BPDFamily.com

My uPBD/NPD ex has filed for a custody hearing in California. We have 50/50 custody and she wants to move away.

I am going to need all the help I can to pay for my lawyer. Her dad is super wealthy and she has unlimited funds. I'm a consultant and on paper, make 25% of what she does. I'm thinking of filing for child support which would cover the food, camp and after care costs for my kids and free up some funds to pay an attorney.

My question is, how will the courts view this? Could I potentially be pegged for retaliation since I haven't asked for child support until after she hit me with a custody hearing?

From the circumstances you describe, it sounds as if you were entitled to it all .  Why didn't you ask for it initially?

To answer your question, no typically a court would not view it as vindictive.  Child support is child support and it is totally separate from other aspects of the case. 


  This is exactly what it is for, so that the kids don't feel compelled to choose Rich parent over Poor parent. 

In fact in most states, maybe all, child support is the one item that you cannot negotiate away at the divorce as non-modifiable.  If you make $200k a year when your child is 6 and then get hit by a car and cannot work when your child is 12, that is a change in circumstances and subject to adjustment by the court.

A key article here is "Rebuttal Land" www.legal-aid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Child-Support-Guidelines.pdf (http://www.legal-aid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Child-Support-Guidelines.pdf)

Child support is important: it's what can get you hauled away and thrown in jail. There's no other provision in the US (no debtor's prisons) like it. So be careful. It's screwed me already.

On paper, I make almost twice more than my ex.

So right away, there's the question of imputable income.

Then, there's the rich parents scenario. My ex's parents are also rich. They have given us an average of $60,000 a year for the past fourteen years. I know they've given my ex at least $15,000 since the date of separation. I know she has investments that she omitted from her Preliminary Declarations Income and Expenses (FL-150) form.

I've filed a Motion to Set Aside the support order that is in the process of making me bankrupt (I'll be completely out of money within 8 weeks), while my ex continues to work part-time nine months after separation. She has touted her "frugality" with the judge while I'm being set up as an out-of-control spender because I've bought furniture, an iMac for my son who hates me, etc.

The gamesmanship with child support has everything to do with that famously insanely complicated formula that California uses. It's a "highly regulated" area of law; but in the end, it's as mushy and nightmarish as everything else having to do with Family Law in California. The Courts MUST use that formula, if only to show what support SHOULD be. But in any event, there is HUGE discretion for judges as to WHAT goes into that formula. Are gifts from parents to be included? IRMO Williamson and Alter say different things here. What about imputable income? How old are the kids? Is it only the obliger who can have income imputed? It certainly seems like that, but then the law says that both parents should support the children according to their abilities and stations in life.

It seems - scratch that, it doesn't seem, there IS a bias in California Family Law against imputing income to a "custodial" parent, i.e., Mom. There's a recent case in California (can't find the reference now) where the judge ruled that imputing income to a custodial parent was NEVER in a child's best interest. That same judge then added a "Note" to the finding a little later, leaving the door open to a "non-custodial" parent's possible argument that the benefit to kids of imputing income to Mom would be that they would get to spend more time with Dad. But you have to make that specific argument. Which is what I'm trying.

So don't believe anything you hear about child support (or especially spousal support) being mechanical and cut-and-dried. Yes, it is mechanical because there's a formula; but there's considerable discretion in (a) determining WHAT gets included into that formula, and (b) determining any departure from that formula's results based on specific circumstances. Any departure, or any input into that formula, must be couched in terms of "best interests of the children" for it to have any hope of traction with the Court.

It's hard to know what will have traction here, because we've all heard stories of Dads going bankrupt, living out of cars, etc. while struggling to keep with his support payments. I'm trying to argue that a "pendente lite" "temporary" support order while our case works its way through the sausage grinder should not result in the kids suffering from either of their parents suffering serious economic harm.

The basic advice is, you've got to ask, you've got to try to get any relief available from the Courts. I don't know if the relief I'm asking for will work. According to my calculations (using  Ed Sherman's ex-company's court-approved software), if my ex has full-time income imputed, and you include a potential 2% rate of return on under-utilized investments she's hidden, and you include the average gifts the marriage has received from her parents over its duration, she would be the obligor to me for both child support and spousal support. You might be in the same boat. I don't think it's going to work for me. But what guarantees it won't work is no asking. The court will never tell you what you should do, what relief is available. The judge is not allowed to. So you've got to ask. You've got to try.

Good luck, and keep fighting!

can you show that your ex is being supported by those funds? have daughter and father even admixed their funds?

however,


so she has her own income. such a disparity alone (never mind her father's contribution) would, i think, be a strong argument in favor of your request.

full disclosure, i didn't have to face this question. my w earned more than i did every year of the marriage, so any alimony would have come to me. however, despite her income, she still wound up 80K in debt.