It is important to financially support your children, but collecting child support can be a tricky and daunting emotional ride that could do more to support your lawyer’s children rather than your own. If your divorce was a bad one, don’t even try to collect the child support yourself because collecting the child support can become a way for one or the other of you to perpetuate the discourse that was experienced during the marriage. As long as both of you are in the same state and that state is where you were both married and divorced, it is wise to have the courts collect the child support because the person expected to pay is less likely to renege on his/her obligations when they have to explain why they are late to a stranger. If you and your ex live in different states, don’t even bother with the state child support enforcement bureaus. Get a lawyer in the state which your spouse lives.
If you separated on friendly ground, you should still consider having a third party collect child support because people and their circumstances change. Here is my personal experience with the child support issue:
My husband and I were divorced in New Mexico on April 30, 1986. Although, he did not want a divorce, we remained friendly, at least in 1986. He was covered under my health insurance during our marriage because he did not have a job that offered health insurance. I was supporting us while he was going to school to get a business degree. Per our divorce agreement, I was to receive only $200 a month in child support for our two children because he explained to me that he simply could not afford any more than that. I also agreed to pay for his continued health insurance for a period of time and for his “counseling” after our divorce because he was emotionally distraught, in his own opinion. He also said he wasn’t working at the time of our divorce, but he was. Even though I did find out that he had lied about his income, I never went to the trouble of having my child support order redone. At that time, it just didn’t seem worth the argument that would ensue.
He remarried the year after our divorce and moved to another state. Requests for child support each month was like a visit to the dentist. I would call because he would not voluntarily send the support. He would then say he was going to send it and then of course, he would “forget” to send it. It became clear to me that he liked for me to have to call him and ask for it. On some occasions, he would even suggest that we meet each other and attempt reconciliation. After a while, because I had a friendly enough relationship with his mother, I just started calling her to collect the child support because I knew he was less likely to lie to her and also because he wouldn’t want to explain why he hadn’t already sent it. For a while this worked just fine.
Adding to the confusion, we had joint custody. So, when the children stayed with him…he needed more than $200 a month because in his opinion, they were “expensive children” and he explained that he just didn’t make as much as I did. I would do anything for my kids, so I just sent the money (between $400 – $600 per month). Adding to my mounding frustration was the fact that he told his mother and our children that he had paid, when he hadn’t. When the children stayed with him, they would tell me that when they went to the mall, he would pull out a huge roll of money from his pocket and they could spend anything they wanted to.
After about a year of this, I met and dated a few more charming little losers and my situation changed. As a result, my own life became so complicated that I started experiencing problems. My children ended up staying with their grandparents for a while. I sent more than $1000 a month in child support home to my parents to take care of our children. During this time, my ex-husband decided that since our children were staying with the grandparents, he didn’t need to send any money at all and didn’t. Calling his mother was now answered with “I want to stay out of it; it’s none of my business.” My answer to his mother’s opinion was that “YOU raised him to be this loser! It should be your business.”
After reevaluating my situation, I began the paperwork to collect the child support through the New Mexico Child Support Enforcement system. I wanted to be fair and so I figured the child support that should have been paid, less what had been paid, less what time the children had stayed with his mother and counted them all as credits. I then asked the state of New Mexico to collect the balance of the arrears after more than ten years of excuses. This reduced his debt from $24,400 to about $16,000.
When a man is living in another state, it is nearly impossible to force collection of child support. Finally a member of the staff at the New Mexico Child Support Enforcement Bureau recommended that if I wanted the support collected, I should contact a local collection agent in the state where my ex-husband was residing. That is what I did. I contacted Support Collector’s of Minnesota.
During this period my ex-husband was now the Accounting Officer for the Minneapolis Downtown Council. Suffice, as to say, he could afford his child support then and now. He was contacted by the collection’s agent. My attorney warned me that it can sometimes take a while to get these things into court, but I got lucky….my ex-husband sued me!!!! His contention was that the amounts on the support order were incorrect by a few hundred dollars. I had kept every receipt for every penny, but I told the agent “Look, if he can come up with any more receipts, count them….but I’m pretty sure he can’t.” and he couldn’t. Even with that, the attorneys proposed a settlement of $12,000. He continued to argue and we went to court. Being the arrogant piece of work that he is, he represented himself in court accompanied by his, uh hum, lovely wife. He always wanted to work in law enforcement, if you can believe that. Lawyers are not exactly known for their sense of humor, but mine called me up after the hearing, laughing. He said that the judge in the case had become so frustrated with my ex-husband’s arguments, that he finally told him to take the settlement or they would put him in jail. He gave them $5000 off his credit card to avoid jail and paid the rest off by October of the same year, a matter of months. Our youngest child was now almost 17.
My ex-husband now tells people that he paid all his child support, but that is not entirely true. You see, out of the $12,000 order, I had to pay Support Collectors of Minnesota. They earned their money, but I personally do not feel that I should have had to pay them for the collection fees which amounted to about $4000. I feel that this is money I am stilled owed even though I to settle for what I did. Legally, I cannot force him to pay it. Morally I take exception; and for as long as he continues to deny his actions and for as long as I am owed that money, he will never be forgiven. As angry as I am with my ex-husband; it was his mother’s response that really was the last straw.
The issue of child support is not just an issue for the courts. It is not just an issue for the spouses either. I honestly believe that if you raise your children right, they will do the right thing and support their children. I know I have assured my own children that if I ever get a call from their spouses complaining that they are not taking care of their children, I will personally beat their ass and I don’t care how old they are when this occurs. Supporting our nation’s children is the responsibility of everyone. It harms the children when they find out that one of their parents did not care enough to make sure they had what they needed.
If you know someone that is not supporting their children, you should talk about it even if it ruins the friendship. If they won’t support their children, how good of a friend could they be to you when the chips are really down anyway?
If you are an employer, it is your responsibility to report their earnings and to garnish their wages if need be.
If you are their parent, it was your responsibility to raise them to support their children. Do not accept that failure. No matter what their age, it is your job to teach them to be responsible for their children. Your job is not done until they learn and accept what they need to do.
