I talked to a divorced friend of mine about this article, because she had been singularly unable to get her ex husband to pay his child support with any kind of regularity. My friend was aware that there were many options open to her to get the measly amount she had been awarded, but she was one of those women who operate her own life out of high standards of integrity and “doing the right thing”, that she did not want to get the law involved.

 
Looking back, and being much less emotional now and hence more reasonable, she said to encourage you to use the resources of the law to help you get the support you need to raise your children more easily.  I’m going to tell you some of the things a divorce attorney or your state’s District Attorney can do for you, and then we’re going to discuss my friends emotional problems, because she and I think that might be helpful to you as well.

 
When you obtain a divorce, you simultaneously obtain a Support Order.  If your ex does not pay his or her child support, he can be found in contempt of court.  If the child support is in arrears, a divorce attorney can help you obtain it.  There are wage assignments, collection enforcement (particularly if there is property involved), attachment of wages or property, a tax refund intercept, filing an action for contempt, etc.  Work with your attorney to determine what the best action is for you. You can also find agencies on the internet who specialize in child support payments that are in arrears.

 
Can you stop your ex from his visitation rights if he doesn’t pay child support?  No, you can’t, and honestly, you shouldn’t.  Visiting their other parent is in the best interest of your child and you want the best for them, right?  This little battle you’ve got with your ex should not be shared with younger children.  They deserve to love their other parent without hearing about your problems with him or her.

 
And now, the emotional aspects: why was my friend unable to resort to the law to collect from her deadbeat husband? She told me that she was still in love with him; that he wasn’t earning very much money; that she was afraid she’d alienate him from his children; that she was embarrassed to keep calling and bugging him for the money.  It’s labeled co-dependency, my dear readers, and if you identified with this paragraph more than all the rest in this article, my friend wanted me to tell you that she sought the help of a therapist and thinks you should, too.

 
An ex not paying for the children he procreated is his problem.  Allowing it to go on was her problem.  Each of them has to own their own responsibility.  My friend did not seek the help that was there for her.  Her bad.  He didn’t pay child support regularly.  His bad.  

 
The bottom line is to seek some help so that you can get past your “bad” and take the steps necessary to insure that the child support due your children is paid with regularity.  Their good.

~Len

Len :: Aug.05.2009 :: Caring for your Children, Custody Issues :: No Comments »

If there is one thing or idea that I advocate most in all of my articles, is that your children should always come first.   If you’re now divorced and there’s a family event that you think your ex might enjoy attending, you have to consider your child first. 

Ask yourself questions from as points of view as you can.  Will he or she be bringing a date? Do the kids get along with the new date?  Will you yourself feel uncomfortable seeing him or her with someone new? Is there any good reason why he should not be invited?  Have you spoken to the parents, grandparents or in-laws involved?  What is their input?  Have you asked your children how they’d feel if your ex attended?  Was it positive?  Negative? I personally think that if you are inviting your ex to a holiday dinner or even to your wedding, you would be wise to look at this from all the angles.  It would be rude not to invite the new person in your ex’s wife.  You may not like the answers to all of these questions, and it may be easier just to not invite the ex, but it’s not just about you.

Having your ex at an event that you may find uncomfortable, will be a good learning experience for you in how to be mature!  It will be difficult, but helpful nonetheless! 

Decisions that involve more than just you are complicated and there’s no getting around that idea. This kind of decision creates feelings that are emotionally challenging as well, because none of likes to be in a situation or place someone else in a situation where their feelings will get hurt.  No one like to feel hurt, and being in a room with your ex would bring all the old feelings back – the good ones and the uncomfortable ones.  

I think a rule of thumb is to have heart to heart discussions with the majority of people who are going to be involved and get their input.  His/her attendance for some occasions would be arbitrary, and for others, like a child’s wedding, might be mandatory, say, in the case of inviting ex-grandparents to child’s wedding.

If the event involves your ex because the two of  you are co-parenting, then at a minimum let your ex know about the event even if he isn’t invited. That’s only fair.

I know I didn’t provide any 100% answers. I am trying to just give you different approaches to think about.  It will strengthen your sense of self-worth and I’d like that for you.  This divorce thing can be such a touchy situation, can’t it?

Len :: Nov.25.2008 :: Caring for your Children, Custody Issues :: No Comments »

Frequently in a divorce, if you are the custodial parent, the children do their homework at your house under your supervision.  Because the needs of the children should always come first, if a situation arises where they have homework or a project that is due, and it’s their weekend to visit their other parent, that homework task should transfer over to the parent they are visiting.

 
Children know when their parents are consistent and in agreement.  While they might grouse at the time in the face of consistency or agreement, in the long run they will appreciate it.  So if it is at all possible, work to communicate standards back and forth between you and your ex and then let the kids know that you support one another.  I cannot think of one thing that drove me up the walls as a kid when I tried to “work” my parents was to hear either one of them say “What did your father / mother say?”  I knew I’d had it and would not succeed at manipulating them to do what I wanted.

 
Homework is an ongoing demand for children and it deserves as much attention as the work  you do at your job each day.  It is their job.  Don’t minimize their job in any way.  Don’t say things like “Oh this is much easier than when I was a kid.” It’s their task today and honor that.  Support one another and your child with standards like:

 
Penmanship should be legible.  Their homework should look good.
Homework should be complete.  Don’t let them do things by halves.
Homework should be accurate. You check their answers and help them to get the right ones.
 

Share homework duties.  If one of the parents is better at a particular subject than the other, then that parent should help with that subject.  Let the child know you are only a phone call away to help him figure out how to do that homework.

 
When your kids are visiting you and they have homework, establish a place and time for that to get done.  Do the hardest homework first and then take a break.  Your kids will appreciate your help with this, regardless of which parent is helping them.

 
When your children know that you place a high importance to them getting their homework done, it creates continuity, a sense of priority, and a sense of love.  They deserve these comforts and they deserve to see homework, not as a curse, but as an accomplishment that both his parents support.

Len :: Nov.19.2008 :: Caring for your Children, Custody Issues :: No Comments »

I haven’t found a single way out of or around what I consider one of the stickiest problems brought about by divorce:  Sharing custody of your children with your ex.  
Divorce hurts.  It is your natural inclination to move away from the hurt that divorce brings as rapidly as possible. If you never had to see your ex again, that would make the hurt dissipate. But your children deserve to have and enjoy the only parents they will ever have, regardless of what your feelings about your ex might be.  So you can’t move away from that particularly distasteful aspect of divorce: interfacing on some kind of regular basis with your ex because the two of you share custody.
Because you care so deeply about your children, about their success, and about their needs – in fact, you place them higher on your list than yourself most of the time – you are simply forced to find a way to make the interface with their other parent (your dreaded ex) work so that they don’t feel any of the disturbance between the two of you.
How do you create a harmonious relationship with someone you are divorcing for the sake of your children? Here are some suggestions:
Keep Track of Their Good Points.  You know them.  You once fell in love with him/her because of them.  They haven’t gone away despite the fact that he wants to divorce you now. He still has those good points.  You can choose to focus on those good points and allow your children to discover other aspects of his personality as they naturally mature.  Kids deserve to love their mommy or daddy without any negative feedback.
Remain Objective.  If you permit yourself to fall into entertaining only those ideas you whirl around inside your head, you’ve succumbed to “subjectivity.”  Of course your opinion is nasty!  You’ve been hurt.  Your kids have not experienced this nastiness from their other parent though.  And they deserve to not know your nasty thoughts.  They deserve to see their parents as simply powerful and wonderful. So set your nasty thoughts aside for their sake and remain objective about their mommy or daddy.
Don’t Make Excuses – Be Factual.  Okay, the ex has promised to pick up the kids for a weekend outing.  You’ve got them bathed, slicked and ready.  They’re waiting on the couch.  They’ve been waiting for an hour.  He’s past due and they’re getting rambunctious.  You call him.  He “forgot” about picking them up.  You know they are going to be disappointed. You don’t have to say what a louse he is.  You put them in the car, take them to the park yourself,  and say “Daddy’s not coming.” Factual.  Not loaded with emotional bias.  
Use Legal Means to Keep Promises.  You have a legal right for the commitments made in your divorce proceedings to be honored.  Child Support can be collected for you.  You don’t need to burden your children with the fact that their daddy or mommy hasn’t kept his/her commitment – again!  Keep this kind of information to yourself and allow your children their concepts of their other parent until they have the maturity to understand the facts as they are if they are unpleasant. 
I know a woman who’s youngest son was six months old when she and his dad divorced.  He spent the first sixteen years of his life cajoling her to get back together with his dad.  He wanted an intact family.  She did not want to mention his dad’s homosexuality to her son, nor did she want to focus on his alcoholism and how it lead to verbal abuse when he was drinking.  He loved his daddy and only saw that he was funny and took him to amusement parks frequently.  He was his night in shining armor.  This lady worked to remain somewhat friendly with her son’s father.  Once, when the boys had become young adults, she went on a camping trip where her ex got drunk and became verbally abusive, bringing up their old pre-divorce stuff.  She did her best to calm him down, but both of their adult sons saw and heard the yuck.  Her youngest son said “Mom, no one should ever be talked to that way.”  And she was finally able to tell him “This is the reason your dad and I could not remarry all those years when you wanted us to, son. I never wanted you to know about this.”
Your children will look back when they become adults and be surprised at what you did not share with them because you cared enough to allow them to form whatever kind of relationship they could form with your ex despite all the nasty stuff you know about him.  And your children will be grateful.  Divorce and the shared custody problems isn’t pleasant, but if you handle it correctly, maybe you can save yourself from that evil second divorce.

Len :: Aug.01.2008 :: Custody Issues :: No Comments »

Custody of the children is such an important decision when going through a divorce. It’s probably the first thing that you thought of, right? “The kids stay with me!” Well even if you get sole custody of the kids they will be gone on nights and weekends sometime.

How are you going to deal with the fact that they may not live with you all of the time?

What if they only live with you part of the time?

What is really in their best interest? All of these questions are very difficult to answer, but they do need to be addressed, and discussed honestly.

Here are some guidelines to follow:

Schedule a time to meet with your ex without the children.

See what their thoughts and feelings are on the subject and try not to react emotionally. I know that seems impossible, but you will have to remember that everyone involved in the situation is fired up with emotion so taking the emotion out of the situation will make things go a lot smoother.

Prepare yourself.

What are some their possible answers to your questions? Will they want to have the kids all to himself or would they be happy just visiting them? Also, all you can do is prepare yourself. Expect that they may say everything that is your worst fear and deal with what you will rationally do in the situation. You need to ask yourself some questions too. “Am I going to go in fighting to keep the kids, or is it really in their best interest to stay with their dad/mom part of the time?” I know it hurts to even think about, but you will feel better making the right decision.

Talk with your children.

Have a plan in place and tell them what you are thinking. Obviously this will depend on how old the children are, but you would be surprised how much they really understand even at a young age. See what their feelings are.

Have they always stayed home with you?

Would it be beneficial to come up with a joint custody arrangement?

You do need to take into consideration what your children are feeling, but they are only children at this point. You are still the parent for a reason. If they want to go live with dad/mom because he will let them eat candy every day for dinner, then they aren’t ready to help with making such a big decision.

Just remember, no matter what your kids will always be yours. These situations can be complicated, but with a little effort from both parties, very normal, pleasant custody agreements can be achieved.

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For more tips and advice get the book  Wisdom for Divorced Parents. 

Len :: Feb.26.2008 :: Custody Issues :: No Comments »