I don’t think it’s realistic to assume the mother would just move “out of spite.” Despite the picture painted of her we’ve seen evidence that she lived within relatively close distance of the father for years at a time in the past.
I’ve not suggested anyone move, but it’s kind of farcical to expect someone gets to be a major part of a child’s life if you live 3,000 miles away.
I think you’re mistaken.
Oh, and since this thread is asking for my advice, here’s mine:
Tell Greg to give up, he’s wasting his money and his life on a situation from which there is no victory and no hope. Those children are going to be permanently emotionally estranged from him, he has no hope of getting custody, and he has to learn to live with that. His goals should be getting financially solvent and making it through until 18/21 when all the children are no longer his financial responsibility.
Maybe if he tries when they are adults he can repair the relationship.
People don’t always get happy endings, and the truth of the matter is if you have a bunch of kids with a crazy woman you’re probably going to have some suffering in life. Lots of people have to deal with losing their children to bitter divorces, it’s the way of the world.
Edit: I also think there are some delusions going on, when court appointed social workers observe a mother for 8-10 months and determine she shouldn’t lose custody, the reality is that the situation isn’t nearly as grim as you think it is. I’m not saying social workers are perfect, but if there’s anything they are familiar with it is true abuse and neglect. I get a little ticked off with how quickly people dump on the very low paid people who are involved in child protective services, social service and et cetera, most of them have case loads that 5 individuals couldn’t work through and deal with things far worse than what you’ve described in your OP.
I used to believe that it would take years for a father to be sent to jail for failure to pay CS. In the past year since I have been doing a lot of research and reading on this subject, I have discovered that is not true. I will give you two cites that I know personally, and I could also do some Googling and find you some other cites.
Cite 1, Greg himself. About 3 years ago, right after Greg got out of the military but before he joined the Federal government, he took a private sector job. Then he was laid off. He immediately applied for modification of child support. The judge set the hearing for 3 months away. So for three months he racked up a bill for his full child support amount each month when he was unemployed. He then got into arrears, and the collection letters started coming. The biggest threat was that if he did not pay, the state would suspend his drivers license. Then when he had the hearing, the judge did not suspend his CS payments, he only reduced them. The judge also required him to submit regular reports on his job hunting activities, including names and dates and phone numbers of all companies contacted. Luckily Greg was soon hired to the Fed job. However, the fun doesn’t stop there. For his Fed job, they do a background check which includes financial, and they would not hire him until his CS arrears were paid in full. SO he had to come up with almost $10,000 to settle the CS arrears before he could start his new job.
Cite 2, one of my best friends from childhood. Her husband (who has a kid from a prior relationship) was laid off and has been unemployed for a while. The court would not suspend his CS, only reduce it. So the arrears added up and got so high that he was told he had to pay the back amount (about $30,000) or be sent to jail. This just recently happened, so I don’t know the outcome yet.
I had a post all typed out and everything, and Martin Hyde beat me to it.
IOW, what he said.
You’re fighting a battle that cannot be ‘won’, whatever winning might be. You and Greg get on with your lives, and maybe, perhaps, possibly, sometime down the track he might be able to resurrect a relationship with his boys.
I wish you both well.
I don’t see where anyone got sent to jail in either of those cites. I’ve read a lot of stories over the years where people will say things like “decorated Veteran jailed for failing to pay child support after getting laid off” and this will be someone with 20+ years of military service who is now retired. I’m retired Army myself drawing a full pension, so my BS meter instantly goes off since there’s really no way the guy in the story wasn’t able to make payments. Secondly, what will often not be mentioned in these sob stories that I’ve heard is the person misses court dates, fails to follow instructions and et cetera.
I’m not saying people who have “done everything right” have never been jailed for back child support, but I’ve still seen no clear cut case where that was the situation.
I am pretty certain that parenting time is a factor in determining CS amount. In the California child support guideline formula, the amount of time each parent has the child is taken into consideration. If For example, if Greg had the kids 50% of the time, he would be paying less money to Susan. Here’s is a cite, just the first link on Google:
Also the child support case stays in the state where the child resides. The case is under the jurisdiction of the California DCSE. They work with Virginia to garnish Greg’s paychecks. The amount is deducted straight from Greg’s paycheck and goes directly to the CA DCSE and is auto-deposited into Susan account. And yes, the CS guideline formula does impute a minimum-wage income to Susan.
You have given good advice and personally, I agree with it.
Regarding the second comment, I get what you’re saying, and if you look through everything I have said, I never alleged any abuse or neglect. Thankfully, Susan does not drink or do drugs (as far as I know) and she has never abused the kids. There has been some benign neglect, but no more than any other poor mother with 6 kids.
I knew it was going to be a long shot to get custody. I thought there was maybe a 5% chance of that happening. But what troubled me was the content of the family therapist’s report, how she downplayed or ignored the serious issues and it came down to the kid’s statements that they did not want a relationship with their dad, and the therapist’s failure to recognize that there was some serious parental alienation going on.
Also while this may sound horrible, if I was in Greg’s shoes I would actively not care about the children’s schooling. If they do very badly at school then they won’t end up going to college and since non-custodial parents can be forced to pay for college education it’s actually to Greg’s benefit if his children do not go to college at all.
A quick Googling pulls up hundreds of cases. Here’s one:
ETA: How is this any different from debtor’s prison?
Allow me to rephrase: Visitation and child support are separate issues. She has already been awarded custody. Unless he got joint custody, his support amount would not change just because he spends more time with the kids.
Y’all are fucked if you are trapped to CA.
As many absentee and custodial parents can tell you, the idiot they had kids with continued to suck after the relationship was over. Greg knew she sucked when he married her, and now he has to deal with the fallout. Sucks to be him. Either he does what he can be be a good father (read Shayna’s message again) or he doesn’t.
Mostly I hear you complain about the money. I have no sympathy for his child support situation, so I will bow out now.
Yeah, I saw that on reddit back when it happened, too. However we don’t know any of the details. Did he file for a change in the support order? Was he genuinely diligent in trying to find work, or did a judge have reason to believe he was just being lazy and not working? Did he miss court dates (either through apathy or simple error)? How bad did he let things get before he tried to rectify the situation?
As for the 500 or so people in Georgia that it mentions being jailed, we know absolutely nothing about their circumstances. I’d presume the vast majority of them are dead beats who refused to work, especially since the article directly states many deadbeat dads will choose to just do a jail stint even though Georgia offers all fathers in that situation the opportunity to go into a work release program in lieu of full time incarceration.
The only issue of child support where I have genuine sympathy is when a non-custodial parent can be forced to support a child up through college including paying their college tuition.
My parents were married until my father passed away and when I turned 18 no amount of legal action could have compelled my father or mother to support me for one day after my eighteenth birthday. I couldn’t have sued them for college tuition and certainly not for any living expenses. So I don’t see why a parent should be forced to commit to a child going to college just because they happen to be divorced from the other parent.
But the high expense of children? Most people who have kids cede the majority of their income to their upkeep, just because you get divorced and potentially lose the benefit of actually being a part of the child’s life doesn’t mean society will let you bow out of the financial aspect of it.
Whaaaaaaa??? 
I have never complained about the child support Greg pays. Never complained about the amount or that he pays it. Never. Show me anywhere that I complained about it.
What I did bring up is the fact that Susan is misusing Greg’s child support funds. I said I think the money should go to the full benefit of Greg’s kids. Not to supporting two unemployed adults (Susan and her boyfriend) and to a lesser extent, the children of a child molester in prison. I didn’t see anyone disagree with me on that complaint.
Many times in these discussions, it’s very easy for the other party to just say, “whatever, you are just complaining about the money.” This is what Susan says all the time, “you just don’t like paying the money,” where never did Greg ever complain about paying the money. This is just a strawman, an attempt to divert attention away from the real problem.
Just for detail’s sake, Greg and Susan have joint legal custody, with Susan having primary physical custody. According to the current court order, Greg is supposed to have generous visitation, at the very least during the summers and holidays. Like I have explained, Susan does her damnedest to make these visitations as problematic and difficult as possible.
Lost me right there.
but, out of sheer morbid curiosity, I kept reading. Clear parental alienation that a disinterested third party seemed to miss? No attempt to get a 2nd opinion? Whups.
That’s the way the cookie crumbles, as they say.
post script: I briefly glance over some replies, and it turns out that non-custodial parent moved away from the kids, across the entire continent, to get a job? yeah, uh, okay. no one saw this court outcome a mile away…
Well, I see what I see. I’ve read the threads and it always boils down to $2500 being spent in ways you don’t like. Oh, and P.S. the kids might be suffering, too.
It has been obvious to me from the beginning that suggestions to benefit the kids are given way less traction than suggestions to punish Susan (even if that is not in the best interest of the child). So if that is not the impression you are attempting to give, you have been unsucessful. If you want more sympathy, quit bringing up how much Greg pays, how terrible it is that she doesn’t make money, and keep to the how to help the kids. Otherwise, I’m going to keep thinking that the money may be a big issue here.
I hope Greg someday develops a relationship with his kids. He will probably have to wait until they are adults. It sucks, but then so much of life does.
The kids’ money being spent in ways I don’t like – you mean like, NOT being spent on the kids? Well in that case guilty as charged. Because the kids suffer when their money is not being used for their well being.
Read my OP. I didn’t even mention child support. That only came up as an auxiliary matter, in regards to the fact that the kids’ money is being misappropriated by their mother, which is an issue directly related to the welfare of the children. I have never complained about how much money Greg pays for child support. Re-read the thread and tell me where I have said that or implied that. You are mistaken.
I didn’t even complain about how much money Greg has spent on his attorneys. I did mention it as a matter of fact, but did not complain. I mentioned it to illustrate that he is now out of money.
What I also complained about is how Susan is asking the court to require Greg to pay her $16,000+ in legal fees. I posited that this is unfair because the custody action arose in direct response to the kids having to live with a child molester, and that Greg should not be financially penalized because he took justifiable action to protect his kids. No one in this thread has disagreed with me about the justification for him taking action for custody. Since his action was taken justifiably and in good faith, it is my opinion that it is unjust for him to have to pay her legal fees, because she has chosen to be unemployed and have no income, and because she chose not to settle the case two years ago and agree that it was not in the best interests of the children to have them living with a child sex offender. If she had not fought that for 1.5 years, and stood by her sex offender husband, the bill would have been maybe a few thousand dollars. I don’t see how any reasonable person could disagree with what I just wrote above.
misappropriation implies impropriety.
child support money is not kids’ money, and there are no expectations that it is to be spent 100%, every penny, on the kids.
do you think momma dying of malnutrition is a good thing for the children in her care? do you think momma not being able to put gas in the gas tank so she can either drive to work or take the kids to a doctor’s appointment is a good thing? do you think momma paying her cell phone bill and having a number at which she can be contacted by the non-custodial parent is a good thing?
i do.
that’s a nice system you’ve worked out for yourself, there.
so, now that momma is personally broke (since, after all, it is the kids’ money) and doesn’t have anything but actual shit to offer up to the attorney she’s seeking to retain, poppa storms in with his uncle scrooge-esque vault of money, claims a “justifiable” and “good faith” necessity to modify the childrens’ custody, hires an attorney who subsequently takes a dump all over the unrepresented party.
you may as well just equate child custody to who has the cheddar cheese.
I have to disagree with what you just wrote. Your assumption seems to be “the children should live with the mother, period. If the father wants custody he is at fault. The father trying to use the legal system to gain custody of the children is unfair.”
Why should it be unfair? Why shouldn’t the father have custody?
Do you think that money should play zero part in the considerations of who to assign custody to?
In this case, my impression is that the father requested custody, NOT because he had more money, but because the mother was married to a pedophile and didn’t admit that her husband was a pedophile. In your view, is it OK for a father to attempt to get custody in that situation?