Preparing my Financials

[Duck_Borders]

Hello friends,

I am looking for advice on how to protect myself financially from family court and my uPD ex wife. 

Very long story short: In 2013, I eloped with a uPD woman I had only known for a couple months.  She quickly turned on me once we lived together.  She attacked me several times, the last time having me charged with DV.  She moved from Canada to Miami while pregnant.  We reconciled, only because she was pregnant and I didn't understand PD's at that point, I thought I could help her.  Then after our son was born and I had given her roughly $20,000 in living expenses, she secretly filed for divorce.

She has a very aggressive lawyer to whom she has misrepresented my financial situation.  I own a small 5 year old company with my Mother (silent partner).  The company barely breaks even but has potential.  My uPD ex has a lawyer and forensic accountant who showed up to the temporary child support hearing inflating my $30,000/year salary to roughly $150,000 which the judge bought.  They used the amortization of my industrial equipment as one method of inflating income.  I have my own forensic accountant now and we will obviously be disputing.  Currently, after the exchange rate,  I am paying roughly 70% of my income in child support.

I have temporarily relocated to Miami to fight for custody and to also help my son with his medical issues (I believe, but cannot prove that his Mother abused Xanax while pregnant and this lead to medical complications for him).  Things are progressing extremely slowly and I am quite disgusted with this industry.  I've spent everything I have on lawyers and relocation costs and still do not even have overnights with my son.  And now I just found out that my immigration status will be more difficult than I had hoped. 

So... .  I am preparing to withdraw from this nightmare.  I hope that one day I will be able to reconnect with my son, but even if I had the money to continue this battle, I do not have the citizenship.

I will not allow this woman to extort me for the next 20 years.  She has already claimed multiple times that I am not giving her enough money and that she is a SINGLE MOTHER taking care of our DISABLED SON.  She is a classic victim and will never stop. 

My current plan is to sell my company to my general manager (I've worked with this person for 6 years, and over the last 2 years we've become romantic and I would like to explore building a life with her).  I'll sell the company under the guise that I need to sell it in order to relocate to Miami permanently.  Then I will disclose to family court that I cannot get citizenship and am going back to Canada.  In Canada, I will still operate my company, but under my GM's name.  I plan to apply for welfare for as long as possible (this is an immature personal choice - the system ducked me, so I'm ducking it back), I will give my uPDx child support from my welfare payment.  I also plan on getting prescribed Prozac by my shrink - I'm not actually going to take the prozac, but I'm going to claim PTSD/depression from the last 2 years to validate the welfare check in case family court tries to impute income.  Whenever I can no longer be on welfare, I will employ myself as a minimum wage driver by one of my new companies. 

This might seem elaborate and unfair.  Please don't judge me based strictly off of this brief post.  I am a really good person who made a really silly mistake 3 years ago.  I have done everything I possibly could to remedy this situation, but the combination of family court and citizenship appears to be too much for me to overcome.  I will not let this uPD person destroy the next 20 years of my life.  And I do not subscribe to the notion that reducing my child support will harm my son.  My son will have an uphill battle no matter what because of his Mother, and giving her an extra $15,000 per year to spend on night clubs and restaurants will not make a difference for him.  I actually believe that giving her less money and therefore making life harder for her, might be in the best interest of my son because she will get bored of taking care of him and let me have him.

Any and all advice, questions and suggestions are welcome.

Thanks!

Duck

[livednlearned]

Any money that the court expects you to pay, put it in a fund for your son.

You will probably need to provide him proof of an alternate story to the one he is going to grow up with: dad left, didn't care about me, didn't pay child support, etc.

[ForeverDad]

You will probably need to provide him proof of an alternate story to the one he is going to grow up with: dad left, didn't care about me, didn't pay child support, etc.

• Dad left... .rather than (1) Mom ran away and (2) Mom drove Dad away.



• Dad didn't care about or love me... .rather than (1) Dad was obstructed and (2) Dad was sabotaged.



• Dad didn't pay child support... .rather than (1) Dad was forced to return to his country and Mom never returned to her country.

That last one is a bit awkward to address.  Courts generally separate support from visitation/parenting.  The result is that generally a father can't say, "I'm not getting my court ordered parenting time so I won't pay until I get my time."

I don't know how ordered support is handled when the parents are in different countries.  Seek legal advice before starting or changing strategies.

Also, understand that many courts have wised up to attempts to avoid or reduce child support.  There are many parents who have moved or changed jobs frequently so it is harder to find them or start garnishing their paychecks.  Some of us here have had the other parent quit jobs claiming they can't find work.  One solution courts have accepted is that support is ordered based on the income the parent could potentially earn.  It's called imputed income.  For example, there was a California doctor who quit his practice and started flipping burgers for a greatly reduced income.  The court ruled that he could be earning more and due to the disparity imputed him based on what he could earn, not what he was earning.  Effectively, the court ruled that it wasn't like he couldn't find a job as a doctor.

I write this as a gentle warning.  If you decide to take a path that the court frowns upon, it could make the court doubt your story more (blocked and wrongly accused) and doubt her story less (abused victim and target).  Do you want to risk that?

Also, too, understand that the longer you are shut out of parenting, the harder it will be to restore it. Yes her allegations and posturing are so frustrating, but over time the court, investigators and evaluators will observe and determine that her allegations are unsubstantiated (they're usually reluctant to used the stronger term unfounded).  The point is that over time she will be considered to have less credibility.  If you exit stage left you will be denying yourself this long term strategy to demonstrate you're a reasonably normal father with "no concerns" and she's a mother with "concerns".

Agreed, you can't be around her.  Not your fault, but you now trigger her to overreact.  Exchanges will have to be at neutral locations where she can't claim to be abused, attacked or whatever.  You will need to be very careful when caring for your child.  She will look for opportunities to make child abuse, neglect or endangerment allegations.  Understand those will be at times when she is triggered, has a hearing coming up or feels she has to project her behaviors onto you.  You may need to request drug testing (you would be tested too) if your concerns return of her abusing prescription or other drugs.

[Duck_Borders]

You will probably need to provide him proof of an alternate story to the one he is going to grow up with: dad left, didn't care about me, didn't pay child support, etc.

• Dad left... .rather than (1) Mom ran away and (2) Mom drove Dad away.



• Dad didn't care about or love me... .rather than (1) Dad was obstructed and (2) Dad was sabotaged.



• Dad didn't pay child support... .rather than (1) Dad was forced to return to his country and Mom never returned to her country.

That last one is a bit awkward to address.  Courts generally separate support from visitation/parenting.  The result is that generally a father can't say, "I'm not getting my court ordered parenting time so I won't pay until I get my time."

I don't know how ordered support is handled when the parents are in different countries.  Seek legal advice before starting or changing strategies.

Also, understand that many courts have wised up to attempts to avoid or reduce child support.  There are many parents who have moved or changed jobs frequently so it is harder to find them or start garnishing their paychecks.  Some of us here have had the other parent quit jobs claiming they can't find work.  One solution courts have accepted is that support is ordered based on the income the parent could potentially earn.  It's called imputed income.  For example, there was a California doctor who quit his practice and started flipping burgers for a greatly reduced income.  The court ruled that he could be earning more and due to the disparity imputed him based on what he could earn, not what he was earning.  Effectively, the court ruled that it wasn't like he couldn't find a job as a doctor.

I write this as a gentle warning.  If you decide to take a path that the court frowns upon, it could make the court doubt your story more (blocked and wrongly accused) and doubt her story less (abused victim and target).  Do you want to risk that?

Also, too, understand that the longer you are shut out of parenting, the harder it will be to restore it. Yes her allegations and posturing are so frustrating, but over time the court, investigators and evaluators will observe and determine that her allegations are unsubstantiated (they're usually reluctant to used the stronger term unfounded).  The point is that over time she will be considered to have less credibility.  If you exit stage left you will be denying yourself this long term strategy to demonstrate you're a reasonably normal father with "no concerns" and she's a mother with "concerns".

Agreed, you can't be around her.  Not your fault, but you now trigger her to overreact.  Exchanges will have to be at neutral locations where she can't claim to be abused, attacked or whatever.  You will need to be very careful when caring for your child.  She will look for opportunities to make child abuse, neglect or endangerment allegations.  Understand those will be at times when she is triggered, has a hearing coming up or feels she has to project her behaviors onto you.  You may need to request drug testing (you would be tested too) if your concerns return of her abusing prescription or other drugs.

Thanks for the thorough response.

I'm familiar with all of the things you've mentioned as I'm now over a year into this. 

Regarding the potential stories about me:  I've started an email account for my son.  I write him emails and send him pictures of our time together.  I never talk negatively about his Mother in these emails.  When he's majority age I will give him the password.

Regarding support in different countries - There are government enforcement agencies that will communicate with one another to get support from the liable parent.

I don't really have a problem with paying an accurate amount of support.  The problem is because I own my own company, the Opposing Counsel is inflating my income a ridiculous amount.  At the current rate there is no way I could afford to continue on this path.  If I sell my company and they impute the same amount of income I'm screwed as well.  I'm basically screwed any way I go unless I get custody. 

Regarding custody and the long game, I have no problem hanging in for the long run.  And I'm already aware and experiencing false accusations and distortion campaigns etc.  My problem is immigration - I have to leave the country soon so I won't be able to have 50/50 custody.

Thanks for the tips - if there is any one else that has experienced being a small business owner going through a divorce with a uBPDx I would really appreciate any feedback.

Cheers,

Duck

[LilMe]

I have read your posts and understand your story.  I understand how hard this is.  Personally, I couldn't do what you have planned.  I will not judge you, but honesty and integrity is how I must live.  I believe it will win, in the end.  Dishonesty will eventually come to light.  As we know, there are evil people just looking for an opportunity to hurt others.  Again, I understand oh-so-well how hard this is!  I have been through it before and was stomped.  But 10 years later, the truth has finally come out and I am vindicated.  I stayed honest throughout it all, lost everything, but it all came back around.

Best wishes to you.  I hurt for our children.  Be a great dad, no matter what!