Count the ways to avoid financial obligations
Here’s the latest in this misadventure.
EH is doing everything possible to not fulfill the financial obligations as listed in the temporary orders (child support and a loan payment). The court was very clear, he needed to pay both these items, and the court described how those were to be paid. There is no ambiguity. For some reason my EH thinks they are optional though. It’s quite amusing in a demented sort of way.
DD2 is enrolled in an afternoon childcare enrichment program that supplements her 1/2 day of kindergarten. The school provides the program, so it’s convenient. My EH told me that he would assist me in the costs of that. Well, that hasn’t happened. He wants me to give him access to my account (using my email and password) so that he can have the convenience in dealing with this online. I however have said no to that, so he punishes me by not helping me with the costs of that program.
Now last week, during his custody time disagreement, I had been picking DD2 up from school when her kindergarten class dismissed. He wanted to know why she had been picked up early, because she wasn’t there when he tried to pick her up, even though it is my custody time. He was clearly trying to circumvent that by attempting to pick her up. And he was angry that I had picked her up early, accusing me of not notifying him and not doing joint-decision making. I simply told him I did not pick her up from school early.
He then came back with accusations about how I was lying because the school had provided him an attendance record and that I had picked her up early and she had not attended the childcare program. I again, simply told him I had said nothing about the after school program, I had only told him about picking her up after school. Now, had he not tried to pick her up on my custodial days, he would never have known that she did not attend her afterschool program.
Besides, since I have been paying for it with no help from him since school began (even though I do not need that program) I felt I could make a decision about whether DD2 could skip it or not. Well apparently that was against the rules (or it was against his rules anyway).
And then I added fuel to the fire by notifying him that as of the 1st of the month that he’d have to find alternate forms of childcare. I simply have run out of the ability to pay for the program.
Oh, you’d think the world was ending. EH kept telling me I really needed to think about this because it was the best thing for DD2. He told me I could not unilaterally make that decision and he did not agree with it, that was not part of joint decision making. He kept threatening to take me to court for arbitration and forcing me to keep her in the program.
My answer, repeatedly was to keep telling him that when there is no money, no amount of thinking about it or threats or court orders was going to make my bank account become solvent. He really had a difficult time with this concept because we went through 4 back and forth emails. He kept telling me that he had provided a solution and that I had not and that I really needed to think about this.
I finally had to bullet point a list of things. First that I was not giving him access to my account that has DD1’s information and my bank account information contained within the profile–he is entitled to neither of those. Second, I had provided a solution, multiple times, that of him actually paying the court ordered child support and loan payments. I told him specifically how he could do that and then I would be able to rearrange funds to make the program work.
Finally, I told him again that he could get the arbitrators involved and explain to them why he was not complying with existing court orders. Frankly I’d like to know why he’s not complying with those anyway.
Finally, after bullet pointing exactly what the issues were, what was workable and what was not given the timeframes and what my solution entailed; as well as telling him that no amount of threats was going to change the fact that I did not have money in my bank account, he stopped telling me I was not complying with the court orders.
And then 24 hours later I received an email from the enrichment program requesting permission to speak to him about DD2. I responded and within 2 hours got an email saying that next months program fees were paid in full.
Then the man had the gall to submit the invoice to the parenting app for 50% reimbursement. I sent him an email telling him that I had paid approx $2k since school began and that he could pay for the final 2 months of the program and that I would refuse all expenses related to that.
Furthermore he is saddling me with all the medical debt from DD2’s broken leg. The court has ordered he pay 80% of the cost of medical expenses. But we all know what he thinks of the court orders. Apparently for him they are optional, unless of course he doesn’t get what he wants then we must enforce them to the letter.
So unless I make the decisions that he wants, when he wants then I’m not complying with the court orders because I’m not engaging in joint-decision making. If I don’t give him the parenting schedule he wants, or at least his interpretation of it, then he has to take me to court to enforce the orders; or call the police who are very nice and I’ve had multiple conversations with them.
My poor DD1 though, is so afraid that mama is going to be arrested though and taken to jail that she’s really worried, given how many times we’ve had the police show up because of some perceived violation by EH.
But I guess the good thing is that EH is now getting to the point where this is going to start being harassment if he keeps doing it. He’s sent PD to the house enough for no reason, or at least no reason that PD can actually do anything to enforce, that I’m hoping my attorney can use it as a way to convince the judge that DD2 spending that much time with him is not a good thing.
Calendar
M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | |||||
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
Leave a Reply