Change On Federal Benefits Payments Could Leave Child Support Debtors With No Income

[green917]

60. Some of us work 75+ hours a week

in order to try to meet obligations that were racked up while we were unemployed or injured. That means we don't get to see our kids often enough if at all. My child has never gone hungry or not had clothes on her back. I've put off bills of my own for months in order to be able to buy my daughter clothes for school. I pay thousands of dollars a year in extras for my daughter (I buy her the bulk of her clothes, all of her school supplies, every video game, pair of new shoes, etc...she calls me when she wants something) and get no credit on my child support bill for it (not that I care really, I'm happy to be able to buy my daughter nice things). Her mother, often, returns the clothes that I buy my daughter and pockets the money. Every penny of the money I owe her mother is taken directly from my pay check (I pay 120% of what my actual order is to cover the back support and fees) and I pay extra whenever I can, often barely leaving me with enough money to support my own household. My attorney, a highly regarded family attorney here, told me that, where I live, even if you have a good case, the father has a 21% chance of winning in family court and if you walk into that room without an attorney representing you, that number drops below 10%. In short, walk a mile in my shoes before you call anything about me into question. If I could write my ex-wife a check tomorrow for the arrears, I would do so gladly just to be done with the hassle and nightmare of it. I suspect, there are many men like me out there who are not dead beats but have been treated as such by the system after they have, in many cases through no fault of their own, fallen on hard times. I'm not saying that all men who owe back child support aren't deadbeats but, there are those of us who aren't. The family court system is not as easy to deal with as you make it out to be...there are options but, I assure you that none of those options comes without significant cost in time and money. Most impoverished people have neither to deal with this issue so I would ask that, perhaps, you cut them a little slack when you, clearly, are not speaking from a position of personal knowledge.