(no subject)
I had this frustrating fight with the ex-wife on the phone Saturday after she read a letter I gave her when the kids went home.
(If you tuned in during the day on Saturday you might have seen the letter in a post I made, but I've since privated it.)
The gist of the letter was that Tiffany was venting some frustration that morning that involved Jackie referring to Ray as "daddy". This came up in conversation with Jackie once before, but back then it was more about my feelings -- this time it was about Tiffany's. To me, the feelings of my children are very important and significant - to Jackie, though, it seems playing "house" is the top priority. On the hope that it's just my bitterness saying that, though, I wrote a letter that appealed to Jackie's desire to have a happy and well-adjusted child, and as much as possible stuck to the point that Tiffany's conflicted and the pressure should be removed.
The fight we had was pretty much her telling me that #1.) I'm full of crap, the kids all chose to call Ray "daddy" from day one, and I probably only brought it up because maybe one of the kids slipped and referred to Ray as "daddy" and I got upset, and #2.) None of that matters anyway, because I'm a terrible father and a deadbeat dad who doesn't deserve the "Daddy" title anyway. I clearly don't care about my kids and do the bare minimum, and since Ray's there all week, and since his income is part of their combined income and therefore pays for some child-related expenses, I don't have any right to be involved in decisions related to parenting.
I've spent the last few days obsessing over that fight. I've come to the conclusion that it's utter crap. If it seems like I do the minimum when it comes to spending time with my kids, it's because she's systematically pushed me out of their lives. Despite our divorce settlement requiring her to notify me regarding any school or medical appointments, she blows me off 99% of the time and I find out after the fact. For a while I was taking the kids Tuesday and Thursday evenings for a couple of hours as well as all day on Saturday, but Jackie became so uncooperative and combatative that I eventually gave that up. Spending time with the kids should be fulfilling to them and to me; it's hard for the time to be fulfilling to them while I was constantly angry and/or miserable.
And comparing what I pay in child support to Ray's "contribution" is apples to oranges. They're married, living on a combined income that pays for all of their shared expenses - school clothes, rent, groceries, consumer electronics, CRUISES (two in the past three or four years), etc. My contribution is based on a state-regulated formula that takes about a third of my gross income. Why not more? Because the state knows that I'm going to have to pay my own living expenses seperately. So what happened when I was out of work for a while, but my rent increased? I quit smoking so I'd still have some money left to be able to take the kids out to lunch or to a movie once in a while. 100% of my disposable income was going towards my kids (and during that time I still paid child support). Saying "Ray pays for school clothes" because his money is part of their combined income, to me, is a flawed argument, since my child support payments are ALSO part of their combined income. Let's not forget that since my tax return refunds for the past few years have been redirected to Jackie, that realistically I probably have bought the bigger stuff (like school clothes). That is, if that money wasn't instead spent on the reception hall for their wedding or whatever. At any rate, clearly they're not in financial trouble, if they can afford to pay for their own wedding and go on cruises and such when I couldn't even afford cigarettes and had to ask my friends for help just to make Christmas happen. To me, even if the dollar amount may have been less, 100% of what I had is more than 50% of what they have. Her implication was that I don't care enough about my kids to provide for them properly, when in reality I try to give them everything I have, and everything I can.
Jackie disregards any money I spend on the kids while they're with me, because in her estimation, that money is ill-spent. It doesn't send them home with something tangible, so it doesn't exist. My feeling on the subject is this: Since the kids don't see me every day, and I'm not the one tucking them into bed at night or giving them breakfast in the morning or putting them on the school bus, I want the time they spend with me to be of the highest quality possible. That doesn't mean I have to spend a LOT of money, but I don't think $40 or so each weekend is unreasonable (which might be a movie, or lunch at Friendly's or Bertucci's, or whatever).
Here's the grand slam though, Jackie's best ammunition against me. I'm sure it sounds great bringing it up out of context to people who don't know the whole story, but I can't believe she actually brought it up to me as if it had any relevance. I quite technically owe somewhere between $5000 and $9000 in back child support. Wow holy crap omgz!!!1!!11!one!one Sounds really bad, right? Let's go back a few years...
Once upon a time, Len had this great job for a whole lot of money. Remember that state-regulated formula we were talking about earlier, that figures out how much child support I have to pay? Back then, that formula made child support roughly $1380 a month. I lost that job and was out of work for nearly a year, but I wasn't very well-informed about child support law. The right thing to do would have been to take Jackie to court to have the amount recalculated based on my new non-income, but part of me kept thinking a new job was right around the corner, and part of me also figured they'd retroactively adjust the difference once the recalculation was made. It wasn't, and they didn't. I think they even charge interest. After eight or ten months I finally did get that recalculation, but that didn't change the arrears. So now every tax refund goes to Jackie to pay down the arrears, and in the mean time she can tell her friends that I owe her $9000 in back child support and thus imply that it's a battle to get me to pay child support at all, and that I'm a deadbeat dad like you read about.
In summary, Jackie unloaded on me with all of the things I'm sure she says to folks who didn't know all the details, and she was so convincing and well-rehearsed that it took me a few days to work all this stuff out for myself.
I give my kids 100%. Jackie's opinion doesn't matter to me, and the opinions of Jackie's friends and family shouldn't matter to me either. I do care a bit about my friends' opinions of me. But mostly the reason I've been obsessing about this for three days is because I care about my own opinion of me. I think I'm okay for now.
(If you tuned in during the day on Saturday you might have seen the letter in a post I made, but I've since privated it.)
The gist of the letter was that Tiffany was venting some frustration that morning that involved Jackie referring to Ray as "daddy". This came up in conversation with Jackie once before, but back then it was more about my feelings -- this time it was about Tiffany's. To me, the feelings of my children are very important and significant - to Jackie, though, it seems playing "house" is the top priority. On the hope that it's just my bitterness saying that, though, I wrote a letter that appealed to Jackie's desire to have a happy and well-adjusted child, and as much as possible stuck to the point that Tiffany's conflicted and the pressure should be removed.
The fight we had was pretty much her telling me that #1.) I'm full of crap, the kids all chose to call Ray "daddy" from day one, and I probably only brought it up because maybe one of the kids slipped and referred to Ray as "daddy" and I got upset, and #2.) None of that matters anyway, because I'm a terrible father and a deadbeat dad who doesn't deserve the "Daddy" title anyway. I clearly don't care about my kids and do the bare minimum, and since Ray's there all week, and since his income is part of their combined income and therefore pays for some child-related expenses, I don't have any right to be involved in decisions related to parenting.
I've spent the last few days obsessing over that fight. I've come to the conclusion that it's utter crap. If it seems like I do the minimum when it comes to spending time with my kids, it's because she's systematically pushed me out of their lives. Despite our divorce settlement requiring her to notify me regarding any school or medical appointments, she blows me off 99% of the time and I find out after the fact. For a while I was taking the kids Tuesday and Thursday evenings for a couple of hours as well as all day on Saturday, but Jackie became so uncooperative and combatative that I eventually gave that up. Spending time with the kids should be fulfilling to them and to me; it's hard for the time to be fulfilling to them while I was constantly angry and/or miserable.
And comparing what I pay in child support to Ray's "contribution" is apples to oranges. They're married, living on a combined income that pays for all of their shared expenses - school clothes, rent, groceries, consumer electronics, CRUISES (two in the past three or four years), etc. My contribution is based on a state-regulated formula that takes about a third of my gross income. Why not more? Because the state knows that I'm going to have to pay my own living expenses seperately. So what happened when I was out of work for a while, but my rent increased? I quit smoking so I'd still have some money left to be able to take the kids out to lunch or to a movie once in a while. 100% of my disposable income was going towards my kids (and during that time I still paid child support). Saying "Ray pays for school clothes" because his money is part of their combined income, to me, is a flawed argument, since my child support payments are ALSO part of their combined income. Let's not forget that since my tax return refunds for the past few years have been redirected to Jackie, that realistically I probably have bought the bigger stuff (like school clothes). That is, if that money wasn't instead spent on the reception hall for their wedding or whatever. At any rate, clearly they're not in financial trouble, if they can afford to pay for their own wedding and go on cruises and such when I couldn't even afford cigarettes and had to ask my friends for help just to make Christmas happen. To me, even if the dollar amount may have been less, 100% of what I had is more than 50% of what they have. Her implication was that I don't care enough about my kids to provide for them properly, when in reality I try to give them everything I have, and everything I can.
Jackie disregards any money I spend on the kids while they're with me, because in her estimation, that money is ill-spent. It doesn't send them home with something tangible, so it doesn't exist. My feeling on the subject is this: Since the kids don't see me every day, and I'm not the one tucking them into bed at night or giving them breakfast in the morning or putting them on the school bus, I want the time they spend with me to be of the highest quality possible. That doesn't mean I have to spend a LOT of money, but I don't think $40 or so each weekend is unreasonable (which might be a movie, or lunch at Friendly's or Bertucci's, or whatever).
Here's the grand slam though, Jackie's best ammunition against me. I'm sure it sounds great bringing it up out of context to people who don't know the whole story, but I can't believe she actually brought it up to me as if it had any relevance. I quite technically owe somewhere between $5000 and $9000 in back child support. Wow holy crap omgz!!!1!!11!one!one Sounds really bad, right? Let's go back a few years...
Once upon a time, Len had this great job for a whole lot of money. Remember that state-regulated formula we were talking about earlier, that figures out how much child support I have to pay? Back then, that formula made child support roughly $1380 a month. I lost that job and was out of work for nearly a year, but I wasn't very well-informed about child support law. The right thing to do would have been to take Jackie to court to have the amount recalculated based on my new non-income, but part of me kept thinking a new job was right around the corner, and part of me also figured they'd retroactively adjust the difference once the recalculation was made. It wasn't, and they didn't. I think they even charge interest. After eight or ten months I finally did get that recalculation, but that didn't change the arrears. So now every tax refund goes to Jackie to pay down the arrears, and in the mean time she can tell her friends that I owe her $9000 in back child support and thus imply that it's a battle to get me to pay child support at all, and that I'm a deadbeat dad like you read about.
In summary, Jackie unloaded on me with all of the things I'm sure she says to folks who didn't know all the details, and she was so convincing and well-rehearsed that it took me a few days to work all this stuff out for myself.
I give my kids 100%. Jackie's opinion doesn't matter to me, and the opinions of Jackie's friends and family shouldn't matter to me either. I do care a bit about my friends' opinions of me. But mostly the reason I've been obsessing about this for three days is because I care about my own opinion of me. I think I'm okay for now.