- Jurisdiction
- California
My husband was married for only 1.5 years before being divorced from ex-wife in 1987. They have an amazing son together. We met in 1989 and married in 1990. His son was just 3 at the time and I have been privileged to help raise him since then. He is now a wonderful, kind & talented young man of 31. He graduated the Police academy in Chico, CA and works for the Alameda Sheriffs office.
During the years "our" son was growing up, my husbands ex had primary custody, with us having bi-weekly & weekend visitations. We did have him for an 11 month period when he was 5 years old due to a case of possible child abuse from his ex's boyfriend du jour, that was prematurely dismissed. He moved back with his biological mother at 6.5 years old, until 14 years old, then he was raised by his grandmother. (biological mothers, mother) we continued to send in our child support payments which went directly from child sup division Dept to the ex, nothing went to her mom for help. Her mother is a very very nice lady. She, of course not wanting to upset her manipulating & controlling daughter, went along with this arraignment with her daughter giving her none of the support money!
We have during the course of over 18 years occasionally fell behind in child support at times when my husband who is in the construction field was out of work. We lost our business, our car & our home in 1993 due to a very crooked CPA that we'd been doing business for years will but he decided to turn on his clients due to greed. He is now in prison for robbery & murder, among other things.
BTW I APPRICIATE THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE STILL READING MY LONG WINDED BUT EXTREMELY IMPORTANT COMMENTS & QUESTION. I FEEL THE NEED THAT YOU SHOULD HEAR OUR WHOLE STORY IN ORDER TO MAKE A FAIR OPINION.
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!
So after all these years of child support payments, often very irregular, but always tried to pay as much as we could every month, even though at times not the full amount. Each time we tried to go back to court (approx 4-5 times) to try to get support lowered, each time it was increased, even 2 separate times when my husband & I were both out of work for almost 2 months with zero income! Even after we had just lost everything- home, business, car, will to live (lol just joking on the last one, Gotta see some humor sometimes or you fall apart). Our child support was increased from $500 a month to $1200 a month!!! How is that even legal? We were now homeless (had to move in with my parents), car-less (a minister from our church gave us an old station wagon that was the ugliest car ever, but to us was beautiful), jobless (both out of work and no unemployment benefits due to self employment & for some reason were denied public assistance due to someone using my name "identity theft" 10 years prior!!! Even though I have 3 children from my previous marriage that we have been raising our entire marriage)
Anyway, we somehow managed to get by and even come out of everything just fine with the help of some amazing friends & family. We had caught up on child support and finished with all our child support responsibilities by the time "our" sone was 22 years old, actually paying an extra $7000, which we never asked for it back- done deal. But due to thousand upon thousands of dollars worth of interest tacked on over the years, we are in a big hole that gets deeper & deeper! (You're not gonna believe how much interest we owe! Mind you, this amount is totally the interest, the principle plus $7000 has been paid for several years. Our interest amount due is over $80,000!!! Yes that is over eighty thousand dollars!!!). We are now paying interest on the interest! "Our" son is almost 31, has a great life, is an amazing person, and has never seen a dime of that money go to him or any of his physical needs since he was 14 years old and moved in with his grandmother. (At the time, his biological mother was very addicted to drugs and was leaving him alone so his grandmother took him- we were totally unaware of the situation!) His ex kept every penny of the child support and we had nothing extra to give his ex-mother in law to help her out. But my husbands parents helped her out with food & clothing for "our" son and as much financially as they could. We ALWAYS paid for his medical, vision & dental insurance (court ordered) even when we were out of work, we never missed a month on that.
So now all these years later and they still take several hundred dollars out of my husbands pay check every month! The child Support Division nor the Courts n California have the power to stop the interest on this, only his ex-wife can do that and she is not willing to budge. She lives off the money to support her drug habit. Even her own son doesn't like visiting her and seeing her like this.
Now, my husband just turned 60 and would like to retire do to a bad health issues and a medical condition with his internal organs, especially his liver, that causes severe fatigue & loss of strength. He has had 2 major surgeries in the pzst 7 years. His job as a journeyman industrial painter at a refinery is very physically demanding. It's very vital that he stay strong and alert at work due to the nature of being in an industrial environment that has highly flammable and dangerous gasses and toxic materials. He constantly is required to take safety classes which I am very thankful for. But he really can't go on like this much longer, before it kills him!
My husband is a union industrial painter and in order to retire, since he is not yet old enough to collect his retirement pension or social security benefits (we've already had someone look into that so no need to further research that area), our only option is to take out his annuity that has accrued the past nearly 20 years of being in the union. (The take a certain amount from his check every week and put it in this annuity and the his employer also adds a percentage to this also. Not sure if the union also adds to it or not.) his annuity would be enough for us to live on- ie; pay rent, utilities, food, auto expenses, clothing, health coverage: medical/vision/dental premiums, other related living expenses for approx 7-8 years, and by then he will be able to collect retirement & social security. I have been on permanent disability from a horrible accident for the past 7 years, but I only receive $433 a month and nothing else, no medical coverage, no assistance of any kind. I do have full medical, vision & dental insurance through my husbands employer, thank God!
Does anyone, (if there is anyone left still reading this/my 32 years account of what has been going on that I've wrote down so far lol) absolutely anyone, have any suggestions or information about these two extremely important questions that I have? And yes all this info has just been for me to ask two questions that may seem trivial or not as important as one may think, but mine and my husbands entire, entire means of living a, not wealthy-no not even close, but just a life with enough money to cover a normal couples everyday living expenses, not even extra left to save for emergencies or a rainy day, just to cover the bottom line basics of life, and this all depends on the answers to these two vital questions:
1. How can this child support interest be stopped, years after paying off the actual child support plus an extra $7000 over the court ordered amount? We have been making interest only payments for about 8-9 years.
We pay nearly $380 a month right now towards the interest (it's automatically deducted from my husbands pay check) But the interest keeps accruing at a rate of close to $500 a month. It a never ending black hole!!!
2. If my husband takes out his annuity, (and yes we realize he will get penalized a certain percentage, not sure how much yet.) can his ex-wife claim any of this annuity towards her child support interest arrearage? Or will the Child Support Division automatically take it for her?
In other words, would any of it go to her?
Does anyone know how difficult it is to pay someone a huge amount child support when that person is on drugs and does not even have her child in her custody but has her mom raise him instead? We would never get "our" son involved in this. I know it would be so easy to just have him tell a judge: "yes I lived at my grandmothers house from the time I was 14 until I was in my early 20's with no help or money from my biological mother." I'm sure the case would be closed- we win. But we could NEVER put him in the middle like that because it would hurt him and that's not a win for us! His grandmother is so afraid of her daughter that she isn't willing to testify. "Our" son has no clue about any of this or any child support problems even going on unless his biological mother has told him and he just hasn't said anything about it to us.
This is just the worst situation to be in! I thought the time you are old enough to retire, you know, the so-called Golden Years, it was supposed to be a pleasant era in your life where you get to sit back and look over your life with a smile on your face, sit on a big front porch in a rocking chair, side by side, reminiscing over a glass or iced tea or lemonade and enjoy the fruits of your labor so over the last 516 decades of your life. Who said its not supposed to be like that? Cause it it!
Ummm....well ours isn't anyway.
So if you have advice (professional or just an unbiased opinion) I would love to hear it. I am in the process of trying to find a financial advisor who can give us financial advice but who also has knowledge about child support laws and it's getting more difficult to find someone, so if you can recommend someone who's awesome and lives in the San Fransisco Bay Area in Contra Costa county...please, recommend away!
Thank you to everyone who was thoughtful enough to to read this entire post, thank you very much to everyone who was thoughtful enough to offer their opinions or advice , and for those of you who can actually help us out.....I LOVE YOU. lol
Thanks again & have the best day of your lives today!
Debi
During the years "our" son was growing up, my husbands ex had primary custody, with us having bi-weekly & weekend visitations. We did have him for an 11 month period when he was 5 years old due to a case of possible child abuse from his ex's boyfriend du jour, that was prematurely dismissed. He moved back with his biological mother at 6.5 years old, until 14 years old, then he was raised by his grandmother. (biological mothers, mother) we continued to send in our child support payments which went directly from child sup division Dept to the ex, nothing went to her mom for help. Her mother is a very very nice lady. She, of course not wanting to upset her manipulating & controlling daughter, went along with this arraignment with her daughter giving her none of the support money!
We have during the course of over 18 years occasionally fell behind in child support at times when my husband who is in the construction field was out of work. We lost our business, our car & our home in 1993 due to a very crooked CPA that we'd been doing business for years will but he decided to turn on his clients due to greed. He is now in prison for robbery & murder, among other things.
BTW I APPRICIATE THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE STILL READING MY LONG WINDED BUT EXTREMELY IMPORTANT COMMENTS & QUESTION. I FEEL THE NEED THAT YOU SHOULD HEAR OUR WHOLE STORY IN ORDER TO MAKE A FAIR OPINION.
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!
So after all these years of child support payments, often very irregular, but always tried to pay as much as we could every month, even though at times not the full amount. Each time we tried to go back to court (approx 4-5 times) to try to get support lowered, each time it was increased, even 2 separate times when my husband & I were both out of work for almost 2 months with zero income! Even after we had just lost everything- home, business, car, will to live (lol just joking on the last one, Gotta see some humor sometimes or you fall apart). Our child support was increased from $500 a month to $1200 a month!!! How is that even legal? We were now homeless (had to move in with my parents), car-less (a minister from our church gave us an old station wagon that was the ugliest car ever, but to us was beautiful), jobless (both out of work and no unemployment benefits due to self employment & for some reason were denied public assistance due to someone using my name "identity theft" 10 years prior!!! Even though I have 3 children from my previous marriage that we have been raising our entire marriage)
Anyway, we somehow managed to get by and even come out of everything just fine with the help of some amazing friends & family. We had caught up on child support and finished with all our child support responsibilities by the time "our" sone was 22 years old, actually paying an extra $7000, which we never asked for it back- done deal. But due to thousand upon thousands of dollars worth of interest tacked on over the years, we are in a big hole that gets deeper & deeper! (You're not gonna believe how much interest we owe! Mind you, this amount is totally the interest, the principle plus $7000 has been paid for several years. Our interest amount due is over $80,000!!! Yes that is over eighty thousand dollars!!!). We are now paying interest on the interest! "Our" son is almost 31, has a great life, is an amazing person, and has never seen a dime of that money go to him or any of his physical needs since he was 14 years old and moved in with his grandmother. (At the time, his biological mother was very addicted to drugs and was leaving him alone so his grandmother took him- we were totally unaware of the situation!) His ex kept every penny of the child support and we had nothing extra to give his ex-mother in law to help her out. But my husbands parents helped her out with food & clothing for "our" son and as much financially as they could. We ALWAYS paid for his medical, vision & dental insurance (court ordered) even when we were out of work, we never missed a month on that.
So now all these years later and they still take several hundred dollars out of my husbands pay check every month! The child Support Division nor the Courts n California have the power to stop the interest on this, only his ex-wife can do that and she is not willing to budge. She lives off the money to support her drug habit. Even her own son doesn't like visiting her and seeing her like this.
Now, my husband just turned 60 and would like to retire do to a bad health issues and a medical condition with his internal organs, especially his liver, that causes severe fatigue & loss of strength. He has had 2 major surgeries in the pzst 7 years. His job as a journeyman industrial painter at a refinery is very physically demanding. It's very vital that he stay strong and alert at work due to the nature of being in an industrial environment that has highly flammable and dangerous gasses and toxic materials. He constantly is required to take safety classes which I am very thankful for. But he really can't go on like this much longer, before it kills him!
My husband is a union industrial painter and in order to retire, since he is not yet old enough to collect his retirement pension or social security benefits (we've already had someone look into that so no need to further research that area), our only option is to take out his annuity that has accrued the past nearly 20 years of being in the union. (The take a certain amount from his check every week and put it in this annuity and the his employer also adds a percentage to this also. Not sure if the union also adds to it or not.) his annuity would be enough for us to live on- ie; pay rent, utilities, food, auto expenses, clothing, health coverage: medical/vision/dental premiums, other related living expenses for approx 7-8 years, and by then he will be able to collect retirement & social security. I have been on permanent disability from a horrible accident for the past 7 years, but I only receive $433 a month and nothing else, no medical coverage, no assistance of any kind. I do have full medical, vision & dental insurance through my husbands employer, thank God!
Does anyone, (if there is anyone left still reading this/my 32 years account of what has been going on that I've wrote down so far lol) absolutely anyone, have any suggestions or information about these two extremely important questions that I have? And yes all this info has just been for me to ask two questions that may seem trivial or not as important as one may think, but mine and my husbands entire, entire means of living a, not wealthy-no not even close, but just a life with enough money to cover a normal couples everyday living expenses, not even extra left to save for emergencies or a rainy day, just to cover the bottom line basics of life, and this all depends on the answers to these two vital questions:
1. How can this child support interest be stopped, years after paying off the actual child support plus an extra $7000 over the court ordered amount? We have been making interest only payments for about 8-9 years.
We pay nearly $380 a month right now towards the interest (it's automatically deducted from my husbands pay check) But the interest keeps accruing at a rate of close to $500 a month. It a never ending black hole!!!
2. If my husband takes out his annuity, (and yes we realize he will get penalized a certain percentage, not sure how much yet.) can his ex-wife claim any of this annuity towards her child support interest arrearage? Or will the Child Support Division automatically take it for her?
In other words, would any of it go to her?
Does anyone know how difficult it is to pay someone a huge amount child support when that person is on drugs and does not even have her child in her custody but has her mom raise him instead? We would never get "our" son involved in this. I know it would be so easy to just have him tell a judge: "yes I lived at my grandmothers house from the time I was 14 until I was in my early 20's with no help or money from my biological mother." I'm sure the case would be closed- we win. But we could NEVER put him in the middle like that because it would hurt him and that's not a win for us! His grandmother is so afraid of her daughter that she isn't willing to testify. "Our" son has no clue about any of this or any child support problems even going on unless his biological mother has told him and he just hasn't said anything about it to us.
This is just the worst situation to be in! I thought the time you are old enough to retire, you know, the so-called Golden Years, it was supposed to be a pleasant era in your life where you get to sit back and look over your life with a smile on your face, sit on a big front porch in a rocking chair, side by side, reminiscing over a glass or iced tea or lemonade and enjoy the fruits of your labor so over the last 516 decades of your life. Who said its not supposed to be like that? Cause it it!
Ummm....well ours isn't anyway.
So if you have advice (professional or just an unbiased opinion) I would love to hear it. I am in the process of trying to find a financial advisor who can give us financial advice but who also has knowledge about child support laws and it's getting more difficult to find someone, so if you can recommend someone who's awesome and lives in the San Fransisco Bay Area in Contra Costa county...please, recommend away!
Thank you to everyone who was thoughtful enough to to read this entire post, thank you very much to everyone who was thoughtful enough to offer their opinions or advice , and for those of you who can actually help us out.....I LOVE YOU. lol
Thanks again & have the best day of your lives today!
Debi
