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Hello,
I am new here and could use some advice. My ex-husband and I have two children, ages 12 and 8. We were divorced in December 2006 and I was named the primary residential parent. It is in the final order that he was to pay 105.92 per week directly to me as child support. He pays me nothing and has said that because I make more than him that he should not have to. I also told him, early on, that he did not have to pay me because he was not making much at the time. He has also used this as an excuse (as in, "Well, you told me I didn't have to"). I have not pushed it because I make a decent income and have been able to provide for our children just fine. Also, I have wanted to keep our relationship civil and when I have ever brought the topic up, he gets angry. He remarried approximately one year ago. His wife has three young children of her own who live with them all but two weekends a month. Also, they are just about to have a new baby. I remarried almost one year ago; my husband has primary custody of his son, so he lives with us as well.

The children stay at their father's home approximately two days per week, sometimes more. Our visitation schedule is fairly flexible and nothing like what is in the original parenting plan; we are usually able to work out any conflicts that arise. Both of us have steady jobs. The standard of living at each home is about the same.

I do not think it is right that my children's father provides for three other children (soon to be 4) but not his own (but who ever said life was fair). He occasionally buys our children clothes (which are only to stay at his house), shoes (ditto), haircuts, and sports equipment. He pays for our daughter's cell phone and recently told me that he is adding our children to his wife's medical and dental policy at her place of employment. I have carried the primary insurance and have paid all of the premiums since our divorce, and still do. I pay all medical and dental bills, school lunches, school pictures, yearbooks, many of the sports fees my son incurs, clothing, field trips, and everything else that comes with raising a child. I do not complain, ever, because I am able to afford these things and feel that they just come with the responsibiity of raising a child. My husband, to his credit, does not complain either although he is aware of the situation. It burns me up, though, that my ex-husband is now able to afford two new vehicles, a new house, and four children but still can't or won't pay the support that he was ordered to pay for his own children.

I inadvertently found out from my daughter yesterday that her stepmother took her children's father to court and got a reduction in visitation as well as an increase in child support, which naturally, did not sit well with me (though I didn't say anything at the time). That information, plus the imminent arrival of their new child, is what has gotten me stewing about this whole issue again. I keep thinking that my ex will begin doing the right thing by supporting his own children when he knows deep down that he is supposed to. I know I have erred in not pushing the matter further; the anger that I have has been two years in the making and much of it is directed at myself. What is my recourse to now begin asking that he pay what he was ordered to pay two years ago? Will the judge hold it against me that I have not pushed the matter before now? It's not really my job to push it, is it?

I apologize for the length of this post. Thank you for any advice!

Your generosity in the beginning to not push CS ...should not really have any bearing on things.

My DH was paying $1200/mo for one child. When he lost his job he and the ex had a verbal agreement for $750/mo. Husband never missed a payment for either amount. However, when DH decided to finally go to court for a true reduction (almost two years later)...he was granted a reduction based on his salary, but he was also found in arrears for the entire time he was paying the ex $750 vs $1200.

Bottom line, if no new order was ever made by the court to reduce your ex's payments then he is going to be in arrears a serious amount! It doesn't matter if you had a verbal agreement or a written agreement with him.

Just file for contempt and let the court do its job. He should not be exempt from supporting his kids

All I can say is, if you now need his financial help for your children, is to go ahead and find out where you stand. It doesn't matter that chose not to pursue it in the past.

The first thing you'll want to is go to the TN child support site online and find out how support is calculated, plug in approximate current income on both of you and consider all other factors. (Do subsequent children count?, does parenting time factor? etc.) You may need to be prepared for the possible of the support amount changing based on the parenting time. Realize he's now got a savvy wife who understands how the system will work for and against your ex and she'll likely be assisting him to get the best deal possible for himself. You realize he is going try to claim more parenting time if that will lower his obligation.

Yes, in a sense you erred by not pushing the child support on the principal that children should be rightfully supported by both of their natural parents, but it's commendable that you chose to leave it alone for as long as you could, otherwise he'd never have the fair chance to get himself those two new cars, a home and four brand new dependents. In other words, it's really quite a bit too late for him to claim you'll cause him hardship when you did everything possible to alleviate it in the past two years.

So no, a judge shouldn't be judgmental in that sense. The real question is how far back is the judge going to take his failure to pay in consideration? It may only be from the date you file a motion or he may end up in arrears as far back as the date he was ordered to pay. Another thing is, if the court finds that he is in arrears up to two years, they may not consider any reduction based on his current family size and may in fact order him to pay an additional weekly amount on top of the original 106 a week to pay down his arrears.

Do your homework in all areas. You don't need an attorney with child support offices ready to assist you and provide their own attorneys, but if you can afford a reliable consultation with an attorney before you begin, then by all means that's a great place to start. Good luck :)

Either he needs to pay the ordered amount, or there needs to be a change in the amount. When you finally do decide to enforce the order, he's going to be way in arrears, and he'll have a harder time paying it back. You need to talk to him about this. The minute you try to enforce, he's in a world of trouble, and it would be better for everyone concerned if he didn't get in a world of trouble. And at some point, the state may come after him even if you don't do anything.

I don't really want to start a world of trouble for anyone, including him and certainly not my children because he'd have plenty to say to them about this. And it's not that I now NEED his financial help. I don't. I just don't think it's right that he supports hers and theirs but not ours. I can see him asking for more parenting time in order to reduce his obligation, and I definitely do not want that to happen. Two days a week is plenty. Maybe this is just something I should leave well enough alone then, since it's been so long??

"Two days a week is plenty."
I'm a noncustodial Dad, and I take issue with this. There are legitimate reasons to limit parenting time, but for the vast majority of cases, the more equal the time between the parents, the better. I don't know the specifics of your situation, and I don't want to argue the specifics with you, but I can promise you that if you have this attitude, it causes problems between you and your ex. Also note that there is a high statistical correlation between parenting time and payment of child support. I don't know that I've ever seen clear evidence of a causal link, but he might be more inclined to make payments if he got more time with his kids.

In any event, you can't just let this go. The longer the status quo continues, the worse it will be when, finally, the defecation hits the ventilation.

YOU may not need the money but your kids DO. Maybe the amount will change, maybe it won't but it belongs to the kids. You are doing them a disservice by not receiving it. Even if you stick it in a 529 educational savings plan for them it's better than never having it. Without this money your children may have to work through college instead concentrating on their studies, drive a beat-up, possibly dangerous clunker of a car instead of a reasonable second-hand safe car, etc. If they choose a college far away that money could pay for transportation home during school breaks. If they end up on scholarships that money can be a down payment on their first home.

The new baby that is biologically his will give him a small credit on child support. The new wife's salary, her children and their related child support will not play a part in the TN formula for child support calcuations. TN bases child support on the number of days you parent the children. If you do not qualify for free legal help the DHS is not going to help you. If you've already involved an attorney the DHS will not help either. I don't know why. I found this out when I divorced in TN in 2007.

Plug all the numbers into the Excel spreadsheet that the state provides and see if it's worth your time/money to go after him for an adjustment. If it's not just file contempt and let the court system garnish his wages. I'm pretty sure he will be required to pay everything owed from the date of the first decree.

Ditto....2 days a week is plenty............geeeeeez that sucks

"Two days a week is plenty."

Hmmm...any reason why you don't change custody to you having 2 days a week from now on.....because it's plenty?
If it's plenty for him, then it's plenty for you too.

I am very surprised that his new wife is not enlightening your ex. She is in the system herself, so I am more than sure she is aware how the arrears work. His arrear's will accumulate all the way to the date the original order was stamped.

At this point, you have some option's to consider. You can always file contempt on the arrearr's. Keep in mind something if you should do so. There was a time where you did verbally agree to forgo the payments. Although technically the arrears are the full amount owed, in all fairness I would come up with a more fair amount based on your agreement and propose this 'deal' to your ex.

File with the state of Tenn for them to take over collections. This removes you out of the position to either collect on behalf of your children or to forgive the support to keep peace. I would let your ex know that you are going to have the state take over the collection's for simplicity sake and this is going to spark the arrear situtaion. It would be to his benefit to negotiate with you as I mentioned above.

You have at least 10 more years of the child support situation. I wish I had taken my own advice 10 years ago, but I didn't. And it only gets worse as the kids get older being in your position. If you put it in child support collection's hands than when, and trust me it is when, you someday try to get some financial help you will be the bad guy. He will say Mommy is taking all my money. It is much easier to explain that 'everyone' is just following the law...rather than have the ex show the a check made out in your name. Ya know? Take yourself out of the position to forgive the child support.