Oregon Modification of Child Support decision 2 days away!

Needless to say, my wife and I have been holding our breath for the last month awaiting this day, which will be Friday, March 9th. It is the day that is 30 days past due for a response from my Ex, and therefore what has occurred prior to this day will determine the next course of action.

Basically, I will call tomorrow to the DHS (Division of Human Services 'Child Support'] and the next day, to inquire on the status: Has she responded? If yes, what next...a telephone hearing with the Judge? -or a scheduled real one? The best and most hopeful status would be that she has not responded at all, and that they would simply grant my request for the lowered amount without a fight, have it stamped 'DONE' and provide my family with crucial and much needed relief from the overbearing and ridiculous amount of child support being drawn from my paycheck.

Even with that, it won't be by much, but it might just be enough for my household to return to a somewhat stable financial situation...without the utilities being shut off, without bills piling up so bad cancellations and collections are sent to our credit report. (These have happened already).

Perhaps then I can begin the long process of repairing our credit, paying off the credit card I’ve had to max out, paying for such daily expenses as FOOD and GAS. I can begin contributing back to my retirement as any normal person should, more than 2% that I had to reduce it to, currently. I can perhaps reduce my payroll tax deductions again to prevent having to pay the IRS next year etc. etc. In the last 6 months, I've all but completely drained the one small mutual fund I had...just to pay for Christmas presents for the kids, mortgage and utility bills, and food. That fund is gone now, and we are literally hanging by a thread as we speak.

 As I write this, my account will bounce tomorrow, another overdraft fee assessed, as the overdue cell phone bill will pull more from our account than is currently in there. I just found out our Dental insurance coverage has been cancelled, due to lack of payment. I had to charge gas just to get to work, as well as my meal to my credit card, as my paycheck doesn't deposit until tomorrow. When it does, it will be quickly absorbed, of course, into our once-again-due mortgage payment, and 1-month past due bills. My wife was almost stranded at her job today because the cable/internet bill auto-pulled their overdue amount, leaving $0.00 dollars in our checking.

This reality may seem incredible to anyone reading this, which as my sites stat page shows, isn't anyone at the moment... but I assure you I am probably far from alone in this hell. I fear that most fathers fall into two categories...those that can afford a lawyer to fight this system, and come out at least in a tolerable situation; and those like me that have been hit so hard, have been punished so severely by a callous, lazy and uncaring Judge, that I cannot afford a lawyer, so must try to fight the system at completely unfair odds. Worse yet, are those that are uneducated, or uncaring, or in hiding...and do nothing - or overwhelmed and completely broke, as the system draws from them whatever they can, and spits them out.

Perhaps someday, when I start to get visitors here, my story will shed some light on some of the injustices being experienced here in the Oregon Child Support system. As I've said when I wrote the first post here, I hope something positive will come of this blog.

In the mean time, I have to nervously wait the hours and minutes going by, until Friday morning comes, where I call the DHS office and wait with a mixture of dread, and hope...for the outlook of our future...

Finally Completed Motion to Modify Custody/Child Support paperwork!

It's been a busy, stressful and chaotic last few months, all with the holidays, trying to get presents for the kids, day and night work schedules, kids school schedules etc. You know, typical American family life, made more stressful by a severe handicap to available funds, known as child support.

I was finally able to complete my filing paperwork, which was no easy task, considering how long it ended up being. I had to be as thorough, and all encompassing as possible, listing all my concerns in as much detail as possible, because I am sending this off to the Child Support Administrations internal modification program. What this is, is instead of filing normal paperwork, which costs hundreds of dollars, and having a court date set, instead you fill out the required administrative paperwork sent by my Department of Human Service's child support division, and send it back. The process is 'free' as far as I can tell, at least until a court appearance is ordered, which I'm still not sure would happen. The drawback, is I don't really get to plea face-to-face with the Judge, for better or for worse, so I wanted to make sure every last thing I wanted to say would be included in the attachment I typed up. This ended up being a whopping 11 pages, typed in MS Word. The other drawback, is once the Child Support Division receives your paperwork, they immediately send it to the other part for their response, giving them 30 days to respond. Depending on the results from this it could go a couple of different ways.
1) If no response is returned, they might push my request through to the judge to have it signed off
[more than likely, with such a complicated matter, involving not just child support but custody and paternity information, this would probably not be pencil whipped by any Judge]
2) If a written response is returned by the other party, disagreeing or contesting my motion, I believe they then send this to the Judge for determination and Judgment.

At least that's how It seems to work. The entire process will no doubt take many precious months of waiting, and more crippling child support payments being deducted from my pay. Nothing happens fast in the legal system, except where money collection is requested and processed.

I will mail this off, and hope for the best...perhaps I will get extremely lucky and my ex-wife will not receive the document [due to her having moved to an address she has not provided me nor the court with] or may not respond correctly or in time. Though, if it's a matter of her losing out on child support free money, I'm sure she will scribble something down and respond, if she receives it.

Due to it's length, and the personal nature of the details involved, I won't upload the exact 11 page text of my request here...however, if anyone commenting here is curious as to what or how I addressed a certain subject or area of concern, please comment and I will reply with the info you desire.

After all, the whole point of this blog is to share and help each other out by comparing notes/advice/situations etc. So just comment here like I said, if interested in more details...!

By Necessary Evil, I give you this Child Custody, Child Support Resource Blog

I debated creating this blog for some time now, feeling invariably I was to be opening up a traumatic and stressful can of worms for myself, reliving not only my woes and experiences but others as well...but I cannot help my inner-feeling that this blog will potentially help someone, and felt the need for its existence. There are, of course, numerous other websites, blogs and forums for the bitter battles and inquiring victims of Family Law involving children and its related issues, but they seemed to me of poor quality for a multitude of reasons. Either they were:
-Out of date, not maintained or kept up with recent, applicable information
-Full of self-professed 'experts' [court clerks, paralegals] whom dolled out advice begrudgingly and not without sarcastic brow-beating or dismissals [especially from the opposite sex to the questioner]
-Loaded with ads and/or designed to provide a taste of advice, to lead the user to purchase the author's book's or CD's for more...

I felt it wrong to treat people as such, and wanted an easy-to-read, knowledgeable, current, and polite place for people going through the related issues to vent, ask questions, compare stories, and most of all...give advice or support.

To provide full disclosure, I am not a lawyer, I'm not a advocate for Mothers OR Fathers EXCLUSIVELY, however, I will obviously provide the best advice and support to those whom seem honestly to be needing it, and not to those that wish to spam, insult, or vent against their ex-spouses exclusively and without intent to gain advice/support etc. This blog shouldn't be considered a place to vent and/or spew out obscenities, however, for the sake of a little humor and a safe, non-judgmental therapy session, I may create an off-shoot space for such a thing in the future!

I will, however, approach all questions to me from the perspective of what I am, a father who has decidedly been beaten into submission, by the legal 'system' we call Family Law and its courtroom Judges. I will honestly answer any questions related to my observations and experiences regarding the difference's a father deals with, compared to the mother's...per my perspective.

For now, let me start off briefly with my story, I will most assuredly go into my story in more detail, but keeping this first post shorter, here is my situation.
1999-Lived with girlfriend, as a 'room-mate' with no intention of becoming serious.
As happens, became serious, intimate, and ultimately said girlfriend became pregnant. I was stunned. I was 23 years old and not ready for this responsibility, had no decent job, expensive apartment and bills. Girlfriend left town to visit her other, prior/on-off boyfriend in Idaho, left me a note on the table explaining she was pregnant, in no elegant words.
2000-August 14, whom I thought to be my daughter was born, [not]thinking any intelligent thoughts, I signed off on the Voluntary Acknowledgment of Paternity form at the hospital, having zero thoughts as to the possibility that I wasn't the father. I chose at that time to 'stick it out' with the mother to raise the child...not knowing anything about what the future might entail.
2003-Believing I had no other choice, Ex-wife convinced me to marry her,even if it was 'temporary' because it was the 'right thing to do' by her and the baby...
2000-2004-Raised daughter as my own, struggled with multiple jobs, and a deadbeat girlfriend/mother dragging us down, until our ultimate divorce in November of 2004.
2003-Fully in the throws of depression, another unplanned pregnancy, my second child was born, Alex. There is no question he is mine, as he looks very much like me, and my family's genetics.
2004 November- After much back and forth, ex-wife files divorce papers, submits them, doesn't legally serve me so I didn't know when hearing took place, and to my dismay, Judge signed off on them, without raising an eye nor allowing me the chance to respond in court! In essence, she got everything she wanted in her petition, which cause(s) much chaos and financial ruin post-divorce.
2004-2010-Custody is a bi-weekly battle, difficult to maintain consistence and order with mothers chaotic lifestyle, moving from place to place, multiple babysitters etc., coupled with my work schedule. I struggle to see the kids every other weekend, but also have two jobs that frequently cause me to work weekends, which ex-wife uses against me in court - saying I don't care about the kids, I never see them etc etc. Child Support is relatively low, as was based on my jobs at the time. I arguably justified the amount in my head as fair as I was stuck paying all the past debts, including a vehicle, which also has ruined my credit.
2007-Remarried to my wonderful, current wife Heather, had our own children eventually.
2010- I got better job with the government, enough to give me the hope to buy my first home for my family. It's expensive but I used a VA loan and my job is sufficient to pay the mortgage and bills, for 4 months...until the next court hearing. During this year's summer, my family had to move into a tiny apartment, without enough rooms to adequately have my joint children stay with us on weekends, so for the first time, Visitation lapses for a few months [the longest time in the history, as my first home was being constructed. I didn't like this, I felt bad, and missed my children every day, but I knew that it would be a temporary situation, and when the house was finished, I intended on fighting to obtain custody of both children, citing a better and more stable life than they are having with their mother.  Ex-wife uses this as an excuse to take me to court again, asking for more money/and or less visitation. At this time she gets neither, due to her own filing faults.
Jan 21, 2011- Back in court, she tries again, catching wind of my new job, and no doubt assuming I had loads of money to afford my new home. This time Judge grants Ex-wife more than she even asks for because he plugs my income numbers into our wonderful Oregon Child Support Calculator, maintains rough visitation schedule for now. Ex-wife now receives 1250.00/month out of my paycheck, for two school-age children. The judge awarded this, despite her not having a shred of document or evidence backing up her claims to no income, or self-employed income less than minimum per the guidelines, child-care needed even though she work out of home as a [seamstress-which is a sorry lie she tells herself], and child care also for the endless amount of school she seems to be attending, over many, many years now. Did I mention she remarried once, almost twice, and had two more children after we divorced...Including the one she had previously when I met her, she now has 5 children...with [Update: most likely now 5] different fathers. I'll get into the biological status of our first child Maranda later here...
February 2011 to present- My family struggles every month to pay our mortgage, car payment and utilities bills, while affording basic food and gasoline costs...a situation causing much anger, depression and family trauma to my household. The situation has almost cost me my current marriage at multiple occasions. Due to this, and Ex-wife now becoming numb to my pleas for mercy, and elated at her own successful financial drain on my income, ex-wife now openly threatens me that I have no rights to the children, basically making up her own given legal rights on the fly, and avoiding my calls to reach my children to try to see them. My entire financial household is literally hanging by threads, that are starting to snap.

August 2011-present- Ex-wife decides to up and move out of Oregon, and to Idaho, near her step-parent, and most likely said boyfriend, without notifying the courts, without warning, without an address. My children now live in another state's Jurisdiction. Ex-wife believes she has done nothing wrong, that she has the right as the physical custodian to do so, and because I wasn't seeing the children often enough anyways, she was justified in doing so. Plus, she felt it would be easier to live there, not quite able to survive in the 'big' city of Portland Oregon. This was obviously quite a shock to me, though I suppose I should have expected it, nonetheless, I am severely depressed because of this, now the greatest amount of time I have been without visitation of any kind with my poor children. Ex-wife has enacted a term you will read more about here, 'Parental Alienation' of the children to myself, causing them to not call as much, if at all, and not feel any thoughts, besides what they may feel privately, regarding what their mother has done. They have basically disappeared out of my life as I know it, and it's going on 9 months now.

I have no money for a lawyer, I've attempted to get assistance through the state with numerous tasks, which turn me away with every request, and I have petitioned the Attorney Generals Office [more on this experience later] to no avail. My daily life is a tiring blend of raising my current children, working days and night shifts, stressing out with a depressed wife, and worrying about what will happen next week, when we lose our babysitter and my wife is forced to quite her job, which has barely kept our head above water.

I need to turn in paperwork to seek a modification to the horrendously over-blown child support amount, but I just have no energy to do it, and the daily grind of my life makes me feel exhausted to the point I can't even think about getting to it. I know this is wrong, I know it seems exceedingly lazy, but I have been dealing with the system, and my ex, for so long, I have lost the will to fight anymore. Though, the situation has become so dire now, that if I don't get the modification turned in, and pray for relief, my life and my first home are in serious and very real jeopardy.

This is where I am at now. I'm sure I will receive a number of admonishments, and questions for my story as I've briefed it here, and that's ok. There are many details that will fill in the blanks that I will get to later. But don't let my story prevent you from seeking advice, help with yours.

Feel free to comment or ask questions as you see fit. Let's get this not-pleasant, but necessary blog going. If this blog helps one person get in the right direction, and hopefully avoid a tragic mistake in their situation, I will consider it a success. Godspeed to us...