I've been divorced about over three years. This is concurrent to when I resigned from the church. I am a regular poster on RFM. I pay her $3,000 per month in CS and alimony (x5 years).
Within six months of the divorce, my son joined the military and was emancipated. When I filed a motion to have the CS reduced, her attorney called me at work one day. He warned me that I better drop the motion or "I will escalate your motion and find you in contempt for any little thing I can. I will also hold you liable for my fee's, which could total $10,000. I can keep you in court for years."

Admittingly, I was scared, and I dropped the motion. As a result, I have been paying an extra $350 in CS for my miltary son over 2 years now. To make a long story short, it has kept me from paying a 5,000 credit card of hers that I had hoped to pay on (I agreed to do this in the settlement). I guess I am in contempt for this. I did pay on it, but not as much as I was suppose to. She had to come up with $80 per month for the last two years to pay on this card.

Now the state Child Support people are performing a review, and they are going to drop my son off my monthly CS amount. When she found this out, she got mad and is now going to take me back to court.

2 questions for you legal minded folks out there:

1) Do you think a judge would have mercy on me when he finds out her attorney strong armed me a few years ago, getting me to drop my motion when my son joined the military? With that extra money, I could have easily payed on her credit card. Technically I am in contempt of the settlement.

2) I owe her $2,000 for what she has payed on the card during the last two years. What if I hurried up and payed her the 2,000 that she payed on the credit card, would it keep me from being in contempt?

Any advice is greatly appreciated. I'm still financially recovering from the divorce. I won't hire another attorney.

regardless of the merits, without an atty, don't plan on anything good.

Good Merits + Good Atty ~ Good/favoable outcome.

= good points

:::rolls eyes:::

What kind of advice are you hoping to hear???

If you had hired an attorney, you wouldn't have been paying child support for the child that wasn't. It's difficult to say how a judge might look at it.

Learn from your last mistake. Not hiring an attorney costs way more in the long run.

I cannot say it enough. To anyone out there who is thinking about getting a divorce, or going through divorce and child support issues......Hire an attorney. If you don't, you will pay for that for years. I don't know why it's so hard to get this message through peoples heads. Yes, an attorney costs money. But not hiring one will cost you more. Paying child support for 4.5 years when you didn't have to is a good example.

For all the people who come here looking for free legal advice from people who aren't even lawyers. They need it stamped right on their foreheads: GO GET YOUR OWN LAWYER!

LOL!

FYI, no, I've been paying CS for 2 years on my military son. T

What did I expect to gain?
It was a starting point. There is a lot that can be learned from folks who have been through divorce, CS situations. Case en pointe, read the thread below for responses from kind hearted folks like Mia, Anagrammy, and Skeptifem. I spent 7,000 on a lawyer 3 years ago. I was trying to avoid it this time.

Are you kind hearted, xyz? Are you a jerk?

I'm never getting married again, ever.

there are plenty of cows who give milk for free.

(Don't you dare post that crappy song!)

:-P

Yeah, me neither, Mak.

The S/He Person Marriage Haters' Club meeting will now come to order...

Men are pigs.

How pigs make use of free milk is beyond me.

I don't make up the news, I just report it.

You do make this stuff up.

Men are not pigs. *They* are cows to be lead by the nose.

I'm fair and balanced.

Have you seen how low an udder can go?

Hehehe!

Farm much? Men are bulls, women are cows, dear. If you lop off their balls, they are steer (sing. & pl.), which I guess helps your argument more...

To the OP, please get a lawyer.

To the OP, please get a lawyer.

So, yes, I am a pig, and I love pork. There are plenty of pigs that will give you their meat for free.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2012 11:39PM by MJ.

LOL!

OK, you can contact state child support and talk to them about the threat you received and the situation you are in.

They have the power to negotiate a settlement before it goes to court. FOr example, you can ask the child support division grant you a credit for the overage on the extra child support you have paid. If they can't do it, you can petition the court to grant you the credit to be applied to the credit card debt.

You can do this on your own as long as you provide all the documents to back up your payments.

A friend of mine was afraid of his ex who had threatened him. He paid for "child care" until the child was 16, at which point the wife wanted a raise in child support from the child support division, based on increased need (iphone, computer, etc). She now has a millionaire second husband, btw.

The child support division said big fat no and told her she was not eligible for a raise, rather the father had been overpaying for years.

Best of luck to you. You can do this! The court has a legal aid person there at the state building who will help you grab the right forms. Why not, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Anagrammy

You desperately need a lawyer. I am so sorry you were bullied into doing all kinds of unfair things. It seems like there should be some kind of legal remedy for paying on something you didn't owe for years and years, but of course since I am not an attorney I don't know what that would be.

What complicates things further is that the law in your state *at the time* and now might have some effect on the outcome, and so could any other issues that have not been mentioned.


Look at it this way- it seems like you are going to have to pay a lot no matter what. It is awful, no question. You might as well pay to have a fair agreement and win a little for once. I doubt that she will bother you as much once she has seen that you are willing and able to stand up for yourself. There is even the possibility that you could get attorney fees rewarded in your case (it happens sometimes).

You've paid over $7,000 more than you needed to over the past two years because your wife made one phone call to her lawyer and he made one phone call to you. Do you think he charged her $7K to do that?

You're being penny-wise, pound foolish.

The deciding factor was that I knew she could use it for the three kids at home, and so, I don't consider it a loss.

Get a lawyer and don't let any attorney strong arm you. Your son was over 18 right. So that means he is not a child.

Lawyers can be mean SOB's. You need to get your own SOB, preferably the meanest you can find.

Get a lawyer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2012 11:37PM by MJ.

I'm with the others who say that you should get a lawyer.

Forget about right and wrong, forget about moral integrity, forget about compassion. Forget it all.

Hire the nastiest lawyer you can find and give them all the dirt you can drag up from your memory.

Fight fire with fire and all that.

Anonforthis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1) Do you think a judge would have mercy on me
> when he finds out her attorney strong armed me a
> few years ago, getting me to drop my motion when
> my son joined the military?

The judge is not going to care about what the lawyer said and the lawyer is just going to deny it. Don't waste your time with that part of it.

You could ask that your child support be lowered retroactively but unless you are in an unusual jurisdiction and/or have an unusual judge, I'm 99.9% sure this is not going to happen.

However, it would highlight the situation that you paid child support you didn't need to, so go ahead and ask.

> With that extra money, I could have easily payed on her
> credit card. Technically I am in contempt of the
> settlement.

Contempt is not the word you are looking for here. You are in breach of the settlement agreement, you are violating a court order, the ex's attorney could ask that you be found in contempt for violating a court order. But attorneys don't find people in contempt, judges do.

But the judge is not going to hold you in contempt on a property settlement/debt issue. They save that for real deadbeats on child support which you are not.

> 2) I owe her $2,000 for what she has payed on the
> card during the last two years. What if I hurried
> up and payed her the 2,000 that she payed on the
> credit card, would it keep me from being in
> contempt?

That would be a good idea if you have enough money to do it, but again, realistically this is not an issue for contempt.

There are probably some fathers' right boards out there. Go see what you can find for your jurisdiction. Sometimes you can even find info on your judge. There's a site called robing room that has info on judges.

Has she actually filed her motion yet? You might want to beat her to it and file it Family Court if your jurisdiction permits that. It is usually more user friendly than Divorce Court. Child support issues get decided all the time by a hearing officer and no attorneys. Family Court in your jurisdiction might not be able to deal with the credit card issue, but that might be to your advantage, split the issues up and get the credit card situation solved.

Buy an hour of an attorney's time and have him/her talk you through this. Then you can decide if you want to pay more to take him to court with you.

Over all, you are not in that bad of shape and you only have 2 more years on alimony, congratulations.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2012 05:00AM by lulu.

Agree with others: GET A LAWYER. The cost is worth it. Good luck!

Please get a lawyer.

And the past tense of "pay" is "paid."

And don't get just any lawyer...make sure he/she specializes in divorce/child support cases.

My little sister hired the same lawyer who handled her personal injury court appearance from an auto accident. BIG MISTAKE!!!! Just the fact he took her case told me he was rotten, he hasn't done squat for her.

Oh gosh, Outcast, that makes my head hurt. Sorry for your sister.

I would consider trying to get credit for the extra money you paid for your emancipated son against what you owe on the credit card.

I wonder if the threat by your wife's attorney would be considered some kind of extortion. That money was NOT legally due to her, and he used the intimidation of court action to take it from you.