Child Support Shenanigans

Birdnesting is wonderful for kids.

They don’t change, they don’t have 2 homes, they have stability.  

For Stanley and I it worked most of the time.

Today, I realized I had left my shirt in my car.

 

 

 

 Dilemma:  Wear dirty shirt or run to car in bra and capri pants?  Because making 2 trips was OUT of the question.  

For inquiring minds, I wore the dirty one and spared the neighbors.

Another thing that birdnesting allowed is for us to put off decisions about child support and custody time, since we both paid into the house account and had 50/50 time.

 

 

I have a lot to say and have no idea what order to say it in, so I guess I will do it chronologically.

First of all, earlier this week, Al and I got a closing date for the house, 4/30/15.  We got no notice so he couldn’t be here.  That was okay, he was going to give me POA and FED EX it to the closing office.  Second, on Monday, I sent Stanley an email (nice) telling him that I thought 60/40 custody was fair (since we do 50/50 but I do after school which is 15+ hours per week and I wanted $1000 per month child support, which I mean, we do have 3 minor kids that I have the majority of the time.  Now, I have been very accommodating to him about this close.  Al can’t even move here until around June 1, but Stanley wants to close on his house on 5/21, which means he needs his 10K that he doesn’t deserve.  But whatever, I was trying to hurry this up for his convenience.

He sends me back a hostile email telling me how it is going to be.  (I’m just going to cut and paste some of it.  My comments are in bold caps.

I do still want a 50/50 split.  These are my kids too, and I’m not giving up on them! 

A Summer schedule could be that you take them during the day, if they choose to go and you bring them back when I get home.  (GUESS HIS GAS PEDAL FOOT IS BROKEN) This is the only point where I see the split being more in your favor.  I would obviously need fair warning if you were to come get them, as I may have decided to take some time off myself to be with them, or have other plans.  OKAY, GREAT, SO i WILL JUST TAKE THEM DURING THE DAY DURING THE SUMMER DURING YOUR TIME BUT IT IS STILL 50/50.

However – and I just want to put this out there – I am not comfortable with you coming into my house when I am not there.  I ask that when you do pick up the kids, that you not enter the house, but wait for them to come out.  I will give you the same respect when I have to come to your house.  I already do that now when I think you might be at the house on “your” time by texting you that I am on my way and knocking before entering.  We are now going to have two separate households and we should respect each other’s privacy.  WHAT THE FUCK, LIKE i WOULD JUST COME HANG OUT IN YOUR DIRTY SKANKY HOUSE WHILE i AM DOING 50/50 CUSTODY PICKING UP THE KIDS ON YOUR DAYS WHILE YOU ARE AT WORK.  WANKER.  THAT WAS JUST STUPID TO BRING UP.

Whoever has the kids when they are sick takes them to the Dr.  If the kids are sick during school hours, it will be the responsibility of the parent that has them to pick them up. I have taken plenty of days off to sit home with them this past year and taken them to Drs and Dentist apointments.  If they have regular Dr appointments, I will expect you to let me know when (GUESS i’M ALSO HIS DAMN SECRETARY) and I will take them if they are with me at that time. Again, this is a normal part of divorce.  WHAT ABOUT 3 WEEKS AGO WHEN jb WAS SICK AND IT WAS YOUR DAYS AND i HAD TO TAKE 2 DAYS OFF WORK TO STAY WITH HER AND TAKE HER TO THE PED BECAUSE YOU WERE ‘BUSY AT WORK’ AND ALSO I ASKED YOU FOR CARPOOL HELP AND YOU WERE TOO BUSY?  HMMM?  ASSHOLE. 

According to the Child care calculator, a 50/50 split (183 days for you and 182 days for me) would be $519 per month down from the $634 I currently put in extra to the house account.  UMMM, NO.  ACTUALLY, I LOOKED BACK AT 4.5 YEARS OF BANK STATEMENTS AND YOU PUT THAT MONEY IN THE FIRST 2 MONTHS AND NEVER AGAIN,  ASSMUNCHING SHITMONKEY.

According to our current agreement, we are not allowed to influence the children against the other parent, and I would very much appreciate it if you stuck to the letter and spirit of this agreement.  I think this meant I’m not allowed to tell them that daddy said I can’t pick them up from school anymore and that they have to go to aftercare.  When YOU made the decision to get a divorce, you had to know that changes would be made.  I mean, WTF?

 Anyway, there was more of the same.

Now, I know, compared to many of you this was super tame.  But still, he does very little and my kids will suffer without me picking up the slack, all because he wants to pay as little child support as possible.  This was not about the kids, this was about him keeping his money.  As I’ve already said, I already have more time than 50/50.  He even said, I am welcome to do more time but it will be because I want to, not because of our custody agreement.

So, I sent the whole thing to a good friend who is a family law attorney and then threatened his ass.  Because the truth is, he doesn’t do 50/50 now.  He rarely does sick time, he never does carpool or after school, and tons of times he asks me to fill in for his beer events.   But more importantly, he has always been very shoddy with the house account and hasn’t been transparent with it at all.  When we started birdnesting, we were cautioned that the ‘house account’ had to be very transparent and that he had to hand me a child support check every month regardless of the fact that I was going to turn around and put it right into the house account.  We were never supposed to make withdrawals from that account and there were very detailed rules about deposit dates etc.  Again, after the first month, I never saw a child support check.

 

 

 

Well, dude fucked the donkey because he didn’t do any of that.  

He started paying bills from it and paying house bills from his own account and generally handled it the way he does all his other business. I played totally by the letter and transferred my money on the exact date.  Every single time for 4.5 years.  So, I got ugly and emailed him back immediately and told him to get a lawyer because I only want what we do now, 60/40, plus the support that should come to me for that time and that I had serious concerns re: what a judge would think of how he handled the house account when we were strongly cautioned on how that had to work.

Then, I took to my bed.

 

 

 

For about 36 hours.  I only got up to puke.

I determined that Stanley fills me with bilious vomit.

At noon on Wednesday, my mom popped open the door and got me up.  

Now, yes, I was upset, but more than that I was MAD.  I was in bed in the fetal position because I was MAD. 

I was MAD he said that about going in his house.  I was MAD he had the nerve to say that about the medical appointments. I was MAD he said it would be up to me to let him know about medical appointments.   I was MAD he had the nerve to welcome me to the kids during the summer when I am working flex and he is at work since it will be filling MY MATERNAL NEEDS, not custody needs.  I was MAD.  He also had the nerve to say that I had to live with this because I wanted the divorce.  I do believe I resented his tone.

Let’s just say, that if he was in the middle of the road, I wouldn’t go out of my way to swerve.

I was mad because we have been doing this for 4.5 years.  We have well established patterns of parenting by now.   We have respected each other’s rooms and space in this house for 4.5 years and he felt the need to take that condescending tone ( the most words ever out of Stanley ever) on my respecting his house.

So, I get up, I shower, I puke a little more then take a bunch of Prilosec.  I go to put my underwear on, and what do I find in my undie drawer?

 

 

 (actual photo)

 A bra that is not mine.  I assume this is his girlfriend’s which he brought in with his laundry that somehow got put away in my drawer by mistake.

My panties felt disrespected by the lack of boundaries shown in my underwear drawer. Ewwww.

Seriously, you can’t make this shit up.

 So, after that I got happy.  I sent him another scathing email and called him all kinds of fuck and then yesterday, I went to the closing for the house and signed my name and Al’s name about a billion times and then I sent Stanley an email telling him what his rent will be for his beer crap until he moves it out.  Hint, it’s hefty. Once I brought up his bank account shenanigans, he got all negotiable and I got my 60/40.   Although he still hasn’t signed it, so it may not be over. 

To reiterate, in case I need to, after 4.5 years of 50/50 on paper, what we actually do is 60/40. If he hadn’t taken the tone, I might have let it go.

I did see evidence of my coping pattern (again) though:  anger, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, fetal position, puke, repeat fetal position/puke several times, then get up and say FUCK YOU some more.

Works for me.