Oh the ongoing saga of being divorced with a kid

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My son’s birthday is this week. In one year he will turn 18, at which point I will no longer be required to pay child support to his mother. We share joint physical custody, so he is with us 50% of the time and with his mom and stepdad 50% of the time. My son also has a half brother there as well. He loves his family, both sides and he worries about his mom’s household financial condition. The disparities between the financial where-with-all of our two households is significant.

We have been divorced for about 11 years now. My ex received a 6 figure settlement from me at the time of our divorce including one of the houses we owned, as well as alimony and child support. She re-married within a year of our divorce, which stopped the alimony, and she and her new husband blew through all of the cash; sold the house and blew through all of the equity within 18 months of getting married.

She borrows money from my son frequently for gas and other misc. expenses. The child support I pay her represents about 30% of their family monthly income. I too worry about their situation, especially after next year when the monthly stipend from me comes to an end.

We were married for 14 years at the time of our divorce. Deep down I still care about her, but at the same time I’m very glad we are no longer together. She knows how to push my buttons, and as such I try to limit the amount of communication I have with her, to only what is necessary.

My son has been honored to be selected as a student ambassador from our state to travel with about 200 other students to Europe next summer (2013) for about 16 days. I think this would be a wonder experience for him prior to going off to college. The cost of the trip will be about $6,000, which is actually a really good deal for a two week trip to London, Paris, Geneva, Venice, Munich, and Frankfurt.

We have to make a decision if he’s going to be able to go and put down a non-refundable deposit by the end of next week. I told him that he needs to figure out how he’s going to pay for the whole trip before we put down the deposit. I also told him that I would be willing to pay for half of the cost of the trip, and that he should consider how much he himself would pay for out of his own pocket, and ask his mother how much she would be willing to contribute.

She receives about $15,000 a year from me (tax-free) for him living with her 50% of the time. I know that she doesn’t spend even half of that amount on him. So I do not feel that I am unreasonable in expecting her to consider committing some amount of money for his trip. But my son is worried that they won’t be able to afford it and doesn’t want to broach the subject with her because of the apparent financial difficulties they always seem to have.

I’m torn between wanting to help my son have this experience, and teaching him to take more of a responsibility for his own goals.

2

Wow. I don’t have an answer for you. In a perfect world, she pays half(ish), but that seems unlikely to happen.

If you have the wherewithal, I’d push her to the edge, but then pony up as much as your son needs. It sounds like an amazing opportunity that he should take advantage of.

Good luck with this crappy situation.

3

Him not getting to go because his mom didn’t step up isn’t right.

If the one learning from this teachable moment was your son rather than his mother I’d be all for that. But if he’s helping her with gas money and worried about her finances I’d say your son is responsible beyond his years and shouldn’t miss this really great opportunity.

Yes, he should be expected to make fiscally prudent choices and contribute, but should not be made to worry that the trip is in jeopardy if his mother mismanages her own funds or doesn’t choose to participate.

Now, in your shoes I might approach her and say that you’ll be scaling back your monthly payments to a total of $12,000 next year and that’s how she pays her half.
I don’t know if she’d go for it. It might not be worth the unrest it would cost.

I’m sorry it isn’t all easier for you, and for your son.

4

Easy for me to say, I know, since I’m not the one writing the check, but I’d pay for the trip.

From your description, even if your ex-wife agreed to fund part of the trip, it wouldn’t be the best use of her money (and that includes the money she gets from you). She appears to have more pressing needs for it. That may not be fair, but that seems to be the situation.

And you don’t want to put your son in the position where he resents both you and your ex-wife for not being able to come to some agreement on the trip, if in fact that is the case. So, if you can swing it financially, I suggest doing it. Don’t deny him the trip based on the principle that his mother should foot some of the bill.

I know you said you wanted him to take some responsibility, so maybe come up with a plan to have him make whatever money he can in advance and work off some of the debt afterward.

5

That of course would be violating a court order and not paying your child support is a criminal offense in my state. Not going down that road.

I will most likely make sure he goes, but I want him to take the ownership of it. Seek out what she’s willing to do. He’ll be off to college next year. I’m not going with him, and he’s going to have to learn this level of responsibility himself.

6

We went through this same situation about 4 or 5 years ago. My original child support amount that we agreed to was double what the state mandated amount was. I discovered that she wasn’t paying her share of his private school tuition, because of all of these “pressing needs” she had. I took her to court and had my child support lowered to the state mandated amount at that time. The court agreed that since she wasn’t keeping up with her responsibilities to pay her share of my son’s expenses with support that I paid her, that she had effectively breached our contract. The said child support was to be used for the support of the child, not for her or her husband’s personal expenses.

7

It seems to me that asking your son what he can pay for and how he’s going to come by that money is an absolutely wonderful idea when it comes to teaching your kid fiscal responsibility. I’m less clear on what asking his mom to chip in is supposed to teach him.

8

My son clearly understands the financial arrangement between his mother and I. He’s 17. He also knows that she is responsible for half of his support via what I pay her each month. I don’t believe that he should disregard those facts, simply because his mom is terrible with money.

9

So you are clearly establishing to him that mom is a deadbeat with money. Congratulations. You win. OK, now that you’ve won…

From the outside, it really sounds like you are engaged in a battle and putting him in the middle.

10

Not totally the same situation but similar. mr ems has been divorced from his ex for 10 years and has paid child support that entire time. His eldest daughter graduates high school next week which means as of June 1st the child support for her stops (for his youngest daughter it continues).

During the time they were married she was a huge spender and racked up massive credit card debt and forced them into bankruptcy with her spending habits. She was re-married within 2 weeks of the divorce and we know that they are in a similar situation. We also know that the money he gives does not get spent on the kids and we know that the reduction in child support is going to have a massive impact on the finances of the household (approx a $6K a year reduction - which may not seem a lot but given they are on payment plans for taxes to the feds for the past 3 years and we ended up paying the electric bill twice last year so they didn’t get cut off). We are concerned. We help the kids directly rather than giving her more money to squander.

My sympathies but your son sounds very mature and responsible and that is a great opportunity. We did this for a car for his eldest (not the same amount but a similar situation) - we agreed on paying for half upfront. She was responsible for gas/insurance. We then worked out a plan where she ‘paid’ us back at X per month from her job which we then matched her for our $0.50. This way she got the car she needed but was shown how a responsible person pays for things.

In all practicality we have put the money she paid into an account and she will be getting it back for graduation. Her mother wanted us to pay for a hugely overpriced/way more car than his daughter needed but I put my foot down that is another story.

We are in the lucky position of being able to help out financially and while we don’t want the girls to lose out at the same time we want them to be responsible and not expect us to foot the bill. We think we have struck the right balance.

11

I’m sure this will be a great experience for your son but I think that 6K for a 2 week trip to Europe is not a ‘good deal’ by any stretch of the imagination, unless it’s first class flights for all legs of the trip, five star hotels, and ditto food.

12

He shouldn’t disregard those facts - but he’s also not responsible for what his mother does with the child support.

I’m glad you’re going to try to see that he makes the trip; it may be a once in a lifetime chance for him. (I wanted to go to Europe for graduation; I got braces) I also agree he should ask his mother to contribute. I’m sure she’ll agree but whether she will actually follow through and pony up any money is another story.

Does your son have a part time job? Is it possible for him to get one?

13

First $3k is a lot of money to a 17 year old kid. Thats about 400 hours worth of flipping burgers. If it were also a lot of money to you, this would be a different situation, but it doesn’t sound like it is.

Second, he knows his mother doesn’t manage money well. You know it. Him “owning” it will only embarrass him and her.

Leave your ex completely out of it. If you want him to “own” some of this, give him some way to own it - “I’ll pay for half out of my own pocket and loan you the other half…you can pay me back and as you pay me back, I’ll start forgiving some of the debt.” Sort of ems’ matching plan. Write up a contract to that end and put in the penalty - if he doesn’t pay you back then he will need to mow the lawn every summer…or help build a deck…or …

We got my daughter an iPhone with a data plan…she “pays” for it by babysitting for friends of ours for two hours a week (the friends don’t pay us or her, we just loan her to them because we couldn’t figure out what she could do around the house, this seemed like a good solution.).

14

It sounds like everyone involved with this situation is fully aware of his mother’s responsibilities. So, as has been pointed out already, forcing him to ask her for this money will only shame him and her. I can understand your frustration with your ex-wife’s money-handling problems, but it’s not your son’s fault, and it’s not his responsibility.

15

If it’s a People to People trip, then it is. It is 100% fully inclusive of everything, except souvenirs. They get background access to things like Pompeii and the Vatican, a few meetings with government-type ambassadors throughout Europe, folk dancing seminars, etc. I priced it for my daughter (she’s going this summer) and when you throw in the all-access type perks, it’s about even.

Also OP - if it is People to People, there are just scads and scads of resources to help the kids fund the trip. It’s stuff like selling football cookies at the game, but it includes all sorts of resources on money management and business.

I’ll give him this idea I had for my daughter (she was too shy to do it for her trip): have your son solicit pictures from the artsy types (or anyone else) at school, and get them to give him artwork that would work for a tee-shirt. Use that artwork to open a store at CafePress, then make the store the “local” art scene for budding teen artists. They get the credit and 50% (or whatever) of the profit, and son gets the rest for his work maintaining the store. You’d get loads of orders from kids who want cool shirts, Grandma who wants a coffee mug with Sonny Boy’s artwork, etc.

It would totally work if he’s the type to get the word out. And it would be fantastic experience for the business world as well.

16

You think he can build a viable CafePress store that’s solvent to the tune of 3k by the end of next week? You have great faith in the youth of today.

17

Not a child of divorced parents or a parent of any kind.
But if you and his mother were still together, who would pay for the trip?

I think it’s reasonable for a junior/senior in high school to be told that he can go on this type of trip if he can pay for a portion of the trip himself; it’s fair that some percentage of the funding be the kid’s contribution and some portion be the parents’ contribution. Perhaps half and half, perhaps a 70/30 split, perhaps something else entirely. Whatever that is, he should still have to come up with the kid’s contribution.

What seems slightly unfair is that he may have to have to cover his mother’s portion of the parents’ contribution to the trip because she can’t afford it. What seems really unfair is that, if I read the OP correctly, he’s being put in the position of making the call as to how much should be her contribution.

If you can cover her share, it would be a nice thing to do. If you can’t (or simply don’t want to) don’t, but that should be your decision, not his. It seems off for a high schooler to be making the financial decisions for the adults in his life.

18

I agree with this. Why does the 17 year old know how much dad pays to his mother? Why should he be stressed out knowing that his mother receives such and such but probably can’t contribute because she “needs” to spend the money on other things.

If dad is not going to allow his ex wife’s inability to pay to cost his son the trip, than he shouldn’t even ask it of her. It puts son is yucky position, one he clearly doesn’t want to be in.

As far as who pays, I’ll stay out of that. I over indulged my son at that age and he made some bad decisions because of it.

19

I thought he was going in 2013? If it’s the same thing as what we have, they take payments. If not, I bet Dad would take payments.

20

I certainly did mean to advocate anything criminal. My son’s father pays support directly to me rather than through an agency and so I’ve been able to accommodate changes he’s needed to make time to time. I projected my situation onto yours. Sorry.

I am all for teaching kids responsibility but the way I read your OP it seemed like you were also trying to teach your ex some, too. I’m sorry to say that ship has most likely sailed. It sounds as if your son has a realistic sense of the situation, which is good for him. I really hope he gets to go on the trip. I was able to study abroad for one term and it was a tremendous experience. It is my sincere hope that my son finds a similar opportunity for himself.