Divorce Question

[ridethelightning]

Hi. You guys don’t really know me, but I’ve been around off and on forever, so I knew when I wanted to come ask this type of question, this is where I want to come.

I’m in the middle of a divorce. Haven’t filed yet, but STBXH and I sat down and tried to agree on everything. I, being a fool, was going to let him take it to a lawyer and get him to draw it up, and we could just sign and file.

I have 3 kids, a 7 year old and 2 year old twins. Ex has always been an absent father, and worked a lot of hours as well, but he has only gotten the 7 year old twice, and the twins not at all. His mother has gotten them twice and taken them to see him. I left in the beginning of July. Just a tiny bit of backstory.

Here is my question. He is a paramedic, and before I left, he worked at LEAST 72 hours on and 72 hours off, if not longer shifts. His regular shift is 48 on then 4 days off. Never since I’ve known him has he only worked this.

Since I left, he has not worked one second of overtime. So he took his pay stub to his lawyer, and instead of 1000 dollars a month like we agreed on, and let me add that they are all on my insurance to the tune of almost 400 dollars a month, the papers said 750. He told me he told the lawyer to put 1000, but he was told child support is cut and dried, and for 3 kids, they cannot put any more than 22% of his adjusted gross income, but of course he’s still going to give me 1000. I didn’t sign.

Then his mom told me maybe I should get a part time job, because he can’t work all that overtime.

My question is, if he cut his hours that drastically by choice, which will the judge go by (this is a difference of $75000 annually to under 40000). He has the option to work overtime, but is choosing not to.

Sorry for the long first post, but this is way out of my comfort zone.

I’m going to consult with a lawyer on Tuesday, and I do have his 2018 tax return and W2.

[Leeham Rimes]

have you retained a lawyer?

[Leeham Rimes]

Also, the odds of your ex telling you the truth about anything are slim to none, especially after cutting his hours nearly in half. I wouldn’t believe anything he says when it comes to this. You need a lawyer and you need them yesterday.

[thelurkylulu]

Like PPs said, get a lawyer. I think they’re only going to base his income off of what his base salary is, because the overtime isn’t guaranteed, but idk. You may be better off to take the $750 and then ask for a portion of the health insurance premium you’re paying to be paid by him as well.

Also, get it in your child support agreement that he is financially responsible for half of all extra curricular, school/education expenses, tuition, out of pocket medical expenses, etc. literally anything you can think of. Every single expense you can think of, get it in writing that he’s reaponsible for half.

And since he works a ton of overtime, I would also consider getting it put in writing that if he’s working, you get first option to keep the kids if it falls on a day he has visitation. That will come in handy if he’s working all the time and he’s pawning the kids off on other people. Not saying that’s what he will do, but now is the time to get these things in writing.

[pumpkin]

I would get a lawyer.
I would think a good case could be made if you could show year over year earnings have been significantly higher or maybe you could work out something about getting X amount as a base and then a % of overtime not to exceed Y amount.

[ridethelightning]

I’m meeting with my family friend who is a lawyer Tuesday. I’ve learned my lesson.

[nextbigthing]

Get a lawyer and do not trust anything he says. Be polite to him, but fight for what you're legally entitled to on the backend. A good lawyer will look out for your best interest. Its expensive but worth it in the long run

[ridethelightning]

From his mom, I got an “apology “. She said maybe it was unreasonable to tell me to get a part time job. You think? Just a little unreasonable to tell me, who has a full time job and raises your grandkids full time with no break, to get another job so your son can enjoy his 4 days off out of every 6. I didn’t even respond.

[ridethelightning]

dock, why do they have to be such dicks? I’ll tell you what I keep telling myself, we have the privilege of having these kids, and they are the ones missing out.

[ridethelightning]

Exactly. I don’t even try to get him to take them because I don’t actually want to be away from them.

[4speedy]

Just curious, what does it say about parenting time in the documents his lawyer wrote up? Does it say parenting time will be 50/50? Because if he is working all the overtime, then he can’t take the kids for the time he is required to under the agreement. Maybe you could say that if he works overtime, you get first right of refusal to keep the kids but he needs to reimburse you $x.xx per day for caring for them on his time. That way he is not off the hook, he either has to parent his fair share or pay you part of his overtime. We all know in this scenario he will choose the overtime.

[ridethelightning]

Aug 23, 2019 21:18:02 GMT -5 4speedy said:

Just curious, what does it say about parenting time in the documents his lawyer wrote up? Does it say parenting time will be 50/50? Because if he is working all the overtime, then he can’t take the kids for the time he is required to under the agreement. Maybe you could say that if he works overtime, you get first right of refusal to keep the kids but he needs to reimburse you $x.xx per day for caring for them on his time. That way he is not off the hook, he either has to parent his fair share or pay you part of his overtime. We all know in this scenario he will choose the overtime.

What they wrote for visitation was basically every other weekend and every other holiday. And for Christmas, it was alternating between him getting them from the 25-1, or the 23-30. I’m not agreeing to that either. I’m not letting him have them the week after Christmas every year. My son doesn’t even have a room at his house, he gave it to his 19 year old nephew as soon as we moved out, and believe me he did it because he wanted someone to split the bills. (Nephew is a firefighter). He got rid of nearly every toy I left for him. He doesn’t want to do the work of parenting, I can promise you that. He didn’t do it when I lived there. And he won’t now. Again, during his 4 days off he doesn’t come see the kids, although I made it clear he is welcome ( his house is an hour from mine, so they can’t stay during the school weeks). He hasn’t taken me up on it yet. He hasn’t gotten the girls ever, and even when he is off the whole weekend doesn’t ask for any of them. He didn’t even so much as call the girls on their birthday, nor did he give them a present, nor did he even offer to help pay for the party that he and his parents and aunts also attended.

I’m 90% sure he suffers from PTSD. If not that, then something. He’s been going to counseling, but it doesn’t help. He’s yelled at me in public on numerous occasions. He sat around the house on his days off, and then complained that it wasn’t clean enough. Even on his days off, my mother cared for the kids while I was worked, then I came home and did everything while he sat around or went to work out. He has berated me and the kids to both our families because the house wasn’t up to his standards.

When we went to counseling all he did was complain that I didn’t clean enough. At that time, I had year old twins who still awoke twice a night, minimum. I did all the wake ups, even if he was off. The counselor asked me when I had down time. When I said, well, never, he had the audacity to say “well my mom comes every Wednesday and would be glad to watch them if she wanted to do something”. That was the last time I went with him. I have felt nothing but relief since we have moved.

[Deleted]

You owe this asshole nothing. Get a lawyer.

[klingklang77]

Get a lawyer. And the first rule of divorce: never take legal advice from STBX.

[Shreddingbetty]

Get a lawyer
Also I think if it is very clear that he just cut his hours since you left then it is also clear what he is doing. I believe they will not go by his recent paystub. I had similar concerns briefly based on what I had heard about him changing his schedule/potentially cut hours and my lawyer told me they would go by last couple of tax returns.

[closertofine]

Lawyer.

Chiming in to echo what someone said previously. My ex lost his job for almost a year and took me back to support twice. The second time, he was seeking to pay me zero bc he was still unemployed. The judge was like, uh, you could at a minimum be working a minimum wage job, so I got paid based on that. Different scenario than yours, but I think bringing in documentation of previously higher salaries will make a difference.

[Roc A Bee]

Could they base support based on previous W2s? I have no idea but I’d definitely get my own lawyer and ask.

[CurlyQ284]

I think it's good that you have his 2018 W2 so you can show that hes doing this. I'm glad you're getting a lawyer, he sounds like a piece of work.

[followyourarrow]

Definitely get your own lawyer. At minimum I’d be asking to split insurance costs, all medical, school, and activity related costs. Your ex sounds absolutely awful and I’m glad you got out.

[thebreakfastclub]

I'm sure he's not the first idiot who has tried the trick of suddenly cutting his hours. I bet they will use recent W2s and not one pay stub.

[ECB]

So- the reduction in hours...

I have NO doubt that this may very well be "if I bring in less money, I pay less CS".  Trust me, I don't doubt that's his intention at all.

But - as you say he's really not a great dad, hasn't asked to see the kids, etc - it might also be that the reason for working all those hours was actually to avoid coming home.  And now that you and the kids aren't there, he doesn't need to avoid coming home.  So....he's working less hours.  AND THEN he realized that another "benefit" of that is that he thinks he can get out of paying so much in CS.

Neither scenario makes him look good, obviously.  Both reasons, or even a combo of both, shows his character, TBH.
 
I'm just putting this out there more as food for thought- if he was really avoiding spending time with his family and now doesn't want to see his kids... I feel that all goes in your favor too as far as any visitation schedules go.  

[statlerwaldorf]

Lawyer.

I had a similar situation and the judge decided to base child support off of his tax return. However, he has filed for a modification, so I’m not sure how that will go.

[rebneen]

I had a similar situation and they used his history. We did mediation and didn't go to trial. I'm sorry. Divorce sucks, but I hear being divorced is great, lol.