Father's quest for his kids goes down in flames; advice (and sympathy) requested

[moejoe]

@nyctea scandiaca

And I do acknowledge that Susan does probably genuinely love her children, I just don’t think she is doing as much as she can to better their lives, and I think she is full of vengeance and hatred and that is what drives her actions against Greg, and this only hurts the kids in the end.

Oh how I have tried to stay out of this thread, really, I’ve tried, but this is just too much for me to let slide. Has it not occurred to you that happy healthy siblings are of benefit to Greg’s children? Have you thought about how harmful it might be for Greg’s kids to know that the family was sharing one box of Mac and Cheese for dinner because Greg wanted the “extra” child support to go to lessons or college or whatever?

Do you realize that aside from loving them and keeping them fed and housed and safe she is under no obligation to meet yours or Greg’s expectations about how she raises them or who with? Do you realize that it’s completely possible that she hasn’t alienated them from their father but simply been honest about his obvious preference for well paying work over time to spend with them? Kids don’t take that very well, as a rule.
Speaking as a low income custodial parent (single mother) of three kids whose ex moved to a different state and married again as soon as the divorce was final and is convinced that I’m squandering the child support and poisoning the kid’s minds against him…

I can understand why he thinks all that I guess, because the kids don’t like him and will no longer speak to him and we’re all pretty happy without him *or *a lot of money.

But-I never said anything negative about him to the kids, ever. I didn’t have to, because his behavior spoke volumes. The physical distance between them and their dad, the lack of phone calls (forget daily, how about weekly or monthly?) and the fact that when he did call his priority was clearly hassling me rather than connecting with them, the whining and refusing to pay child support until finally the state found him and began garnishing his paychecks. Flying them to his place at my own expense because the order said he got them for the summer and him sending them home weeks early because he “had to work”.

But most of all the fact that he lived several states away “for work” rather than near enough to them to actually visit once in a while. They barely even knew him growing up and are not interested in knowing him now because he didn’t make the effort when they needed him.

And through it all the kids and I were having a wonderful life. Maybe a bit unconventional due to a need for fiscal creativity but still lovely and now they are happy healthy productive adults so I guess we did ok.

Honestly if he had sued for custody that would not have made them feel wanted or less abandoned, it would have horrified and frightened them quite a lot. It’s hard to like a guy who is spending tens of thousands of dollars on trying to take you away from the only parent you know all the while griping about how your mom is using the relatively small amount of child support to feed and house your siblings too. The nerve of her!

[Shayna]

@nyctea scandiaca

In our circumstance, Susan did not need court approval to move, although she was supposed to Give Greg like 30 days notice, which she NEVER did, not once. Yes we brought that up to the judge, he didn’t do anything about it.

Get a new lawyer and draw up a modification to the custody agreement that prevents her from moving without Greg’s approval, or that of the court. If she moves again with such an order in place, she’ll be in contempt and then the court will do something about it.

@nyctea scandiaca

Oh and Shayna, I already explained in an earlier post my theory about why Susan would move around so much.

Your theories are irrelevant. Have the stipulation about not moving the children entered into a modified custody agreement. It’s the only option.

@nyctea scandiaca

Yes. They have not been able to join sports teams because the fee is too expensive. If they had full use of their child support, they would have been playing pee-wee soccer and baseball for years now, developing self-esteem, friendships, skills and memories.

They should be getting tutoring. It’d be nice if they could go to summer camp, an experience I think every kid should get to have. They don’t even have bicycles. They have very shabby clothes and shoes. The youngest gets it the worst, he wears double hand-me-downs. The money Greg supplies is more than enough to have all of the aforementioned things.

Nyctea, for all the reading you have done, the one thing you have apparently missed is that child support is not generally applicable for extra-curricular activities, it is for basic support (food, clothing, shelter). Extra-curricular activities are considered usually separately by the court, and if Greg wanted to ensure his children were participating in them, the court would likely have forced Greg to pay for at least half of the cost – in addition to his child support.

@nyctea scandiaca

I’m not going to lay out the details of Greg’s income, but you forgot the taxes that are taken out of his income, his retirement savings. . .

I’m sure Greg would enjoy retiring in YYYY with $XX. . .00 in the bank. Based on what you’re posting, he may need to sit down with his investment broker or the person in HR who administers the 401K plan, and recalculate how much he should put aside now, and how long he’ll have to work, so that he can reduce his current contribution and redirect it to visitation with his sons. I’ve already suggested this, but you haven’t responded to it.

So far, I have done my best not to pass judgment, but to merely offer possible solutions. Unfortunately, the more you dismiss them, the less likely I am to bother, and the more likely I am to believe that Greg is more concerned about his own welfare than that of his sons in spite of his 2 year battle to win custody, which I know you will present as evidence of how much he loves them.

Also, I know these are not your children and therefore not your responsibility, but if you and Greg are life partners (whether with or without the benefit of marriage), and you are so concerned that Greg “can’t afford” to visit his boys more often, perhaps you should consider contributing towards his travel expenses, even if it means finding another source of income in your “spare” time, such as selling things on ebay, becoming a “virtual secretary” online (it’s a legitimate business), or even shoveling driveways or mowing lawns on the weekends for your neighbors.

It’s about priorities.

Where do Greg’s boys rank?

What are you and Greg willing to do and/or sacrifice to make those priorities happen?

No excuses, action.

[Green_Cymbeline]

@Salem

There are a few things that don’t add up here and one big important point you’re missing.

First of all, if Susan has no money, etc how on earth is she just up and moving across the country several times? Just randomly buying plane tickets for how many? Really?

To answer this question, when she moved from CA to the East Coast, her move was funded by her husband’s parents. They paid for a truck and all traveling expenses. Her in-laws then flew out to CA to drove back with her.

[Green_Cymbeline]

@CrazyCatLady

Think about this from their perspective for a few minutes. Greg never showed any signs of wanting to be their full-time day-in-and-day-out Daddy until a couple of years ago. He was gone a lot of the time when he and Susan were married, he seemed content to let her have custody, he up and moved across the country without them.

A few points of fact that negate what you’ve said. He always wanted to be their Daddy. He was in the military and had to work a second job throughout much of their childhood to make ends meet. Are you saying that fathers who are in the military or who have to work to enable their wives to be stay-at-home moms are not good fathers? That they don’t want to be Daddies? Because that is A LOT of fathers you are maligning there with your broad brush. Also when he moved across the country it was with the understanding that Susan was going to follow him within the year because she and her husband wanted to move to the East Coast to be near her in-laws.

@CrazyCatLady

And then out of the seeming blue, Greg decides he wants to be a full-time father and drag them across the country where they’ll only see her once or twice a year. He spends 2 years and tons of money dragging her into court over and over and over again to achieve this aim.

Out of the blue? You mean when Greg found out his kids were living with a child molester and that Susan had no plans to do otherwise? Are you saying that he was not justified to go for custody in this circumstance? It was not out of the blue. Re-read the thread if you want the details.

[Green_Cymbeline]

@Rumor_Watkins

So Greg’s child support is ~63% of his net income. Uh huh.

While I am not going to post the exact figures of his income and what his taxes etc. are, yes the figures I gave are correct. He pays more money for child support than he takes home.

But mind you, this is irrelevant to the thread since the amount of child support is not the subject of the thread nor I have never complained about the amount of support he pays. See my previous posts where I have said this. You try to discredit me by alleging that “you’re just mad at how much money Greg pays in child support!!” but that is not the case at all and there is nothing that I have said to show that. It’s just a diversionary tactic to make me look bad.

[Green_Cymbeline]

@raspberry_hunter

Obviously 12 times is better than fewer, but if he can only go twice a year, that’s better than once. If he can go three times, that’s better than twice. And if he can only go once a year, hey, that’s better than once every two years. And so on.

I don’t know that I’ve made this clear, but since Greg moved to Virginia 4 years ago, he has been visiting them in CA several (3-4) times a year, and they have visited us twice. You heard the story about this past summer visit, etc. So this already has been happening.

The problem is, we have a new hurdle to face, as I have talked about. In the past 4 years, Susan did make it difficult in little ways, and sometimes big ways (one time, for example, he few out there to visit and Susan refused to hand them over the first day, and he was only in town for 2 days.)

But now, as my story about this past summer’s visit illustrates, the kids are now saying they don’t want to visit with Greg, and Susan has declared that she won’t make them visit if they don’t want to. That is why she was refusing to cooperate with last summer’s visit. They also stated to the therapist that they don’t want to see (or even talk) to dad. I see this problem only getting worse.

They’re older now, teenagers, and it’s not as fun anymore to spend the weekend with your dad, eating spaghettios cooked in the hotel room kitchenette, when you could be at home playing your X-box and Playstation with no supervision.

Just a year or two ago, when they were younger, they used to get all excited to see dad, but now they’re at the age where hanging out with your parents is not cool. Lately I see them acting really sullen (the two older ones mainly) and having attitude and saying “I’m bored” if they’re not constantly being entertained with extravagant activities, like laser tag, go karts, arcades, having dad buy them games at Game Stop, going out for pizza, setting off fireworks, going to the carnival, etc. etc. (And this stuff adds up!)

So to sum it up, for all the reasons mentioned here, and in the thread, I don’t see things improving, even if Greg did go out to visit once a month. I do feel like it as as close to a lost cause as you can get.

[Green_Cymbeline]

@Girl_From_Mars

I have a couple of questions which I don’t think have been answered on the thread.

How regular is Greg’s contact with the boys now? Including emails, phone calls, IMs and visits, how often would they be in touch?

What do the boys say they need more of from Greg? i.e. we’ve heard yours, but what would their ‘perfect world scenario’ be?

Like I touched on in my last post, he has been visiting several times a year. He calls them once or twice a week.

The phone calls are always problematic. First, they never ever answer the phone when Greg calls. It always rings to voice mail (he calls both the home phone and cell phone). They may or may not call him back within one to three days. When they do get on the phone, you can tell they hate talking on the phone, which isn’t very surprising given their ages. And when Greg talks to them so often, the conversations can get kind of repetitive… how’s school, what did you do last weekend? What are you doing next weekend? etc. The boys sound bored and sullen and don’t like being asked questions.

Regarding e-mail/video chat, etc. This has also been a problem too. Greg has purchased three computers for his sons. Two laptops and one desktop. Susan gave the desktop to her brother- and sister-in-law. What became of the laptops is a mystery. The boys do not use them, and when asked where is your laptop, they awkwardly pause and say, uh I don’t know… and a few times they have said, mom won’t let us have it, she has it. Translation: Susan as appropriated the laptops for herself.

The boys don’t have e-mail address and despite asking numerous times to do web chat, they have never done it. Greg has even asked to walk them through the set up of Skype while on the phone, and the answer is always, I don’t know where the computer is.

Also, a recent court order required Susan to set up email addresses for the boys to communicate with Greg. This has never been done.

[Green_Cymbeline]

@Shayna

Nyctea, for all the reading you have done, the one thing you have apparently missed is that child support is not generally applicable for extra-curricular activities, it is for basic support (food, clothing, shelter). Extra-curricular activities are considered usually separately by the court, and if Greg wanted to ensure his children were participating in them, the court would likely have forced Greg to pay for at least half of the cost – in addition to his child support.

I don’t doubt this, but then what does this tenant hold for how the excess of the child support should be used? If after the basic necessities are taken care of, if there is leftover money, and it cannot be used for lessons or summer camp, then what can it be used on? Should it be saved for future use of the children? Or is it acceptable for it to be spent on other people’s expenses, such as mom’s boyfriend?

If the law holds that it is not OK for the child support to be spent on extra-curricular activities for the children, but it IS OK for it to be spent on things and people unrelated to the children, the the fucked-uppedness of the “system” is even worse than I thought.

[Green_Cymbeline]

@raspberry_hunter

And maybe I misunderstood, but I got the impression from a previous post that you (nyctea) were working as well. Are you willing to support Greg financially in trying to visit his kids? Or (equivalently) by helping pay his rent so that he has more disposable income with which to visit his kids?

[QUOTE=Girl From Mars]
Accepting your explanation that Greg’s income is completely used up by either child support, living expenses or tax/retirement, why can’t your income (which I assume is not contributing to child support) be used to help contribute to a once-a-month cheapie trip for him back home to see the boys?
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Shayna]
Also, I know these are not your children and therefore not your responsibility, but if you and Greg are life partners (whether with or without the benefit of marriage), and you are so concerned that Greg “can’t afford” to visit his boys more often, perhaps you should consider contributing towards his travel expenses, even if it means finding another source of income in your “spare” time, such as selling things on ebay, becoming a “virtual secretary” online (it’s a legitimate business), or even shoveling driveways or mowing lawns on the weekends for your neighbors.
[/QUOTE]

I was wondering when people would start telling me to put my money where my mouth is

As uncomfortable as it is to spill my very personal information regarding my income and health, I’ll lay it out for you and hope that you have mercy and don’t pile on.

I don’t make enough to supplement Greg’s income. In fact, I don’t even make enough to support myself. After I was laid off from a company I was with for 5 years, I became a freelance web developer (and took a cut in pay). Then earlier this year (as I have talked about a lot here on the SDMB) I was diagnosed with two debilitating diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and an autoimmune liver disease called primary biliary cirrhosis (these two conditions co-occurring is rare). On top of that, I am diagnosed with severe depression. Because of the two physical illnesses, I have not been able to work for about the last 9 months. My parents are supporting me, paying for my health insurance… I am even living with them right now. I am 35. My life seriously sucks right now just with my own issues.

As soon as I get my illness under control with the right drug regimen, I am hoping that I can start working again within the next few months.

That aside, remember Greg and I are not married and we do not have commingled finances. However, before my lay-off and health problems, we were living together and sharing expenses, so in essence, that helped free up some of his money. And if we were married and I did make enough money, I would help him out financially in a heartbeat. Absolutely.

Also, for the year and a half we lived in California, when the children were with us every weekend, I did A LOT to help care for the children. Grocery shopping, preparing meals, arranging activities, laundry, clean up, etc. So while I may not have been giving Greg money, I was putting a lot of effort into directly helping the kids.

I also provide Greg with solid emotional support, and do my part to keep a relationship with the kids. Each kid gets cards and gifts from me on birthdays and Christmas.

Now I will sit with my fingers crossed and hope you guys don’t jump down my throat for being too sick to work and make enough money to help…

[Green_Cymbeline]

@nyctea scandiaca

I don’t doubt this, but then what does this tenant hold for how the excess of the child support should be used?

Shoot, that should be tenet. I swear I spelled that correctly the first time.

[Typo_Knig]

@nyctea scandiaca

Now I will sit with my fingers crossed and hope you guys don’t jump down my throat for being too sick to work and make enough money to help…

Ah, come on - you must have one or two organs still functioning enough to sell!

(You know I’m kidding, don’t you?)

If you’re already depressed then hanging around this thread is not going to help. I’d prescribe a couple of funny books or movies, but I’m not that kind of doctor. Although National Lampoon’s “Bored of the Rings” does have more laughs per page than any other literary work, and the Alan Arkin/Peter Falk movie “The In-Laws” is insanely hilarious - especially at the end. Thank your favorite deity it’s never been remade!

Hang in there nyctea scandiaca and Greg!

[raspberry_hunter]

@nyctea scandiaca

I don’t know that I’ve made this clear, but since Greg moved to Virginia 4 years ago, he has been visiting them in CA several (3-4) times a year, and they have visited us twice. You heard the story about this past summer visit, etc. So this already has been happening.

Okay, cool. Sorry, I missed that; thanks for the clarification.

Just a year or two ago, when they were younger, they used to get all excited to see dad, but now they’re at the age where hanging out with your parents is not cool. Lately I see them acting really sullen (the two older ones mainly) and having attitude and saying “I’m bored” if they’re not constantly being entertained with extravagant activities, like laser tag, go karts, arcades, having dad buy them games at Game Stop, going out for pizza, setting off fireworks, going to the carnival, etc. etc. (And this stuff adds up!)

Ouch. I don’t think it solves anything to constantly give into their demands for extravagant activities, either (one or two are fine), but if they’re refusing to go with dad unless they do expensive things, and mom isn’t supportive… I don’t know how to deal with that. Hopefully someone else does.

And when Greg talks to them so often, the conversations can get kind of repetitive… how’s school, what did you do last weekend? What are you doing next weekend? etc. The boys sound bored and sullen and don’t like being asked questions.

I still hate being asked open-ended questions like “How was school(/work)?” and I’m in my 30’s! Whenever my parents did this (they learned soon enough not to) I’d mumble “Fine” and go hide from them as quickly as possible. My husband is the same way and always has been. Does Greg share any interests with his sons? Would they be willing to explain the inner workings of their latest xbox game? A technique that sometimes works for me with kids is asking them to go through with me how something they love works (video games work particularly well in my experience; books will work quite well if they read but many kids don’t). They are a bit condescending and smug about it usually, but they warm up to you quickly if you display true interest in what they’re saying and they don’t get the feeling you’re just doing it to make conversation. Here again I wonder if Shayna’s advice to be extremely involved with their schooling will help. If my parents had said to me, “I hear you’re reading the Scarlet Letter. What do you think of it? I thought Dimmesdale sucked a lot,” well, I still might not want to get engaged in a conversation based on that, but there’s a lot more there to hook onto, plus it tells the kid his dad cares enough to know he’s reading Scarlet Letter but not to be judgmental about what he thinks about it (whereas “How was your day?” says nothing except that my parents clearly knew nothing about my day if they were asking dumb questions like that). I might start a new thread on this, because I need some suggestions on this too for my nephews.

Do the kids have any internet access at school? Can they get hooked up with a gmail address or something?

[Green_Cymbeline]

@Typo_Knig

Ah, come on - you must have one or two organs still functioning enough to sell!

(You know I’m kidding, don’t you?)

If you’re already depressed then hanging around this thread is not going to help. I’d prescribe a couple of funny books or movies, but I’m not that kind of doctor. Although National Lampoon’s “Bored of the Rings” does have more laughs per page than any other literary work, and the Alan Arkin/Peter Falk movie “The In-Laws” is insanely hilarious - especially at the end. Thank your favorite deity it’s never been remade!

Hang in there nyctea scandiaca and Greg!

THANK YOU for the kind thoughts and the laugh. I am going to find a comedy on TV right now!

[Green_Cymbeline]

@raspberry_hunter

Ouch. I don’t think it solves anything to constantly give into their demands for extravagant activities, either (one or two are fine), but if they’re refusing to go with dad unless they do expensive things, and mom isn’t supportive… I don’t know how to deal with that. Hopefully someone else does.

Yeah we try not to give into this, and luckily with the youngest, he is not materialistic at all. For example, when he was last here, he had the greatest time just baking cookies with me, while the older boys acted totally disinterested (well until it was time to eat the cookies!) And when I set up a t-shirt tie-dying activity, again the youngest was the most enthusiastic about it. The youngest is actually a really neat kid, and I see the most hope for him as a person in the future.

The middle one is very focused on material things. He likes to get as many gifts and perks as he can and doesn’t do a good job at hiding his greed. When we lived there, he used to ask me for money all the time. This past Christmas, Susan told Greg this story: She asked the boys if they wanted to call Greg, and the middle boy said, “well I do want to call him to ask him to buy me [certain video game gift] but otherwise no I don’t want to talk to him.”

@raspberry_hunter

Does Greg share any interests with his sons?

Yes this is a positive point. Greg is knowledgeable about all the movies they like, video games they play and music they listen to, so he always can hold decent conversations about these topics. Also Greg is a guitar player, and got the oldest a guitar and he’s taking guitar class at school, so they talk about that too.

As far as e-mail, I would think that the oldest (who is almost 15) would have an e-mail address… most kids I know that age are on Facebook all the time. But as far as I know, he doesn’t. I will suggest that Greg keep up with the suggestions for him to get e-mail. It would also help if we knew what happened to the two laptop computers Greg got for the boys :dubious:

[PunditLisa]

Might as well tell you now that his kids are at the cusp of very difficult ages – even for those of us who are still happily married. Teenagers are notorious for being sullen, pouty, and difficult. I sincerely believe that this is nature’s way of separating us from our kids. By the time they are 18, we’re ready for them to get the hell out of our house.

Since they lived with me, I still have/had the opportunity to see my teenagers during the normal course of the day. But non-custodial parents don’t have that luxury. And they may have to make difficult decisions when the teenagers start balking and/or refusing to comply with the visitation – do you force the issue or not?

My BIL fought with them at first, but soon realized that his oldest daughter wasn’t going to be reasoned with. She was going to pout and answer in mono-syllable answers the entire weekend because she didn’t like being told what to do. So he abandoned forcing her to visit. The middle child simply went about her normal routine of making plans with her friends every weekend, probably not realizing that she was breaking his heart by not protecting what little time they had together. And the youngest kid was delighted to come over and cried when he had to leave.

So I’m just letting you know now that as the children age, visitation will get more and more difficult because you’re removing them from their normal patterns. It’s unrealistic to expect them to want to spend a weekend with dad, any more than they’d want to spend the weekend with mom. They want to spend the weekend with their friends. So when Greg goes to visit them, more than likely, they’ll likely sit in a corner and text their friends about how lame it is there. He’s going to have to decide his level of patience with this. It may be that weekend visitation will come to include her friends and that quality time that he yearns for will be little more than chaperoning them.

Good times, those teenage years.

[Rumor_Watkins]

@nyctea scandiaca

While I am not going to post the exact figures of his income and what his taxes etc. are, yes the figures I gave are correct. He pays more money for child support than he takes home.

Are you including or excluding his voluntary retirement savings as “take home” pay?

But mind you, this is irrelevant to the thread since the amount of child support is not the subject of the thread nor I have never complained about the amount of support he pays. See my previous posts where I have said this. You try to discredit me by alleging that “you’re just mad at how much money Greg pays in child support!!” but that is not the case at all and there is nothing that I have said to show that. It’s just a diversionary tactic to make me look bad.

I try to discredit you, or at the very least inquire about your credibility, yes, because I don’t think you’re presenting neutral facts here. You come along, post completely skewed information about your case, demonize everyone and anyone who isn’t named Greg or “nyctea scandiaca”, make intentional hyperboles about the legal system, bla bla bla, and then cry for sympathy. lame.
P.S. my sympathies are extended to you, personally, for your own travails in life. I was going to post some snippy comment related to disability and being given custody of children, but I decided not to. Again, sorry.

[Drain_Bead]

You know, saying that you were going to make a snippy comment about something but didn’t is pretty much the same as actually making the snippy comment, only with an added side of passive-aggressiveness.

[Rumor_Watkins]

@Drain_Bead

You know, saying that you were going to make a snippy comment about something but didn’t is pretty much the same as actually making the snippy comment, only with an added side of passive-aggressiveness.

very good. you win a gold star.

but i’d have to take the star away for your utter misuse of the term passive-aggressive.

[CrazyCatLady]

@nyctea scandiaca

A few points of fact that negate what you’ve said. He always wanted to be their Daddy. He was in the military and had to work a second job throughout much of their childhood to make ends meet. Are you saying that fathers who are in the military or who have to work to enable their wives to be stay-at-home moms are not good fathers? That they don’t want to be Daddies? Because that is A LOT of fathers you are maligning there with your broad brush. Also when he moved across the country it was with the understanding that Susan was going to follow him within the year because she and her husband wanted to move to the East Coast to be near her in-laws.

Untwist your panties and actually read what I wrote. Hell, just read the first sentence, or the discussion on the same issue a few posts down from that. That’s a summation of the situation from the kids’ perspective. Being in the military or working a second job doesn’t cut any ice with a kid. To the mind of a small child, adults are omnipotent and if you’re not there, it must be because you don’t want to be. The longer you’re not there, the more it must mean you don’t want to be with them, and the less interested they become in being with you. It sucks and it’s not fair, but it’s how the little beggars work.

[alice_in_wonderland]

You know what I’ve learned from reading this thread?

Rumor_Watkins is one of the most…unpleasant posters on the board.

nyctea I hope everything works out as well as can be expected. Teens do grow up eventually and hopefully they will be more open to a relationship with their father then.