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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-10-2001
New here....
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Wed, 03-23-2005 - 2:28pm

Hi all, I'm Brian.

I'm 43, divorce final last month (Feb. 14 actually!) I'm the PCP for my two kids, and thanks to a three year long divorce and outrageous temporary support payments, I'm about $100,000 in debt, not counting my house. I still pay spousal support to my Ex, and so far she's been paying token CS back, but I haven't seen March's CS yet.

I've had to suspend payments to two of my unsecured creditors, MBNA and CapitalOne, when MBNA cut off my access to my credit line that I was consolidating debt into, and then CapitalOne racked my rate to 20%. That should be heating up before long. I did invoke FDCPA rules on them so they won't be calling me.

I'm keeping the other 9 payments current, but Chase is racking all their "risky" customers for the heck of it. So I'm waiting for more shoes to drop.

Well, that's the long and short of it.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: az_tbone
Thu, 03-24-2005 - 1:30pm

I am SO confused!!!!! LOL Okay, first tbone and the whole paying spousal support while receiving child support, and now firstamendment and paying child support AND daycare and other expenses one would expect to be paid by the person with primary custody... How can they make you pay child support when you're already paying all the major expenses?? And how could your ex go back for more child support just because your daughter is in public school? Oh, it's so confusing!

Thank goodness my marriage is in good shape. Wow. I think I would pull my hair out trying to figure out who owes whom for what. What a mess!! LOL

Heather

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-19-2004
In reply to: az_tbone
Thu, 03-24-2005 - 1:44pm

I had to pay spousal support to my ex during the separation. Thank goodness it was only short-term and my ex agreed to limit it to 6 months, otherwise I would be financially sunk. Spousal support and child support are completely separate, although both are based on income. Usually the ex-wife gets child support, because it's the ex-h that makes more money and it's the ex-w that incurs the majority of the child expenses, so money has to change hands for that reason, but it's not always the case.

I have 50/50 custody of dd and I make 60% of our combined parental income, so that is why I have to pay child support. Basically I am responsible for 60% of dd's living costs, which is all the time I have her and 10% of the time my ex has her. It works out so I pay his portion of the daycare costs (meaning I pay all the costs) and then have to pay him some money directly too, but it's all because he makes less money than I do.

Because I pay so much in daycare, if we didn't have that cost I would have to pay more directly to him. So if I owe him $400 in child support, but he owe's me $300 for dd's share of daycare, I pay him $100 net child support. When dd goes to public school he could ask for the child support to be recalculated and I *might* have to pay more, it will depend on what our incomes are at the time. If I had full custody and he was paying me, his child support obligation would likely go down when dd went to public school, since overall her costs went down. Does that help make it make sense?

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
In reply to: az_tbone
Thu, 03-24-2005 - 5:51pm

Yes, thanks for the explanation! But I'm still really grateful I don't have to deal with it! My sister-in-law divorced her husband (actually, I think he divorced her--not sure which way it went), and for a long time, he had sole custody and she was supposed to be paying him child support, but she was actually caring for the children nearly all the time and paying all their expenses. It was just really bizarre.

Anyway, I'm sorry you have all that expense, and I hope things look up for you.

Blessings,

Heather

Avatar for sheridh
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
In reply to: az_tbone
Wed, 03-30-2005 - 10:06am

Brian,

After my divorce, I used a personal loan from my credit union to pay off all my credit card debt. That way the payment was fixed every month (rather than compounding every month), and if I needed my credit card for emergencies it wasn't accumulating interest from the second the charge hit the card. I have worked very hard to keep the credit card paid off every month since then.

If you have any equity in your home, that may be a lower interest loan than a personal loan.

My attorney's firm let me pay $100/month until I had it paid off. (Yes, it took a *long* time.) I finally got it down to where I paid it off last year with my tax refund.

Are any of these possibilities for you?

Sheri DH

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