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  1. #1

    Exclamation My Ex Has Sued to Modify the Divorce Judgment and Support

    My question involves a marriage in the state of: Idaho

    My ex-husband was having an affair and left me and our three children on April 4, 2010 after 16 and half years of marriage. He presented me with blank, generic, photocopied, divorce papers, but my parents thought that the case was complicated enough to seek legal advice, and my ex had drained our bank account before leaving (left me with $78 to live on), so my parents got an attorney to draw up papers. My mom negotiated with my ex (because I was so emotionally distraught, and I couldn't stand to look at him), and he agreed to pay $1,200 per month in child support. Well, the attorney told us that child support had to be calculated based on income, so, according to our 2009 tax return, he would only pay $367 per month in child support. My attorney suggested spousal support to cover the rest of what my ex had agreed to pay me. he was unemployed and collecting unemployment at the time of the negotiations and signing the papers.

    For nine months prior to him leaving me, he had been unemployed and not looking for work. He occassionally worked for our landlord under the table, but he never shared that money with the household. I was supporting the entire family by myself.

    I agreed to assume the debt of one of his credit card bills (in his name, not a joint account) because all my computer equipment was charged to that account, and I felt that was fair.

    We share legal and physical custody of the three children (ages 16, 14, and 12), but I got primary residential custody.

    I presented my ex with a draft of all the paperwork (including a paper he had to sign waiving his right to go to trial on any issues and a process server and the 20-day waiting period), and he said that he would read them. A few days later, we signed the papers in my attorney's office with a notary, my attorney, my mom, and the two of us present. He was asked by my attorney then if he had read the papers and understood them, and, if not, that he needed to seek the advice of an attorney because she couldn't advise him. He said that he understood everything and signed. The divorce became final on May 10.

    Since then, he's paid just a little over $2,000 in support, and nothing since August. The child support I did receive was hard-won: his mistress is really good friends with the people he was working for (he's since quit), and they delayed making the payments on the garnishments for more than two months.

    The ex is currently collecting unemployment, but it is not being garnished, and child support services seems to know nothing about this. He is also working under the table for my landlord, and he runs a process service business, as well, but only pays taxes at the end of the year. He lives with his mistress and her two teenage daughters; his mistress pays the rent, buys all the food, pays for all the utilities; his only expense is gasoline.

    Meanwhile, my landlord has raised my rent by $75, and the total of the expenses I have to pay every month is more than $1,300 per month. The ex constantly harasses me, parking his delivery truck (when he was temporarily employed by the same place his mistress works over the summer) right next to my bedroom window. I got a decent job in September, but I commute over three hours to get there, and he followed me to work. He stops by my house (for a few minutes at a time - ostensibly to "see the kids") all the time, calls me and the kids constantly, and drives by my house two or three times per day, especially now that he's unemployed again.

    In June, he re-opened the account I had assumed in the divorce and charged a computer for his mistress on it. My attorney told me that was contempt of court and theft (it was more than $1,000), and he has not paid a cent toward the new charges on the bill, but I continue to pay it. Further, he calls the kids and just tells them that he stopping by (without asking me), which my attorney says is another contempt of court charge, because the divorce decree says that he has to contact me for additional visitation, not the kids. Also, he is willfully remaining unemployed in order to avoid paying me anything, and has turned down at least two job offers since August, when he quit working for the place his mistress works.

    Okay, so that's the background. This past August, he filed a lawsuit against me asking for the divorce decree to be modified to eliminate the spousal support, to get residential custody of the kids for 8 weeks of the summer, the whole of their spring break, and to reduce the child support by 50%. His entire claim is based on the claims that he didn't know how child support was calculated, didn't know that alimony was a rarity in Idaho or when it was granted, and was "dumb and just signed" (that's a direct quote from his filing).

    So, I got the same attorney who drafted the decree to help me. She charged me a retainer and I paid it. She told me at the time that when the retainer ran out, she would contact me and see where we could go from there. She made out affidavits for myself and my mom and prepared a brief with a bunch of case law showing why the ex's case shouldn't be granted: he is not claiming he was misled or that there was fraud; he's not claiming material change in circumstances or best interests of the children; he's merely claiming ignorance and that he didn't read the papers and/or didn't understand them. He was pro se in the divorce.

    We went to a hearing on the spousal support matter on October 4. Without telling me, providing me with papers in a timely fashion (he mailed them instead of faxing them to my attorney or giving them to me in person), he filed a reply to my affidavit that is FULL of lies, mouch of which I have records to prove are lies. My attorney filed a motion to strike his reply from the court record. So far, we've heard nothing.

    A few days ago, I got a bill from my attorney that said that the case was now going to cost me another $2,000 for work she'df already done, even though we'd agreed that she would contact me when the retainer ran out. Suffice to say, I can no longer afford to have this person representing me, especially since there was a problem in the payroll department where I work, and I haven't been paid yet, and am owed more than 10 weeks back pay. Also, I am still not receiving a penny in child support or alimony. I am near to destitute. I still let him see the kids pretty much whenever he wants to; the kids really don't want to see him, either, as they really, really don't like the woman he's staying with and they like her kids even less.

    I have tried to work with my ex to come to some sort of agreement, but even after coming to an agreement, he backed out of it yesterday, stating that he wants more stuff now, but he won't tell me what. Meanwhile, we are still waiting to hear back from the judge on the outcome of the spousal support ruling, but there is still another hearing and some kind of mediation in the ofting regarding his plea for a modification of the visitation.

    He is now more than $5,000 in arrears on support, and I feel like I am holding all the cards, but he just refuses to work with me. Now that he's figured out that I am just barely keeping my head above water, he's obviously circling like a shark, trying to get more out of me.

    I'm not sure where to go from here. Obviously, I need to wait to hear from the court regarding the decision on the spousal support, but what happens then? How can I get him on those contempt of court charges that my attorney never addressed? How do I get child support services to actually garnish his unemployment benefits? I just want this to end, but I fear that, even if I win all aspects of the case, he will just do this again, filing claims under actual reasons rather than just ignorance.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: My Ex Has Sued to Modify the Divorce Judgment and Support

    If he opened a joint account that was supposed to be closed, why haven't you closed it again?

    I don't have a clear picture on what is left to be done on your case other than argue at a hearing if your attorney's motion is denied. Have you tried talking to your lawyer about your financial difficulties and trying to get advice on how you might proceed if you cannot afford to continue to retain her?

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