Support Modification when One Parent Pays All of Expenses

[stepmom_07]

My question involves child support in the State of: Tennessee

My husband and his ex wife have 50/50 custody of my stepdaughter. We have her for 7 days on and then 7 days off. All expenses are supposed to be split. We also have to pay the mother around 1000.00 per month in addition to half of everything because of the difference in income.

She frequently asks us to keep the child for several weeks at a time due to her traveling for her job. Last week so informed us will we have the child for 3 months and she will just see her on weekends. We are completely fine with this, we would love to have her all the time if we could.

She also flat out refuses to pay for any additional expences, such as bringing diapers to daycare when the child runs out, clothing expenses, etc. Her reasoning is that we make "so much money" she shouldnt have to pay anything and we should pay her to breathe, which we do, and I realize that is how the law is. We would never not pay for something and let the child miss out. We will always do what is best for the child and the mother knows that (i.e. she knows we are not going to let her go without diapers)

My question is can we take any action on this. She is not complying with the court order on the 50/50 time thing, and we end up paying everything AND paying her for time she is not keeping the child. We have decided not to make it an issue with her because, ultimately, we love the extra time with the Child and dont want to anger her mother into just giving her to a babysitter instead of us.

Would it be wise to document all the time we have her and try to get the child support or custody situation reexamined or just be thankful for the extra time we have with her (which we are) and just continue to pay as normal? My follow up question is now that my husband and I are married does the court ever consider my income as well? If they do we can never have this modified or we will end up much worse off.

[Mr. Knowitall]

Child support pays for diapers, clothing, etc. You don't get extra money to pay for the child's basic needs.

If the custody arrangement is no longer 50:50, and is not going to return to 50:50 in the imminent future, your husband can consider petitioning to modify the custody order to reflect the new arrangment and for child support to be calculated based upon the new order.