by Hope
Just a quick update on the loss of income in regards to my younger two child support that I wrote about in mid December. At the time, he was going to miss his car payment that is in my name and didn’t know when he’d be able to provide any support for our kids. To be clear as I know this issue is dear to many people’s hearts due to their own history. Let me clarify a few points up front:
1. No, we do not have a formal child support agreement and no, I will not be pursuing one. I chose this for two reasons, one, I wanted full legal and physical custody of the kids. Two, I didn’t ever want money to be a reason for him to bail on them or become just another issue in our already rocky relationship. He has ALWAYS come through when they needed something and has voluntarily paid half of anything I asked, sometimes more. From what I hear from other parents in my situation, the court ordered payments are 1) hard to get and 2) not close to the amount he has voluntarily provided through out the years since we split.
2. The car was purchased in my name for him while we were still living together. He has not been able to refinance it. It IS in our divorce decree that he is solely responsible for the car financially, the debt, the maintenance, the insurance, the taxes, etc. As soon as it is paid for, I will sign it over to him and be done. Only one other time has he had trouble making payments on it, and then I asked for it back, sold my car (my dream car Honda Element that was paid off) and drove it and paid for it. I did not want the car, and when he was able to take it back over, he did so. If I had wanted to keep it, he would not have fought me on it. But it was just too much car for me and the costs to drive it were high. This was also a major bad decision area for me, because instead of buying a reasonable used car, I bought a new sedan (the twins were with us but supposed to be going home at this point.) This is one lesson I have DEFINITIVELY learned now.
So now we are here, 6 weeks after the announcement that I would not have any support going forward while he got his new business off the ground. He did catch up on the car payment, a week late, and I was able to refinance the loan to buy his a 6 week break from payments, get him a lower interest rate and a lower monthly payment. All around a win in both our eyes. The first payment on that loan was due yesterday…and he paid it on time!
So no, child support to date, but his new business is up and running and I know he’s working as hard as he can to catch up. The kids call him regularly to see if he’s going to come see them…he hasn’t. I took them to his new shop once and to hang out for a while with him. (No, I don’t go out of my way to do this, but I had to be that way for the twins and then had a couple of hours to kill before picking them up and it wasn’t worth driving home, so this was a good compromise.)
Every one’s divorce, separation is different. I know mine is unusual but it works for us. And I think for as unhealthy as our marriage was, our divorce is very healthy. I am grateful for the tough love the last year. As a result, I’m in a place that the missing funds don’t hurt so much. I am now NOT dependent on the little kids child support. Now to break that reliance on the twins adoption supplement.