So you married a lazy, self centered woman, then, knowing that she was lazy and self centered reproduced with her more than once. And didn’t want to divorce her even though by your report she is not only lazy and self centered, but a bad, unloving mother to boot.
Oooookay then.
Seriously, when my parents got divorced, Dad got a one-bedroom place half a mile away from Mom. He managed to have my sister and me stay with him every other weekend; he just got two twin beds and put them in the living room instead of having couches, so we would have somewhere to sleep. People make it work.
The thing that jumped out at me was that the OP could easily drop his retirement savings for now. That would give him $1050 per month after child support and fixed expenses. That seems eminently livable to me. And if the kids are 2 and 4, the OP is probably fairly young. If he’s already making $100K, he’s got plenty of time later to ramp up his retirement savings.
The other thing that jumped out at me was that Maryland is crazy expensive - especially for child care. Child care here in Edmonton is about $600/mo. Maybe $800-$1000/mo in the best places. Is $20,000 per year really the cheapest day care you can find? Or is this some gold-plated place for the kids of rich yuppies?
Also, you say that your other kid is in pre-school which cost $18,000 per year. That means you were paying $38,000 for two children to be in institutional care? I imagine you could have hired a nanny for that kind of money.
In any event, will your children not still need after-school care once they are in school? You said your wife doesn’t get home until late, and neither do you. It sounds to me like you’ll need after-school care for the kids, which can cost about half of what day care costs. Have you factored that in?
I think the root problem you have, and why your child care expenses are half of your income, is that you were spending a huge amount of money for your kid’s care. Your townhouse sounds reasonable, and the $1600 rent doesn’t seem out of line, but those child care costs are insane.
Anyway, cut the automatic retirement savings, spend what you have to, and then put whatever is left into your 401(k). You should be able to live reasonably well on $1050 per month for groceries, utilities, and spending money.
I take issue with this. If a man (or a woman) moves into a household with children, they are making a commitment to those kids. It doesn’t matter who the genetic father is - it’s about the kids. The whole point to child support is to make sure the children’s lifestyle and care is not unduly damaged by divorce. If another man or woman comes into the picture and takes on a parental role, that should let the original parent at least partially off the hook.
To me, the unfair situations occur when one spouse remarries and returns to the kind of family income that was enjoyed before the divorce, while the other parent is bled dry with his or her money becoming extra income for the other family. This is damaging in a number of ways. First, I think it’s unjust. But second, if one parent is now living on half an income while the other is living on two and a half incomes, the standard of living disparity can grow large, which can affect how the children relate to the parents.
And it cuts both ways - if the kids actually like the poorer parent (or dislike the new mom/dad), then they’ll come to see the setup as being unjust, and grow to resent the custodial parent.
To me, a man moving into a family household and living free while someone else pays the bills is just as much a freeloader as a deadbeat dad who skips out on the kids. If it were me, I wouldn’t care what the law said - if I took on someone else’s kids as my own, I would not expect the ex-husband to pay for the kids any more, other than whatever costs he incurs when they are in his custody.
That’s not outrageous in large metropolitan areas for pretty middle-of-the-road daycare.
I live well outside Toronto and $600/month day care is a fantasy; $900 is what you’ll pay in my suburban town for decent daycare. Nothing special, just a good place. In outlying parts of the City of Toronto it’s typically more like $1200-$1300 a month, as my sister is finding out; you’re already up to $15K a year right there.
Well good because I’m not saying that. At all.
Funny, I don’t live in a high end suburb, I live in a house that is CHEAPER then average for Montgomery county. And the private school costs almost the exact same as day care, wouldn’t you want your kid to be in school instead of day care? And for the record the cheapest one could find day care in this area is around $300 a week, and that’s in someone’s house, good luck actually getting that though.
Where did you get that? I see my kids almost every weekday, everyone. I also have them every other weekend, like this past weekend. I see them as much as possible.
My career? Where did you get that? Because of my work schedule? If I take a different schedule I will see them LESS. How it works now works for everyone, including the kids. So yeah, just what I want, change so they can spend the night a couple of nights a week then not see them at all during the week except an hour in the morning. Yeah, that’s smart.
I never said I wanted to maintain a lifestyle, as a matter of fact I’ve already changed it. However, can YOU live off of $500 a month in this area, remember this includes utilities, food, gas, insurance and taking the kids out to do something? Don’t forget the lawyer fees, which are $300+ an hour, and all the other activities the kids want to do, of which I have to pay half of as well.
And yes I could kill my 401k off, but I’m almost 40, so I have to wait 16 more years until the youngest is off to college, oh wait, I’ll have to pay for some of that too, so 20 more years. Which means almost 60, which means no real savings for me. Also since I work for the feds I know what my salary will be, and I will not be going up since I’m as high as I can get.
So shall I go over this again? I have my kids, or see them, 4-5 nights a week, I also see them every other weekend. They can stay the night over the weekends, but during the week it is not practical for anyone to do this. Yes it could be done, but it means more of a hassle, more spent on child care, and LESS time with the kids for me. And for the record I didn’t want any of this to happen. My wife is the one who left me so I have no choice in the matter.
[quote=“villa, post:88, topic:553077”]
I’m sorry…I was reading and typing quickly and I got you and the OP mixed together. Sorry.
Sometimes one doesn’t know the real personality of those they marry until after it happens. Ever wonder WHY so many get divorced?
Yeah, I made a mistake, but the judge compounded it. Want to keep talking about something you know nothing about?
I get about $416 a month after rent here, so I might not be the one to ask. Still breathing!
Looks to me like the biggest problem you have here is the young age of your children. If they were a bit older they’d be in school, and lucky for you Montgomery County has one of the best public school systems in the country. If you can just hold it down until they’re in school those massive costs will disappear on their own.
In the meantime, unfortunately this
sounds like good advice. Definitely not what you want to hear, but your lawyer is right.
For the record, I live in MoCo, I grew up here, and except for college and a few years in Petworth I’ve lived here my entire life. Owning in MoCo is not worth it. I rent a nice 3-bed apartment in Takoma Park that’s probably bigger than your townhouse and much closer to DC where I assume you work for $200 less than your mortgage. There are plenty of places you could move to in the area that could save you enough money to still live decently and take care of your kids.
People are suggesting all sorts of ways the OP could make it work. Let’s say they’re all correct. That’s not the question. The question is if it’s just.
Is it right that he has to make a drastic reduction in his standard of living so that his kids (and, most likely, his ex-wife) can make no (or virtually no) reduction at all?
Where on earth do you get the idea his ex-wife won’t make any reduction in her standard of living?
And yes, kids are responsibilities. If you think there will be no drop off for the kids, you are deluding yourself as well. But it should be minimized. It’s one of the costs of getting divorced. Kids aren’t pets, where your (legal) responsibiities end at feeding them and not beating them.
Do the math in the OP. She gets all her income, plus some of his (over and above child care), plus the tax deductions. (It’s not clear who pays for insurance family coverage.) The marginal costs of caring for small children (after child care) are not that great.
I don’t see why that should be so.
If there was an intact family that suffered an economic setback, I don’t think too many people would think there’s some moral imperative that the father alone absorb all the decrease in living standard, so that his children should be shielded as much as possible. I don’t see why a divorce situation is any different.
I have never seen a divorce situation where both ex-spouses don’t see a drop off in standard of living.
Do you have kids yourself?
How is covering every sick day, doing every dinner, cleaning up after the kids every time, and never having someone to help you NOT a reduction in standard of living for the Ex? She now has a true “second shift” she is solely responsible for the kids on a day-to-day basis. Every stuffy nose, every nightmare, every grocery-store tantrum is now wholly her problem.
Should the OP act to take a greater hand in the day to day care of his children, the amount he would owe would be reduced. It’s really very simple. If you take no hand in the day-to-day of caring for your children, you’re going to have to pay the other person in compensation for doing that which is rightfully your job.
I have.
I do agree that generally both take a hit. But it’s a matter of degree. The vast majority of people I see moving out of nice houses into rink-a-dink apartments are fathers.
[I am aware that there are some studies which purport to show otherwise. But I suspect that these studies are flawed, most likely by ignoring welfare payments on the lower end and tax exemptions on the middle and upper end. Also, I believe they predate current child support laws and enforcement efforts.]
And in any event, I’m going by the math in this particular case.
Yes.
I think that’s a skewed way of looking at things.
These are non-financial issues. No one is equalizing the non-financial side of things.
Everyone who has kids deals with runny noses etc. And yet, people willingly go on having them. They are a hassle. But people find them to be worth it. When you get custody of children, you get an outsize percentage of the downside of having children, as compared to your ex-spouse. But you also get an outsize percentage of the positive as well.
I’ve heard people make your argument before (mostly my wife, whenever we discuss the topic :)). But it’s not logical. Here you have women fighting tooth and nail to get as much custody as possible, and when they win it, you say it’s a decline in their standard of living and now their spouse needs to pay them to compensate for their victory.
The hassle that the ex-wife has to deal with will be made up for by the strength of the relationship that she can build. No one is compensating the ex-husband for his loss in this area. It’s only when it comes to him paying that we introduce the issue. This is unjust.
Well of course. Jesus, just think about it. Who is more likely to move into a smaller place? The person with physical custody of the children or the person without physical custody of the children?
That’s what you are missing. While you maintain that the marginal costs of a young child are minimal, the marginal savings from removing an adult are likely to be lower than the child support paid. It’s often said that two can live as cheaply as one.
Take a married couple with three children, living in a 4 bedroom house. The parents separate and the mother is awarded full custody. The mother’s needs for sleeping accomodation/bathrooms/living space have not changed. The father’s, on the other hand, have. I lived in a one bedroom apartment for the first two years of my divorce, and when my son visited, I slept on the couch. That’s feasible for weekend visits. It’s not feasible for permanent arrangements.
So of course the ex-husband is likely to be the one downsizing accomodation. And, at the same time, likely downsizing electricity bills, heating bills etc etc.
Actually, they aren’t non-financial issues to the extent they impact directly on a person’s ability to earn. Were I to have to be available 24/7 as a caregiver, I would take a significant hit in income - I would estimate at least 50%, if not more.
In the US, the fundamental goal of the system is to prioritize the children’s needs over everything else. What is fair to the parents is not only not a priority, it is irrelevant. As a result, the parent that has custody will have a child-support settlement in their favor. The only way to equalize child-support among parents is to equalize custody. If you agree with the fundamental goal of prioritizing the children’s needs then this is the automatic outcome.
Now in the case of the OP, he has a valid debatable point in that he feels his caretaking will be unrepresented in the settlement because the law requires the children to stay overnight when calculating child-support. I can appreciate this point of view, but I think it would over-complicate the calculations for every child-support case if you counted by hours instead of overnights.
Regarding the OP’s specific case: You really can’t do that math as you said. The info in the OP is incomplete and both parents have not even filed their paperwork yet – let alone settled.
Another point to consider is that not all cases involve two parents fighting tooth-and-nail for maximum custody. The same set of laws needs to resolve cases where one parent does not want either custody or is willing to provide child-support. I think it is the dynamic of these cases that really drives custody and child-support laws.
villa, you have a good head on your shoulders.
Well, yeah. But you can’t claim that the guy is not lowering his standard of living in the process.
That’s exaggerating, and adults are a lot more expensive than children, in terms of food, clothing, health care costs, transportation (i.e. a car) and any number of other expenses (day care being the big exception, if at younger ages).
But I agree that for the most part the custodial parent will take a hit as well. But there’s a big difference in degree.
But to the extent that they are financial issues, they are already accounted for in setting the terms.
Again, the argument being put forth here is that even if as a result of the settlement - which reflects the post-divorce net income and expenses of both parents - the father gets the worse deal from a financial standpoint, the mother is lowering her standard of living by having to deal with runny noses etc. And my response is that this is a non-financial angle, and that the non-financial situation overall favors the custodial parent in any event, as evidenced by the fact that people keep choosing this option.
Then by your calculations, divorce favors the father, as evidenced by the fact that men keep choosing this option.
Why then should we care about your supposed unfairness in the system when there is no shortage of men lining up to be taken advantage of in this way?