Here it is!
I'm a 42 year old male who arrived home from a business trip one day to receive the standard about to be a divorced dad package. No warning of course, just locks changed, bank accounts cleaned out, credit cards maxed out, all valuables moved to her parents, and of course a temporary restraining order.
I went to a friends house to stay the night and try to arrange to see my children but as I couldn't call my soon to be ex this proved pointless. As the days went by I received a pendite lite hearing granting my wife roughly 70% of my take home salary in spousal and child support. They also granted her full exclusive use of my house and everything in it, the nicer of the two vehicles (for the children!), and ordered me to pay that months mortgage payment + all debts not directly associated with the house (read: our credit cards which she maxed out while I was gone).
With the bank accounts, we had just redid out mortgage (much lower interest rate) and had roughly to my employer for the class I couldn't take as she stole the money for it, somehow find a place a live (rent), and of course buy things like food, gas, etc. Plus there was one more very important wrinkle...
I held one of the highest security clearances available and performed only cleared work which helped justify my salary to my employer. If that DV charge stuck or if I received This meant I had to hire a criminal defense attorney also as losing my job would stop all income and woe be to the heretic that violates the sacrament of child support for any reason whatsoever. That scum only deserves jail - bonus points if their injured, in a coma, on deployment, etc.
A few weeks later with the The first time I agreed to meet but had the sense to have a friend drive by the location and watch the place for an hour before she arrived. About 20 minutes before the meeting was to take place she arrived with her father and a sheriff in tow... Gosh wonder what that meeting would have been like with a live restraining order in place?
Right after this my lawyer and her lawyer finally agree on a visitation schedule graciously allowing me to see my children twice a month. Naturally she demands I come to the house, alone, sans camera (wants me to sign something promising I won't bring it), to pick up my children. I refuse and demand we do the exchange at a neutral location with cameras, listing the false charges and attempts to put me in jail whenever we're alone. Long story short they refuse, and I have to actually take her to court to for hers). By this time Ive had to take out two more loans from my father to cover the costs of these shenanigans and my soon to be ex absolutely refuses to let me take out an equity loan on my own house as both our names are on it and she wants it all.
Months go by and the time for the final trial is almost upon us. Property settlement agreements are flying back and forth with ridiculous demands coming from the other side including: She keeps everything she stole, I pay off all "mutual" debt, she gets the house, she keeps all family heirlooms including ones from my family, she keeps the truck, my 10 year old car is sold with the proceeds split 70/30 in her favor, I pay her lawyer $20,000, she gets a raise of alimony/child support to $4400 (from $3800), the alimony of $2400 per month would be for *life* (we were married 8 years), she takes all children off her taxes forever (yes this was bizarre I don't understand it either), she gets the entire tax return for the coming year whatever it is. Obviously I couldn't agree to any of this and so we went to court... she received: I got to generously keep my car. I was also forced to continue to provide health and dental insurance for the children basically forever. The judge went out of her way to emphasize that although this "seems like a lot" it was really for the best and then threatened me with jail if I couldn't or wouldn't meet all of these obligations.
Months before I was forced to find additional under the table work (contracting for cash) in order to keep up with the frequent demands placed on me. I was working most weekends so I could never see my kids, and furthermore when the time to see them arrived she'd almost always find some excuse to deny my seeing them. The only relief I had centered on a woman I met 8 months after my ex began this, and I was living with her by her good graces as I could afford to pay no rent. Then it happened... On a rare free weekend I went to pick up my kids and when I arrived at the gas station my ex introduced me to her "friend" who would be babysitting my children and she wanted me to meet her (very magnanimous no?). My ex then handed me a pack of pictures for my daughter (her first year in school) and told me there was an order form inside where I could get some more. I pulled out the form and pictures, noted the prices listed on the form, and stuffed it back into the envelope. I couldn't afford to order pics but I could at least scan the ones provided for free and maybe blow them up and print them at work. 3 weeks later I receive a nasty note from her lawyer lauding his performance in court and cynically chiding me for the outcome. Apparently my ex decided that the 'stimulus' package should be hers and she should also be compensated for the hot water heater and roof repair on "my" house so she could sell it and take the money. I claimed I was never served with such a notice more for attorney fees, the entire stimulus package, and my portion of the tax return I guess to teach me a lesson.
I didn't have anything close to the amount of money they were demanding and my house wasn't selling in this market. To add insult to injury I received a note from the Dept Homeland Security stating that even though I was they felt that a reinvestigation should take place before allowing me to perform any more cleared work. My clearance was suspended pending review". No amount of talking to them would suffice and I was let go from my main employer the next day. This is when I made the decision... I called an old college friend I hadn't seen in years and spent an evening talking to him and asked him a huge favor. "Yes" was his answer... Over the next 30 days I applied for as many personal and "signature" loans as possible and I deliberately missed the deadline to pay my ex. A contempt hearing was scheduled and 5 days before it occurred I tearfully said goodbye to my girlfriend, boarded a plane, and left the United States forever.
I am now a "deadbeat dad" and thus evil and I cannot return home. Within is now a better solution than being continuously jailed for child support and the dead do not collect alimony... Just another day in paradise I suppose.
You see I was to discover that this was never really about money as my ex has parents who are very well off and promised to take care of her - she needed nothing. Her parents wrote her lawyer a blank check and said do everything you can to She wanted me in prison, period, and money was simply the method to do it. Family court decrees are always backed with threats of violence and contempt orders that jail, jail, and jail without thought or mercy or reason and the corruption is so deep it can't change until the U.S. finally and mercifully collapses. The game is decided from the word "go". I am now desperately trying to find work while in exile, so that I can stop living off the kindness of others. Before I left I served as a Network Architect and I am willing to go anywhere (non west preferred as the tentacles of the U.S. are long and stretch everywhere). We'll see how it goes...
God be with everyone who has had to go through this or had a friend or loved one who has. The first step to getting my life back is to have a goal and before I left I gave what few friends who didn't mindlessly turn on me when it all started a special address they can contact me at. When and if the time ever comes and they have a choice of jail or leaving, I will be there to help with a bed and a roof and freedom. Perhaps that will be the only good to come out of this, the ability to help another as I have been helped. I urge anyone reading this to offer the same. Make no mistake, what is needed is a full underground railroad akin to the kind that existed in the days of Harriet Tubman... but no one mourns for men.
Deadbeat Dad #3475739 signing off -
/closethread
