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  • Parent buying child items but not paying child support

    Hello all, quick question as I am extremely frustrated. This may be more of a rant and I am sorry.
    Quick background. Daughter is 12-almost 13 years old. Ex and I separated when she was 1.5 years old.
    Daughter lived with ex until she was 10 years old. Environment was terrible, drug abuse, constant moving, witnessing of very bad spousal abuse and weapons in the home. After an emergency motion I finally got custody switched, it had been years in the making.
    Ex left that guy, immediately with someone else. Moved closer to her parents and has appeared to be clean for a bit.

    2 years of scattered access between our daughter and her mom, no child support or scheduled access. Finally have a court order for access, which is 1 weekend and 1 saturday day visit a month. D12 must sleep at her maternal grandparents but can spend day with mom.
    Order for childsupport which is less than table amount, and for section 7 expenses which is also less than table amount.

    So far 2 months have passed, no child support, and unwilling to pay section 7 expenses.
    Every time our daughter goes to her moms, her mom takes her on a shopping spree. The shopping is the only bonding they do, so our daughter loves it.

    Last weekend, our daughters mom got her a new pair of winter boots which cost $190, and a pair of spring boots which were $160. The boots she had gotten her in the fall were falling apart, but we figured its mid march, we can go find her cheap ones to finish the season. My wife and I are quite frugal, in fall I would consider buying her a good pair, but in spring there is no point.

    She also got her a bunch of other clothing, some of which do not meet the schools dress code. Her mom buys her so many clothes that she literally has to donate clothing that she has never worn, because she has no room at all for new stuff.
    Our daughter also does not follow her toileting schedule at her moms, or take her fiber which the Dr said she needs. We have just started to get her accidents under control and now we are going right back. So frustrated. I give my ex more parenting time than is court ordered, and bend over backwards to be a good co-parent. Yet she keeps trying to alienate our daughter from me.

    How bad does it look when you do not pay child support or section 7 expenses, but continue to buy a child things?
    Our daughter suffers from alot of trauma in the past, so she goes to a trauma therapist, and is going to a psychiatrist as well. Her mom thinks that now that she is "clean" that she is mom of the year but fails to see any of the damage she has done to our daughter in those years.

    Ok, rant over. Really only looking for advice on the buying of stuff and not paying child support.

    Thank you

  • #2
    You have an order for parenting time and support? Follow it.

    Are you in a province with a maintenance agency? (FRO MEP etc?) File the order.

    Advise the ex that based on the health issues and refusal to pay support properly you are reverting to the order on file and will be filing the support order for enforcement.

    If she says anything you can advise her that you are willing to be flexible on seeing the child outside the dictated times when you see an improvement of the health issues. Otherwise your child needs to adhere to a schedule that is best suited to her health issues.

    (Replace health issues with whatever it is the child suffers from)

    Expect to get a response back about the money she spends blah blah blah. You can either ignore or advise her that child support covers all of those items and she may be interested in spending that shopping time doing a joint activity that strengthens their relationship.


    My two cents. Not a lawyer. Just my thoughts on this.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by rockscan View Post
      You have an order for parenting time and support? Follow it.

      Are you in a province with a maintenance agency? (FRO MEP etc?) File the order.

      Advise the ex that based on the health issues and refusal to pay support properly you are reverting to the order on file and will be filing the support order for enforcement.

      If she says anything you can advise her that you are willing to be flexible on seeing the child outside the dictated times when you see an improvement of the health issues. Otherwise your child needs to adhere to a schedule that is best suited to her health issues.

      (Replace health issues with whatever it is the child suffers from)

      Expect to get a response back about the money she spends blah blah blah. You can either ignore or advise her that child support covers all of those items and she may be interested in spending that shopping time doing a joint activity that strengthens their relationship.


      My two cents. Not a lawyer. Just my thoughts on this.
      Thank you for the reply. I am going to see if the weekend visits get better, medically speaking. As they are only monthly, it really isn't that bad, but I won't be having to much extra time until things get back in order.

      We are registered with FRO for child support but not section 7 expenses. I am new to being a support recipient so this all a bit foreign. When I paid support, it was always early when requested.
      I offered that we could pool our money for things like boots so that we could get her a great pair, or something like that as opposed to getting 2 lower quality ones. Part of our daughters trauma shows up in her loving everything her mom buys for her. Maybe she enjoys shopping with her mom more than me, which is likely. For instance, in August I got her a pair of $70 shoes for indoors at school, spent a few hours with her letting her pick out ones she loved and that were also good for running and supportive. She then goes to her moms, and gets 2 pairs of shoes for $16. After getting the ones from her mom, the ones I got her now collect dust. Everytime she goes there she comes home with bags of new clothing or shoes. I think its also a bad lesson to be teaching her because now she associates them with buying her stuff.

      In the grand scheme of things these are small issues, its just so frustrating. Trying our best to work with our daughter to move past her trauma and deal with things and having it totally 1 sided. They refuse to even admit that she may have suffered trauma growing up there.

      Comment


      • #4
        Did mother pay child support the 10 years child lived with father?

        sorry for my confusion - did the person who had the child for the 10-year-span receive child support?

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by arabian View Post
          Did mother pay child support the 10 years child lived with father?
          10 Years daughter lived with Mother, 2 years ago it changed and she now lives with me the father. I paid every month, regularly being told that if I do not send it early I would not be able to see our daughter for access. After the custody changover, she had 2 years of not having to pay child support. The courts only just granted a support order mid January, she has not paid Feb 1 or March 1. She is paying less than guideline amount as well.

          Comment


          • #6
            Thanks. Typically in family court one of the first things examined is child support/arrears.

            There are many threads on this forum regarding what is and what is not Section 7.

            I doubt there is much you can do about what the other parent spends on the child (over and above CS). This is an age-old thing that the "weekend Dad" used to do to placate and buy children's affection.

            Read up on Section 7 and pursue the matter in court if need be. It will take time but if you have good records then it is probably well-worth the effort.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by arabian View Post
              Thanks. Typically in family court one of the first things examined is child support/arrears.

              There are many threads on this forum regarding what is and what is not Section 7.

              I doubt there is much you can do about what the other parent spends on the child (over and above CS). This is an age-old thing that the "weekend Dad" used to do to placate and buy children's affection.

              Read up on Section 7 and pursue the matter in court if need be. It will take time but if you have good records then it is probably well-worth the effort.
              Thank you. Its that disney weekend parent thing, buy their love but take no real responsibility into their real life.
              I am very conservative on what I ask for section 7 expenses. So far it has just been a camp that she is going to through school that is costing $250. She only has to put forth 20% even though she currently makes the same amount of money that I do.
              FRO will be going after her, which will cause further issues between us all as she will blame me for them going after her.

              Thank you for lending me an ear, I appreciate it.

              Comment


              • #8
                You have a number of issues in this and some of them you need to deal with and some, let go.

                Child support is a non starter. You have custody, she pays support. She doesnt even pay full table which many dads would not be allowed. File it with FRO and let them deal with her. You put her on ignore. She is obligated to support her child period.

                Section 7 is hit or miss. She should be paying her share. You *could* file an arrears statement with FRO to get her full share but she could also dispute it. Might be worth a shot if she isn’t paying her proportionate share. Section 7 though is grey. Depending on your incomes and what she pays in cs, something may not be s7. $200 is not s7 for those with incomes upwards of 80 grand with cs. Ask yourself if its worth fighting over though. Post secondary is worth the fight. Day camp may not be.

                As for the clothes and other stuff, it may stop once she has to pay cs it may not. Either way its her money to spend. Now you can save your money. Or take the stuff back.

                With respect to the guilt and the feelings of inadequacy in your daughter, you may want to look into some therapy for yourself and your child. You said she is in therapy, you could talk to her therapist and discuss your concerns and see what they say. You may want to speak to someone about coping tactics to deal with this.

                Bottom line is, your ex does not get an out on her responsibilities. This situation is the way it is because of her actions. This is called consequences and you are not responsible for her poor decisions. Stop feeling bad, being a punching bag or allowing her to get to you. You are none of those things.

                Comment

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