Reply #144: Sometimes, it is ABSOLUTELY about both.

[M0rpheus]

In my own story, when my cheating ex and I broke up, I left her all the comfort that I could afford.

We were living in a family building, MY family's building. I left when it became too much for me to bear. I made sure that she and my daughter were taken care of and safe, and continued to pay my share of the rent, even though I didn't live there any longer.

Once she burned that bridge, with my family and moved on to some other place, I gave her money regularly and paid half of the daycare bill and more, because she would often "forget". I'd go to pay the bill and they'd tell me she hadn't paid the previous week. I didn't have a choice not to pay because she couldn't come back Monday, if I didn't pay today.

I got married to a woman with 2 daughters of her own, so we took care of all their after school needs, all three of them, so her (my daughter's) mother would have time to go to school. Mind you, I'm doing all this on $10/hour and help from my new, and VERY understanding wife.

Once got my first job with a real salary, the first thing she did was file for child support.
I was surprised at the hearing when the mediator stated that they were going for child support back to day one, her date of birth. I left when my daughter was 6! After proving that false and, providing all my checks, and receipts for the rent, daycare and after school care I was providing, I was told that those were "gifts", and as such did not count as far as their support calculations were concerned. After much fighting the "determined" that I was $36,000 in arrears and $210 per check would about cover it with an additional $10 per check towards the arrears.

By the time the support order was in place, I had just been laid off (15 days after 9/11). They garnished my unemployment check. that $210+10 basically killing the check I was using to help pay bills for my family.
I was unemployed for a whole year and a half. When the unemployment benefits ran out, my options were very limited. The arrearage would stack up and I'd get lovely notices in the mail and random phone calls from Child support enforcement threatening me with bad more debt (I was already screwed, it didn't really matter). Once I found a new job, I waited 2 months before I notified them, in order to take care of some of the debt that was racked up while I was out of work. In order to make ends meet, I didn't take a single benefit from my company. no healthcare, no 401K, because I needed every dollar, to stay afloat.

When that job laid me off, I was out of work again for several months. Unemployment just barely made it to the beginning of the new job. And I have had my wages garnished (increased to $300 per paycheck), until april of last year. Just a year after my daughter turned 18. However, my obligation ended, that December. It turns out that, somewhere in there the state of Illinois no longer took care of child support enforcement orders, but in order to stop the garnishment, I needed an order from the state. It took me 3 months to find some wonderful woman who worked for the state and didn't have a thing to do with child support, to help me out. She found a way to get an order to my payroll department to stop the withholding.

After all was said and done, I have now overpaid by a good $3800. When asked how I could get my money back, child support says, "we just send it to the custodial parent. You'll have to get it from her". When I contact my ex about it, she says "I'm not giving you anything, you shouldn't have sent it". When I contact an attorney, he says "it'll cost you more than the $3800 to get it back if she fights it. You should probably just take it as a loss and move on".

So, I'm finally done after the last "F*ck you" from child support and my ex. My daughter no longer lives with her mother, and calls me regularly. She just turned 20 this April.

Over time, I have learned from my daughter, that her mother used to argue with me, via text message and show her the texts to prove that I'm just no good. I also found out that she was not living with her mother for much of the last couple of years before she turned 18, but the money was sent anyway.

I haven't posted here in quite some time but, but considering my own story, I get a little pissy about talk of "deadbeats" and back child support. In threads like this it always seems so binary: 1=paying, 0=deadbeat. For some reason, people seem to think that there is no middle ground in these situations.

In response to the OP: if you owe child support you SHOULD pay the debt until it's done, in general. I'm also here to confirm that it ABSOLUTELY can be and will be used as a weapon by some, as well.