a sense, not that bad - or, not as bad as it could be. I've never been psychotic, never had a full manic episode, never been depressed to the point of being suicidal, never been to the extremes of the extreme, and have never been hospitalized.
- My bipolar disorder is genuinely a handicap, but I try to manage it as well as I can. Because there has been no hospitalization, proving that I meet the criteria for disability benefits, for example, is very unlikely.
- My bipolar attributes make my obligations much more difficult to fulfill my current obligations.
- My obligations and the implications and reality of them make my depression much much worse. It's a cycle that I am desperate for a way out of.
- My ex and I both have in-born (genetic) personality and disposition qualities that contribute to my son's autism. We're both nerds, basically. This means she also has personality attributes that make the whole marriage/divorce/parenting/legal struggle issues difficult. Specifically:
- My ex's mental makeup is closer to robot-like black and white thinking, very high anxiety, bordering on paranoia about the motives of other people (especially myself), difficulty with empathy and understanding others, and a very intense need for structure and security.
- Though I am a well-intentioned and caring person who tries very hard to do right by the people in my life and people in general, I am objectively an unreliable person. I forget things, I am late, I sometimes find myself unable to live up to promises, though I want to very badly.
- Clearly, these last two facts made my ex and I very badly matched partners. A divorce was inevitable. She divorced me in part because she saw that I was an unreliable contributor of income - 70K most years, but 40K on bad years.
The most important facts:
The NY state legal system does not care much about the specifics of my case.
My wife believes herself entitled to whatever money she can extract using the legal system (I recognize that she is actually legally entitled), but has about as much difficulty as the state in mitigating the damage to the children's lives and to my life that this system creates.
I try to make all of this clear to my ex, and it doesn't help much. She doesn't seem to hear me most of the time. Occasionally, she appears to understand for a moment, makes indications that she might try something different, then her face goes blank and cold and she instead resolves to stay the course. It's chilling to watch.
I have tried to explain to her that my financial situation is not different than hers. She makes more money than I do, but we both need to maintain a home with bedrooms for our children, places for them to live and grow, clothes, books, food, toothbrushes, and extra attention for my son that needs it so badly and his younger sister who is desperate for her own attention.
It is clear to me that the sensible thing in this case is that I should not be giving her money at all - because our situations are basically the same - but instead we should just be splitting medical and child care costs. The extra $250 a week obligation makes it impossible for me to maintain my own life or the home and life for the children.
Out of desperation, and despite the fact that what I want most is 50/50 custody of the children, I have offered her that we keep the agreement as is, and I move somewhere that I don't have bedrooms for the kids and they just visit for dinners - no overnights. She does not want that. She was absolutely unwilling to consider it. Which is great, I guess, because I don't want that either.
I just want to be able to live. and be a father. without this weight that is crushing me. It's hard not to be sad. It's hard to live with the anxiety of not knowing if I'll keep the house, or get utilities shut off, or... go to jail because of my child support arrears situation.
There are more facts, but I saw the list getting long, so I just stopped. If there are questions, please ask.
Here are some more important facts:
I'm way behind on my mortgage. It will be foreclosed if I don't do something.
I'm declaring bankruptcy to prevent this. I should have done this two months ago. I had an appointment, but lost the paperwork during the period I was preparing for my girlfriend to move in to my house. I have one roommate and now my girlfriend who help pay to maintain the house. I had to build two additional rooms for my children and make more space for my girlfriend to make this possible. I was depressed and overwhelmed, and the bankruptcy fell through the cracks.
I'm still out of work, though trying to get income. My unemployment has run out.
I should have filed a petition for modification of child support but never did, because I'm bad at life. I will be filing this today if I can while I'm downtown for court.
Hugely important fact!!! :
My ex did agree about two months ago that we could lower the weekly agreement from $250 to $150. Nonetheless I haven't paid her in months and now owe probably close to $30K. Also, I didn't file for a modification like I should have. She told me she filed papers.
Also important:
There was a hearing about a month ago for dealing with the arrears situation. I didn't realize they wouldn't handle modification and arrears at the same time. I was asked to agree that I owed her something like $20K at the time. I was afraid of even more money coming out of my unemployment check. (They were already taking $100 for ex#1). I was afraid of any and all collections activity. I hoped that I might somehow be able to negotiate something else and told the magistrate I wanted to seek legal counsel.
Well, I didn't get legal counsel. I cashed in my IRA to pay for construction costs, bankruptcy, and maybe a lawyer. It was only $3000, so it didn't cover that. I did a horrible job of taking the opportunity to get good legal advice.
Now, I'm going back in, will have to tell the magistrate that I couldn't afford legal representation, probably have to agree to whatever they come up with, and hope not to be held in contempt or sent to jail.
To be clear, ex#2 (and ex#1) does not want me sent to jail. She needs my help raising the kids. Autism is hard. And she needs *some* money from me. I just found out through a sort of fluke of circumstances that she's paying $200 a week for groceries, so she's not falling apart over there, but I know she's losing patience with my job/income situation.
I should stop talking now and listen to what anyone has to say. Also, clearly file the petition for modification, which I will do today while I'm downtown. Also, clearly, get my $#!+ together, straighten up, and FLY RIGHT! I do expect to be employed soon, and many many things are going better. Today is going to be a bummer, though. :/
Help?
Re: Struggling Paying Child Support - Nys - Court Today for Arrears
Help with what? You've already decided what you want to hear, obviously.
But let's take this just as an example:
Quote:
I've seem some things said here on these forums that seem overly harsh and don't respect the very real pressures and hardships felt by a father working under a legal system that can be a cruel and blunt instrument that seems out of alignment with justice, common sense, and the actual best interest of children.
Wow.
And then you have the unmitigated gall to call your ex "cold hearted" for oh, I don't know, getting fed up with listening to your sob story and actually wanting you to, oh, I don't know, actually support your kids?
A. May. Zing.
Throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Maybe they'll buy your excuses.
