ericwbenson
New Member
To Whom it may concern:
I am a Marine sergeant in good standing. I have served twice before in Iraq and once in Afghanistan. I am currently in Iraq for the third time. I am proud to be a Marine and I want to serve my country at home and abroad.
However, I have a civilian issue that needs to be resolved as soon as possible to avoid further acute financial hardship, to avoid becoming estranged from my children and to avoid losing my current house where my wife and new stepchildren live in. My current house is in foreclosure due my inability to pay since this whole issue began. In June, 2008, I got a divorce by bifurcation. What this means is that my marital union was dissolved due to "irreconcilable differences" and my marital status became single. The "Bifurcation" part means that major divorce issues were not settled by the court at that time, only single status.* These major issues are Child custody, Visitation Rights, Child Support and the Division of Property including debts incurred during the marriage. (Child visitation affects the rate of child custody support.) These issues were/are to go through mediation and ultimately to a Trial.** My physical presence will be/ is required at the Trial.* I may not be represented by a lawyer, my current wife or relative or anyone else even if I gave them a Durable/General Power of Attorney to act on my behalf. Repeat, only my physical presence is acceptable at a Trial. Even going through the mediation process at this distance is impossibly slow and complicated….and very expensive.
Although I requested to have my deployment delayed so that these aforementioned issues could be resolved in California's court, permission was denied. The result has been an even greater hardship than I had anticipated. Timely communication with the court system and the child support division is impossible. The difference in time zones, faulty phone contact (not sustainable for more than 5 minutes at times without being cut off), lack of fax machines, slow snail mail are major obstacles. The Child Support service will often tell my current wife that they can only talk to myself or my ex wife. Furthermore, Child services will not communicate using e-mails. Talking with my lawyer is hard to establish and is extremely costly. As a result of bad communication I have been receiving nasty surprises. For example, I was told that I am in arrears in child support by $3137 (I thought I was current, I paid over $1900 in September in arrears!) and then a few days later informed that this figure "may be a error "and is now under "investigation." This has resulted in an increased wage garnishment, not to mention loosing our property in California.
My ex-wife over drew a joint bank account by $1000 that the court had ordered to be closed. She did not make payments as she was court ordered to do on the Ford Expedition, which is in my name but was put in her possession for her exclusive use per her request (The truck has been since been repossessed and I had to absorb the costs in order to minimize further financial damage), and paid over $2500 in transport, repossession, late, and lot fees this past*month. My ex-wife has failed to disclose her full income, she has made false statements about child care costs (She claimed $1500 a month when it was $850), Initially, she had me temporarily restrained because she claimed I was "annoying." (I had prudently contacted her only in the presence of witnesses so she could not make false claims of physical abuse.) My previous command ordered me to not call her and to get her out of the housing since I was no longer living there. I made the mistake of obeying orders from my last command and assisted her to return to Buffalo, NY, which only caused me to get deeper into debt. She has now established residency in NY, therefore I may not force her to return to California. In return I will incur more travel expenses to see my children every time. She denies making statements of agreement that she made in Mammoth County court. These statements that she denies are in the court records. I recently tried to come to another agreement, where I would pay her $1000 per month in child support directly and I would absorb all the debts. She changed her mind in two days. In short, Ex-wife has been extremely hard to deal with.
While I do not have enough proof of neglect or abuse to gain full custody over my children, I am extremely concerned about their welfare. I was able to have an emergency visitation with them before I left for Iraq. They were both underweight and the elder had many bruises. They were seen by a doctor during our visitation. My ex-wife returned to live with her ex-boyfriend who physically abused her in the past. I love my children and want them to be a part of my life.
In conclusion, I realize that relations between ex-spouses can involve years of petty disputes and I will probably have to deal with problems many times. However, these current problems are major issues that need to be resolved now. I am incurring financial debt that needs to be curbed. I want to go to California to resolve these Issues in court as fast as possible, then get back to business and return to Iraq on the next deploying unit. I have requested mast inorder to bring this up higher than my chain of command. Any advice or direction you could point me in would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely yours,
An Overwhelmed Marine
I am a Marine sergeant in good standing. I have served twice before in Iraq and once in Afghanistan. I am currently in Iraq for the third time. I am proud to be a Marine and I want to serve my country at home and abroad.
However, I have a civilian issue that needs to be resolved as soon as possible to avoid further acute financial hardship, to avoid becoming estranged from my children and to avoid losing my current house where my wife and new stepchildren live in. My current house is in foreclosure due my inability to pay since this whole issue began. In June, 2008, I got a divorce by bifurcation. What this means is that my marital union was dissolved due to "irreconcilable differences" and my marital status became single. The "Bifurcation" part means that major divorce issues were not settled by the court at that time, only single status.* These major issues are Child custody, Visitation Rights, Child Support and the Division of Property including debts incurred during the marriage. (Child visitation affects the rate of child custody support.) These issues were/are to go through mediation and ultimately to a Trial.** My physical presence will be/ is required at the Trial.* I may not be represented by a lawyer, my current wife or relative or anyone else even if I gave them a Durable/General Power of Attorney to act on my behalf. Repeat, only my physical presence is acceptable at a Trial. Even going through the mediation process at this distance is impossibly slow and complicated….and very expensive.
Although I requested to have my deployment delayed so that these aforementioned issues could be resolved in California's court, permission was denied. The result has been an even greater hardship than I had anticipated. Timely communication with the court system and the child support division is impossible. The difference in time zones, faulty phone contact (not sustainable for more than 5 minutes at times without being cut off), lack of fax machines, slow snail mail are major obstacles. The Child Support service will often tell my current wife that they can only talk to myself or my ex wife. Furthermore, Child services will not communicate using e-mails. Talking with my lawyer is hard to establish and is extremely costly. As a result of bad communication I have been receiving nasty surprises. For example, I was told that I am in arrears in child support by $3137 (I thought I was current, I paid over $1900 in September in arrears!) and then a few days later informed that this figure "may be a error "and is now under "investigation." This has resulted in an increased wage garnishment, not to mention loosing our property in California.
My ex-wife over drew a joint bank account by $1000 that the court had ordered to be closed. She did not make payments as she was court ordered to do on the Ford Expedition, which is in my name but was put in her possession for her exclusive use per her request (The truck has been since been repossessed and I had to absorb the costs in order to minimize further financial damage), and paid over $2500 in transport, repossession, late, and lot fees this past*month. My ex-wife has failed to disclose her full income, she has made false statements about child care costs (She claimed $1500 a month when it was $850), Initially, she had me temporarily restrained because she claimed I was "annoying." (I had prudently contacted her only in the presence of witnesses so she could not make false claims of physical abuse.) My previous command ordered me to not call her and to get her out of the housing since I was no longer living there. I made the mistake of obeying orders from my last command and assisted her to return to Buffalo, NY, which only caused me to get deeper into debt. She has now established residency in NY, therefore I may not force her to return to California. In return I will incur more travel expenses to see my children every time. She denies making statements of agreement that she made in Mammoth County court. These statements that she denies are in the court records. I recently tried to come to another agreement, where I would pay her $1000 per month in child support directly and I would absorb all the debts. She changed her mind in two days. In short, Ex-wife has been extremely hard to deal with.
While I do not have enough proof of neglect or abuse to gain full custody over my children, I am extremely concerned about their welfare. I was able to have an emergency visitation with them before I left for Iraq. They were both underweight and the elder had many bruises. They were seen by a doctor during our visitation. My ex-wife returned to live with her ex-boyfriend who physically abused her in the past. I love my children and want them to be a part of my life.
In conclusion, I realize that relations between ex-spouses can involve years of petty disputes and I will probably have to deal with problems many times. However, these current problems are major issues that need to be resolved now. I am incurring financial debt that needs to be curbed. I want to go to California to resolve these Issues in court as fast as possible, then get back to business and return to Iraq on the next deploying unit. I have requested mast inorder to bring this up higher than my chain of command. Any advice or direction you could point me in would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely yours,
An Overwhelmed Marine
