My 6 Year Old (PART 1 Since I Am Being Limited to Space.......)

Take him to court and if he is to pay 47% of child care and isn't I am sure the judge would be happy to make it easy for him to do and garnish his wages.

And, my understanding (at least here in CA) is that you can revisit the child support issue and if an increase is warranted it will increase, even if his paycheck is "gone by Sunday" or the fact that he has another child. (My neighbor has two older children from his first marriage, and three with his second. His current wife had to get a job because so much is taken out of his check for the older kids there wasn't enough to cover their expenses, he wasn't paying after he and she had their 3rd child and his first wife took him to court to garnish his wages. Pretty much the judge was "Too bad, so sad, get another job.")

Your ex has a financial responsibility to your son for 12 more years, whether it's hard on him or not.

My mom had this problem with my dad. He refused to help pay for ANYTHING and was paying a teeny itty bitty amount of child support for my brother and I. They got divorced when I was 4 and finally when I started high school we were both told we needed orthodontia. Up until then my mom just bit the bullet and paid for everything for us. My dad was supposed to pay for half of the orthodontia but he refused saying, go ahead, take me to court! My mom at this point was totally fed up and took him to court. The judge was outraged and made my dad pay 1/2 the orthodontia and all my mom's lawyer bills. Then he looked at what my dad had been paying a month and was even more pissed. He upped the child support by a LOT and made my dad make back payments. Anyway, what is the deal with so many divorced dads out there? What is their problem? So many don't want to pay for 1/2 the things their child needs. To me it seems like they have zero loyalty to their own children. They only have loyalty to whatever woman they are with. Ok, thanks for letting me rant. It was like mini therapy! ah!

Time to take him back to court again. You can't worry about his other child. I will look to your other post.

Dawn

I'd just take him to court, he's ordered to pay 47%, take your books to show what he OWES, they will make him pay eventually.

My first husband, the father of my daughter, was much like this. I knew he had a great deal of "off the books" income from buying and trading gold chains, and he knew I knew, and yet he constantly pleaded that he was broke. He also withheld child support for many months after I remarried because he "refused to support my new husband." His court-ordered support was a pitifully small amount that didn't cover even a quarter of actual costs.

The only thing that worked was to have a lawyer write him a letter threatening legal consequences. Then he'd get caught up, only to start withholding again a few months later. Now I think most states have ways to follow through on dead-beat dads, probably through your attorney-general's office.

In your case, do you know what child support he actually pays for his other child? I'm wondering whether Mom #2 got a larger amount awarded. It sounds like he owes you very little. In which case, you might wish to ask a lawyer whether you could take him back to court to restructure your child support.

Good luck. This is a difficult position you're in.

Keep track of everything he pays and everything he owes. Don't let him off the hook. I can't figure out why fathers try to get out of this obligation. UGH!

Sounds to me like it's time to go back to court to have his child support raised and to have the courts tell him what he is and what he is not responsible to pay for. And to have the court garnish his wages so he can't use the excuse that he is "working on it" anymore.