Asking for a friend. Does anyone have experience with a shared custody arrangement where one parent is doing very well and the other is flushing themselves down the toilet? Without divulging TMI, the well off parent gave everything to the other in the settlement, pays more than the legally required CS, and pays for all direct expenses. The financially irresponsible parent constantly demands more money saying its needed for the kids. Has anyone had any success in dealing with this? Has any court anywhere ever taken kids away for poor money management OR have they required increases in CS to attempt to balance it out, even though the reason for the standard of living disparity is due one parent's incapability to pay bills, not an actual lack of income? The main quandry is finding a solution to plug the drain of the irresponsible parent without having an adverse effect on the kids. As it is, the kids currently spend half their time in a nice house in a nice neighbourhood and half the time in prostitute & drug dealer-ridden slum and that situation is threatening to get worse.

Suggestions?

Your friend�s situation is similar to how my situation is playing out. In my case, my exWW was a SAHM and I was the primary wage earner. Plus, we have 50/50 shared custody. As I make about 90% of the combined income, I am supporting the kids financially 100%. Based on my state�s CS formula, my exWW�s income goes entirely to support herself.

So, I pay her $Y per month for CS, I pay $X in daycare, I pay the medical insurance, plus, you can assume that my expenses when they are with me are about $Y per month. What I have learned over the last 15 months or so is the CS formula in my state is pretty fair. But, the weaknesses that I see relate more to the simple fact that it is much more expensive to raise kids in two households than it is in one intact household.

After my CS to her and my daycare expenses, both of our disposable incomes are actually pretty close even though there is such a huge disparity in gross income. Both of us took a huge step back in standard of living. My apartment is dirt cheap and my expenses are pretty low, I�m still living paycheck to paycheck. It�s just the nature of divorce when there�s a huge disparity of income between the two parents.

In my case, the largest combined expense the exWW and I have are the care of her and POSOM�s horses � she spends more per month in hay and feed than I do in daycare. Yet, she was found in contempt for not paying her half of the daycare expenses. She is still living in our married paradigm where I pay for everything and she gets to take care of her horses. I don�t live in the greatest neighborhood � I�m paying $400 more in daycare than I�m supposed to. She lives out in the boonies on a small horse farm she�s renting � as such, her rent, gasoline, and utilities are a lot more than mine.

What is ironic is even though we�re divorced, our financial picture is very much tied to each other due to the child support calculation. If she were to get a job that pays her closer to what I make, my child support would be next to nothing and I would be in very good shape financially. Since she chose to live in an area with no job market, she has to commute 90 miles each way to her job and most companies won�t give her an interview since she lives so far away. As a result, she is having a very tough time getting on her feet financially. If she were to give up the horses and move to where the jobs are, I would imagine both of our financial pictures would improve considerably.

As for being financially irresponsible affecting custody, in some state�s one of the factors they decide custody on is the �wherewithal of the parents to financially support the kids� If that�s the case where your friend lives, your friend would win that custody factor. Your friend�s argument in court would be �Your honor, I pay more than the ordered amount of CS, here�s the receipts of all the direct expenses I pay, and here�s some emails where other parent continually asks for more money for the kids.�

In my state, there are 7 factors to decide custody. When we went to court, I won one, exWW won one, and the rest were tied. So, depending where your friend lives, financially supporting the kids above and beyond could win your friend one of the custody factors. Since most custody cases are very closely contested, it might put your friend over the top.

I have no experience myself but have a friend who went through a similar situation although her ex was the one that was supposed to pay CS but he was addicted to crack and never paid.

She went to court several times but it really did not do any good, he would just quit his job so he had no reportable income. If the bad parent is taking advantage, i am sure they have figured out how to do so without it afeecting their money train.

Thanks for the input. In this situation, the problem is that one parent is using their income to maintain a home, buy groceries and basically look after themselves while the other is not. It isn't clear where the money is going - doesn't appear to be drugs or any other addiction. It's most likely extremely poor financial management as the disparity didn't happen overnight but has been gradual over a period of years. Other than a complete inability to manage money, this person is not a bad parent, has a great relationship with the kids and a civil relationship with the ex. But at some point, this parent is going to end up on social assistance at which point they will reopen the matter of custody/CS, whether either of the parents choose to do so or not.

So can the "wherewithal to support kids" include matters such as a track record of financial irresponsibility? This parent has a job and an income and started out divorced life with a substantial amouont of assets but has managed to lose everything through an inability to manage money.

I would say no - you answered your question when you said they are not a bad parent, is good with the kids, and gets along with the ex. Perhaps someone needs an appointment with a money management guru like Dave Ramsey? My contempt case was pretty easy (money is not a custody factor in my state)- I presented to the court that exWW paid X amount in feed and hay for her horses yet did not pay Y amount in daycare and medical expenses for the kids. X was greater than Y so it made an easy decision for the judge.

If the bad money manager is complying with all aspects of the support agreement, I don't think there's much your friend can do other than somehow have someone convince her to manage her money better.

Fair enough. However, to what extent is the good money manager responsible for this? And more importantly, can something be done about it short of letting the bad money manager fall hard ultimately resulting in loss of ability to provide basic needs for the kids (i.e. can't pay water, heat, electricity and eventually even a roof over their heads). Legally speaking, once this happens the kids can be taken away (failure to provide necessities in life). BUT - do the kids have to be subjected to this first? AND - would the good money manager be required to pay more, even though there is a long history that CS requirements were exceeded and the substandard state was solely the result of the poor money manager?

This might be something to discuss with CPS. CPS has more real world authority than just about anyone else. Upon getting an appointment with CPS, the tact to take would be something along these lines:

I am concerned about my X and his/her ability to take care of the kids. It is not my intent at all to "Get even" or even to create more problems for him/her than they already have. I am just concerned because both of us have about the same disposable income, yet he/she lives in an area that I consider dangerous, does not provide good housing and seems to always be in financial trouble.

While I don't think drugs or alcohol are issues, I don't know if that is the case or not. What do you think? Is this something that CPS is interested in?

Then answer questions with the truth.

An even sneakier method is to get a teacher involved. Visit the school and ask for a meeting with teacher. Tell teacher that you would like for her to watch the kids for any signs that where he/she is living and domiciling the kids for half the time is causing problems for the kids. You can say that you are concerned, but don't want it to be your imagination working because of the divorce.

Teacher might just go to CPS themselves if they spot trouble.

Larry

CPS in my state would care less about a financial situation. Heck my neice is battling with them right now to have her grand-daughter taken away from her daughter due to drug use and she is having a very hard time with it even though she already has custody of one of her daughter's children.

CPS is NOT what it is cracked up to be here in my state anyway.....

In my state it is a real battle to deal with CPS. I have lots of experience with my step kids. Their mom did drugs, the kids were molested, she gambled, starved the kids, neglected them. I went to court for 2 fathers, and 3 kids were removed from the home, but this was over years. Oh, and they were homeless, without water, without lights, didn't matter. California gives a parental rights too much weight.

I understand believer, it makes me so angry. These kids have no choice in the matter.......

It's a real tricky situation. Here they won't take away kids just because you are poor. There are other kids in the same neighbourhood who don't have another parent living elsewhere and are pretty much stuck there. Nobody is taking them away. CPS has been notified on occassions when the utilities were out. Until they go out and stay out, they will not interfere.

Where the money goes isn't 100% known but it is suspected to be given to the church. The likely pattern is that with each housing downgrade and subsequent "release" of cash, a bulk donation was made to the church while the new house was bought at minimum down payment. Certainly nobel but not smart and not illegal or dangerous to the kids either.

I guess the real question is - just how much can one parent suck from another without consequences? How can that other parent stop that BEFORE it has an adverse impact on the kids (i.e. stuck without heat or water until CPS can get in). If there were no kids involved, the logical thing would be to let the poor money manager fall - just like one would do to a drug addict. The current situation is just enabling them, but to stop enabling puts the kids at risk.

We chose to help the kids the best we could, and that took tens of thousands of dollars, because everything was filtered through her.

We put countless payments for rent and security deposits on countless homes. Bought kids clothes, toys, bikes - all lost each time she got evicted. Took groceries over, and her druggie friends ate the food. It was just exhausting.

Same here believer, we just did it ourselves and so is my niece with her grand-daughter.

Unfortunatley Tabby in my experiences there is little that anyone can do about it and like i said the person taking advantage of the situation i am sure is well aware of that.

Believer and others. Sorry to hear about the way it is in California. In Texas, CPS is all over the kind of stuff you talk about. They have no mercy. I have heard that some offices are better than others.

With what you guys in California pay your bureaucrats in salary and pensions, the kids should get a better deal.

Larry

My exDiL let money dribble through her fingers like it was water.

When she and my son got divorced, they agreed to set it up that he would pay her enough cash money every week to put gas in the car (that he provided) and buy enough groceries for the kids to eat. He directly paid all child-related expenses. If they needed money for school, he wrote a check directly to the school. When it came time for new clothes, he went shopping with her and the kids, paid for them, had the kids try on their new clothes with him prsent, and then collected the tags and cut out the labels so she couldn't return the the clothes for cash. The same thing happened for Christmas and birthdays.

She was supposed to provide a roof over their head and utilities; however, he eventually bought a place for the kids to live in because he was tired of them being moved around like gypsies. He told her that if she couldn't pay the light bill, bring the kids to him, because he wasn't putting out any more money. When all was said and done, he paid much more than he would have been required to pay for CS; however, he would have paid it anyway because he takes care of his kids.

The only problem with buying the place to live is that she moved her boyfriend in with her; and, according to the law, our son couldn't do a darned thing about it.

LC, that's exactly the scenario that is starting to happen here - one parent paying everything directly to the extent that he can. But short of buying her a home and putting the utilities in his name and physically doing the groceries himself, the kids do without and she does whatever she wants.

I suppose I knew the answer - decades ago my cousin was killed in an accident. He was in his early 20's. After he died, his parents were contacted by a lawyer to pay child support for 2 kids that they didn't even know about. They investigated and found a woman who had about 7 kids by 4 or 5 fathers making a nice living on CS for all of them. They took her to court and managed to get custody of their grandkids. This was in California but a very, very long time ago (both grandkids are married with kids of their own now).

I understand parental rights, but it seems there should be a limit or at least some room for common sense. Sometimes one parent simply can't provide the right care, even if they are given enough resources. It is sad when a parent who really wants to be responsible for their kids gets screwed over like this by the other parent. I guess marriage really is 'til death do you part.

When kids are involved, the myth of divorce solving whatever problems you had are a pipe dream at best. If there were money problems in the marriage, they will most likely get worse when you divorce. If there were issues with parenting styles, they will get worse when you divorce.