Exchanging child support for pension?

[Deputy Daddy]

I was on here regularly up until about 8 years ago, and things are going very well, but I have a question I would like some input with before I go to a lawyer with it...



Background: I had a very difficult separation/divorce in 2006 with egregious accusations against me and huge lawyer bills. The accusations were proven false and my ex and I eventually lost our animosity and co-parented quite well until about 2015. Around that time my ex had some personal issues including addiction, and was unable to care for our children (12 and 15 at the time). From that point forward they have lived with me full-time. CFS was involved and it was well-documented that they are with me 100% of the time.



I make a decent living and have never asked, nor wanted child support from her. She has stable disability income, but can barely survive with the mess she has made out of her life.



Now, I am approaching retirement age and am wondering about the pension splitting that I agreed to in our divorce...



My question is; Would it be possible, or make sense, for her to relinquish her portion of my pension in exchange for me never asking for child support? I don't need (or want) her money, but my youngest is still 15 and it would kill me to forgive years of child support, only for her to get a big percentage of my pension when the time comes...



Thanks for your thoughts!

[arabian]

I make a decent living and have never asked, nor wanted child support from her. She has stable disability income, but can barely survive with the mess she has made out of her life.

You want to challenge equalization that was agreed to in 2006? Good luck with that. You haven't requested/enforced child support in 12 years? Now you want to "squeeze" your ex (who is in a very poor economic situation)?

My thoughts? Walk away from this idea and don't look back. Your ex will get FREE legal aid and smoke you in court.

[Deputy Daddy]

Thanks for the input, but I'm sorry I wasn't clear... We were 50/50 and I paid offset child support to her from 2006 until the kids came to live with me in 2015. I don't want to "squeeze" anyone, and do not want anything from her. I am not pursuing child support because she is in a poor economic situation (of her own making).


However... I can see a future where she gets the pension, and since the kids would be over 18 (or after post-secondary) I would have lost that bargaining tool. They will likely go to college, but that expense, like all others, will be ALL on me.



Honestly, I was expecting to get heck for NOT collecting child support (being the right of the child, and all that...).

[Rioe]

If she barely making ends meet on a disability pension, her CS to you would be a negligible amount, and it makes sense that you would not bother with pursuing it. However, her share of your pension was set out in your agreement from 2006. So what you are trying to do is say that her CS arrears and ongoing CS owed to you should be the equivalent of your pension payout to her. But do those amounts seem fair to you? Are they really equivalent?



Why didn't the pension get split back in 2006? How is the splitting worded?


I know it's unpleasant to have to give an ex you probably dislike any money. But she had a right to her share of your pension from during the marriage and it was written into your agreement. It has nothing to do with CS, and shouldn't be conflated. Had the access stayed 50-50, would it have rankled to start giving her that share of your pension? So what changes that feeling now?

[arabian]

Equalization is/was a "snapshot" of your marital assets/liabilities. You would have had an actuary calculate your pension?

Child support is a separate matter.

Presumably you and your ex both had competent legal advice when you divorced.

If you have an issue with child support paid/not paid then that is a separate issue. Have the two of you exchanged financials dutifully each and every year since separation?

[denbigh]

I think the biggest problem is that you consider it “my” pension. It’s not. It’s both of your pensions. Whatever evaluation you agreed to, typically 50/50 is what is fair. You need to stop thinking of it as “mine” and think of it as “our” pension.

And if you are asking should 2 years of child support be accounted for in this pension? First, they are separate issues and have nothing to do with each other, and secondly, like another has said, is it likely that 2 years of child support for someone on a disability income is likely to be equivalent to a pension? I think not.