Five months since my youngest stepchild turned 18 and STILL no letter from the court indication closure of the case. I could assume it is closed permanently but ya know what they say about assuming?
I just want the notice. That's all.
It's been almost four months since my youngest stepchild turned 18 and still no letter from the court indicating the case is closed. What is taking them so long?
Ack!
Nothing from the Court with a judge's signature showing the case is closed, I mean. If we log in online, it shows "closed" but we need the darn piece of paper with the judge's signature. It's been almost a month. What are they waiting for?
Read more...With the savings in child support the past couple months, we've been getting caught up on a few of our own medical bills (stepkids' bills first, my kids' bills second...you know how it goes). After we get our bills on track, I hope to do some more updating to our house and yard.
My kids have asked for one of those playground swings for years. I've seen some nice ones at playsets woodbridge va. Now that my youngest is almost too old for them, we might actually have the money to buy one next spring. A few years too late...boo.
This week was the 60-day time frame the family court gave for closing my husband's child support, custody, and parenting time case (my youngest stepchild turned 18 a few couple months ago). Now, we wait for a letter from them telling hubby his legal relationship with the ex is OVER. FINISHED. ENDED.
It sure is nice not to have to ask her for a dang thing where it concerns the kids anymore. Hubby talks directly with his kids to arrange when they come here, etc. It's also nice to have that extra money every week to put towards getting our medical bills paid.
So....come on letter...show up in the mail so we can have that bonfire with the cases of paperwork from all the court battles and correspondence between us (which was generally fighting for the first decade) that has piled up through the long years.
One thing I have learned from this - to make sure my kids will know all they need to about contraception when the time comes so they don't get stuck having to deal with somebody they don't care about for 18 years.
Advice: Don't pick up people in bars and don't have sex with somebody you wouldn't want in your life for 18+ years. Keep that zipper zipped!
The notice of the support and court case closure came in the mail today, saying the case would close in 60 days. If either party doesn't want it closed, they have 60 days to notify the court. Why wouldn't it be closed for adults? Wow.
Well, we have not received the termination papers yet showing that legal tie with the ex is closed yet and it still shows open online. It's a good thing they were so messed up years ago that they didn't get my husband's employer's address into their system correctly for garnishing like the law requires or else they would still be taking child support out of my husband's check. I hate the family court system. So inept.
The ex was against my husband sending her child support directly for years. She wanted the court to take it out of his check and for the court to give it to her. Silly girl. For more than seven years, we have been sending it directly to the court ourselves and then they'd send it to her - never late, always on time, always what was owed - because they never got the employer information sent out. We weren't going to complain about that one. :)
I don't think the ex ever had a clue.
Still waiting for that official notice that those legal ties are cut. Hopefully they'll get it sent out before winter comes so we can have that big bonfire with all this court/ex stuff we have waited years to do.
-------------------------->>>>
What does that counter say? COMPLETE!!
Yippee!!! The ex was given the last child support payment. We paid the final fees off yesterday so once that clears the child support enforcement agency, we should get the termination order from them and it is DONE. DONE. DONE. DONE.
The legal relationship with the ex is DONE.
Today, we made the final child support payment. It's several days early but we really couldn't wait to cut that final legal tie with hubby's ex-girlfriend.
A month from now, child support will be done when my ss turns 18 - two more payments and it's over. At least that part will be over anyway.
Dealing with the BS will never be over. Hopefully the talk with hubby the other night will change something and we'll get back to how we used to be when dealing with them (united) IF we move back to their state (job interviews upcoming). Time will tell. If we move, it will be MY house, MY rules and they will be expected to follow the rules and be respectful no matter how old they get. We are raising our own four kids and our own kids will continue to have structure and responsibilities and expectations and if my stepkids are in my home, it will be the same for them. It may end up the stepkids follow those rules or it may end up they get ticked off at me (and then their dad).
At least we don't have to worry about the ex sending us bills for SS birth control like she did for my SD after she graduated. LOL
11 more child support payments until the LEGAL relationship ends with the ex. To say we are excited is an understatement!
Read more...When I disengage, I disengage! I took a break (ok, it was a super long one).
I am getting excited though. Our legal tie to the ex ends this year! We are excited. It has been a long time coming and now we are into out last year and a dozen child support payments left.
I will learn to do cartwheels just for that date!
My husband pays his child support on time, all the time, for the past 16 years. It's paid before everything else - house payment, groceries, etc. The ex hasn't paid her share of the kids' medical insurance since last August. Nice.
Read more...Does your spouse's court order require your family to pay for the stepchild's college education? Do you think it should be required? If yes, is that a state or county requirement or just something you agreed to?
My personal opinion is that no, it should not be required. A parent is not legally obligated to provide a college education for children within a marriage so why should they be required to provide a college education in the case of a divorce or child born out of wedlock? College is a privilege, not a right. I believe the financial obligation should end when the child reaches 18 (or graduates from high school, assuming they're not a regular, consistent flunky in the school system) unless the parent wants to provide additional financial assistance. I am glad our state does not recognize a college education as a right to ADULT children of divorce.
We are only a year and four months away from my stepdaughter graduating. That'll end the legal relationship we have for her with the ex. That leaves us right now at 3 years, 4 months (my stepson) until it is ALL over. Do the happy dance!
I am currently reading a vampire book. Some parts of it takes place in New Orleans. I've always wanted to go to New Orleans. Since the hurricane, I've wondered what it looks like now - what still stands, what has been rebuilt. If hubby and I renew our vows this summer, maybe we should look into new orleans vacations and just drive down and check it out.
Who am I kidding? We're barely hanging on financially in this economy. Now I'm just fantasizing. Renewing our vows is beginning to look like it's just not going to happen, let alone a vacation to the deep south. A couple weeks ago, I was really hopeful that we'd be able to renew our vows this year. I thought hours would pick up at work but that's just not happening yet like we've been waiting for. There were supposed to be extra hours the last couple weeks and those were cancelled.
I sure hope things pick up soon so the hours come back at work. Part of me just wants to give the mortgage company the house but I know that's not reasonable (but boy would I like to tell Bank of America a few things!). We can't rent a house big enough for all of us and the dogs.
The stepkids are getting their child support on time though and the ex's house, which is in my husband's parents name, is what she lives in. It gets aggravating. I do think that my husband should pay child support for his children. I just don't think that it's fair that when the economy goes in the stinker, we are the only ones sacrificing and struggling so hard. In a family, everybody would have to adjust and sacrifice. That just doesn't happen in a child support situation. We are the only ones doing that. The ex's hours haven't been cut at all while hubby has lost a big chunk of his hours for all of 2009. A couple hundred dollars a month less child support is the difference between us being able to make our house payment right now or not. It makes me resentful sometimes. Not much I can do about it though.
My stepdaughter turned 17 recently. I can't believe she's almost an adult! I met her when she was just a little thing just out of diapers.
Aside from the amazing fact that our kids are growing up SO quickly, it's hard to believe that in one year, we'll be halfway done with child support - one child done and one left to go! That will leave my stepson for a few more years. The end is near!
I'm looking forward to the future - to the point in time when child support is done so we can afford to get out of this too-small house and into something big enough for all of these kids. When my stepkids visit as adults, I'm sure there will be significant others coming with them. If our current house isn't big enough for just us, it's certainly not big enough to start adding other people into it.
I want five bedrooms, at least two full baths (one has to be a master bath), maybe three, with a family room in addition to a living room, a huge kitchen (with an island) and a finished basement. I want it on at least ten acres with several out buildings for horses and a goat my husband wants (I don't know why he wants a goat but he wants a goat). I want the barn made of cement block so it'll withstand storms and be cooler in the summer and metal buildings for storage for tack and hay and another for an indoor arena so we can ride practically year-round. I also want hot water running to the barn. That's my dream. Reality will be a lot different but it's nice to dream once in awhile.
...and it's not what it sounds like.
I'm feeling a little down right now. My husband was offered a promotion at work. It is better hours (M-F office job as opposed to 3rd shift plant job) but because the overtime isn't there for this new position (and we need the overtime to make up for what goes out to the ex to meet our own bills), this new position wouldn't pay enough for our household expenses and child support.
I'm really upset. I wish it were four years into the future and child support was done and he could take this new position. It'd be the best thing for his health and for the family - our kids and his since he also can't talk to his kids during the week either. When he gets up to go to work (after 9), he's not "allowed" to call his older kids because they're supposedly in bed (yeah, right...they're teenagers...in bed my butt!). He used to call from his cell on the drive into work at 9:15 but the ex told him he can't. On the weekends, they're all over the place and hard to find (might be on purpose, who knows). We can't make weekend trips to see them because his 3rd shift job starts on Sunday night so the weekend isn't really a weekend.
3rd shift means he doesn't get to spend time with our kids during the week because when they get home from school, he's sleeping. When he gets up to go to work, they're in bed so he hugs who is still awake in bed and then leaves. It means he can't help with homework (sure could use his help with algebra with our oldest), have dinner with us, or go to the different sports events during the week. It means his body is getting battered on 3rd shift - he's sick more, he's crabby, etc. It's not been good for his health at all. We haven't had dinner together as a family consistently in almost four years because his body clock is opposite of ours.
Every major family decision over the years has been put off until child support was done. I wouldn't want to wish my kids to age 18 right away, but I sure wish my stepkids were 18 and we could then make decisions that would be best for our family as a whole instead of just for two.
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