First off - as my name implies, I'm in Florida.
Please read all the way through - you'll probably think I need to see a shrink after you read everything that I have to say, but, I was all due to how I was raised and wanting nothing but good for my child.
Background:
My ex-wife and I split very peacefully. We have a now 10 year old daughter from the marriage. The bottom line is that we should never have gotten married. I married her because I wanted to to the right thing - being married to the mother of my child when the child was brought into the world. The split to save the friendship.
We split up when our child was approximately 3 years old during the month of May or June, at which time the ex took a job as an over the road truck driver. During the time she was on that job, she met her current husband.
During the time that she was working on that job, when she came into town she stopped by to visit with our daughter. I got to know this guy she was dating, and honestly, I can say that he has a heard of gold. He and I got to be very good friends - to the point where if those two split up, I would be happy to take him in, as he's like family after all these years.
Just shy of Christmas that year, they both lost their job. Not wanting to see them put out in the cold, I brought them into the small 2 bedroom apartment that she and I used to live in together, with the understanding that it would be temporary until they could get back on their feet.
That understanding changed a bit - it turned into a roommate situation where they paid the groceries and helped with the rent. The rest of the utility bills I was not worried about, as there was very little change in any of them after they moved in, so I continued to pay all the utilities. We all got along exceptionally well and I can honestly say that they were the best roommates I had ever had.
I honestly can't remember if we were in the apartment still or in the next place I am about to mention, but we finally got the funds together to get the divorce done in 2003, with me agreeing to the amount of $500 a month in child support, and said support to begin Jan 1, 2005
After staying all together in that apartment for a bit longer then we should have, we rented a 3 bedroom / 2 bath house together. I covered 66% (to cover my part as well as that of our daughter) of the rent , plus all utilities again. Being that it was a house, the utilities were a bit higher. I also was paying for their car insurance, plus the payment on one of their vehicles (just over $150 a month, something we had verbally agreed upon - long story in itself). They paid 33% of the rent, the groceries, and all of their own bills. I was bringing in 2 times the income that they were, as well as putting out twice the amount that they were. To help offset this (partially, but not fully), once the child support payments started, I would sent the payment through the state, she would get the check, cash it and hand the funds back over to me.
We stayed together in that house for 3-4 years... He went through a few jobs - she stayed in the same job for the whole time. Each job that he had, he ended up bringing in more money than before. My salary increased as well, but they never offered to cover anything additional on the bills or rent.
Then I met the lady I ended up marrying this past May. We had dated for just over a year before getting married.
The ex and her got along quite well, and when it came time that we were going to get married, they talked and she agreed to come move in with us.
That died a VERY quick death... We had started looking at buying a house for the new wife and I. We announced to the roommates that we had an offer in on a house, and thats where everything went to hell in a handbasket.
The ex-wife flew off the handle, as did her husband, not giving us the opportunity to tell them that we were going to continue covering our share of the expenses until the end of the year so that they could find another place to live. We also offered to DOUBLE the child support so that they could stay in the same place indefinitely if they wanted.
We finally got them to sit down and listen to what we were offering. That didn't work for them. He started looking for another job, which he did find, but it resulted in them moving to TEXAS. With less than 2 weeks notice, they packed all their stuff and moved to Texas - her, him and my daughter. Knowing they were going to be strapped as hell, I gave them an extra $200 a month to help out. NOTE: That $200 had never been documented anywhere with the courts - it was out of sheer kindness. Also - we no longer payed their car insurance. She of course would no longer hand over the $500 in child support.
She felt based on some comments that I had made to her during her stay in Texas that I was going to try and take custody from her - her response each time was that she will take me for full custody and then based on my income, have the courts take a much larger part of my income. She would get her feathers ruffled from time to time and throw those threats out there.
In the meantime, we bought our house. We paid the rent on the existing place we had the lease on for several months along with the mortgage on our house. We bought a house large enough for us, as well as having a dedicated bedroom for whenever my daughter comes to visit, as well as one for the 17 year old son of my wife, who stays with us half the time. To pay both the mortgage and rent on the please we had leased both my new wife and I had to take on 2nd jobs to cover this large expense.
The stay in Texas lasted a short 2 to 2 1/2 months - they had moved in with his parents - my ex-wife and his mother butted heads so badly that his parents kicked them out.
So, they came back to Florida and moved in with her parents. NOTE: Our daughter does not have her own room there.
Since then things were OK - not great - but OK. As in our divorce, we had joint custody with her having primary guardianship. I continued to pay the child support plus $200, but then my wife and I had come into some difficult financial times because of a surgery she had that kept her out of work for a month. I continued to get my daughter every weekend, and even though it caused issues at work, 2-3 days of the week I would go in 20-30 minutes late to ensure that my daughter could make it to school, as the ex's mother has to go in very early a few days a week. She has gotten upset with me a number of times again still, and again thrown out the threats of taking me to court , jacking up the child support, yada yada yada.
Explaining the situation to the ex about the surgery went over well - she had just gotten a big promotion at her job and literally doubled her salary, and then some! She understood, and agreed to put an end to the extra $200 a month. I threw in comment that she could always let me know if she needed something extra for our daughter.
Since their return though, our daughter has made some comments about how unhappy she is living where she is, wanting to come live full time with my wife and I. I've got no problem with this AT ALL, but I never mentioned it to the ex because I wanted to keep the peace.
CURRENT PROBLEM:
We ran into some difficult times again - this time because my wife got layed off from her job. She's since started a new job, but her first pay got hosed up and won't be in until next week. Because of this, we couldn't pay the car payment that we have continued to pay for them.
I called her (the ex-wife) on Saturday and asked, "How bad of a predicament would you be put in if I couldn't cover the car this month... "? She proceeded to fly off the handle again before I could finish my sentence, saying, "I'm not going to argue with you - just bring me the damned payment" and hung up on me. What I was going to ask, if she had given me the chance to finish my statement, was if she could cover it this month and us reimburse her in the next few weeks.
Sunday afternoon I bring our daughter back to her mother's place after having had her Friday. I had the payment coupon in hand, and gave it to my daughter to bring inside to her mother. Because it was due on the 12th (tomorrow), she ran out to my car (our daughter was inside) and went absolutely berzerk on me , screaming her head off in the drive way about how I am f'ing her over just like I have been doing over and over again.. She then took the entire payment book from me for the remaining payments, which ended in September, and stormed back inside the house.
HUH? How have *I* been the one screwing anyone over?
Knowing how she has been in the past, I can see that this weekend coming up that I probably will not be allowed to see our daughter. I have not been contacted to let me know what days I will have to get her in the mornings, and am expecting her threats about the custody / child support thing to become a reality... So I'm sitting here waiting to be served in the next few days...
Right now we're so broke that we can barely pay attention, let alone legal fees to fight this. I am payed pretty well, but between the 3 weeks that the wife was out of work, us having nothing in savings because of Christmas and having to cover her time off work because of the surgery she had, and then this new job of hers paying $6 less an hour, we're going to be tight for quite some time!
RECENT BIT OF INFO:\
I have received word from two of her "friends" (who coincidentally don't know one another) who saw how badly I've been taken advange of that our daughter may not actually be my biological child... Talk about a punch to the gut!
These same 2 people told me also how she would brag about how bad she was screwing her ex-husband by having him pay most of their expenses. I wish I had only seen it back then - but yes, she WAS screwing me!
WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR:
Suggestions on what options I have.
Had you been stupid enough to have been taken for the ride that I did, what would you do?
Any help, suggestions, or advice is GREATLY appreciated!
Thank you!

