u/Grimy_Monkey445

Made a reddit account for this, desperately need help. This post is about the family of my girlfriend of ~1 year (17F), but she's kind of scared to reach out for help herself so I'm doing it for her. I'm not extremely versed with family legal terms so please bear with me and ask clarifying questions. [Texas USA]

My gf's parents have been divorced for 9-10 years now. The custody situation is the typical deal where she lives with her mom majority of the time, then she goes to visit her dad on some weekends as well as a longer period during the summer. After some family drama around 4 years ago, she stopped seeing her dad completely and now lives with her mom full time, a decision in which her dad is completely fine with and does not complain about. However, around November 2025, the child support checks stopped coming. The father reached out and said that he recently lost his job and needs to halt child support for a bit. This does not fare well with my gf and her mom because they are barely affording their $1,200 rent by a bag of groceries (Both gf and mother have jobs). It has been now almost 8 months and still no checks. However we suspect the father is back on his feet because my gf's brother (who lives with dad) tells us they are living quite comfortably, so money must be coming from somewhere. As of this week, gf and mom are no longer able to pay rent and are thinking about moving into the mom's boyfriend's house (whom manipulates the mother, MY gf absolutely hates, and does not welcome me into his home or like me dating his 'step daughter').

So, the biggest question is, how do we get child support back? Good and experienced (expensive) lawyers are out of the question because they can't even afford a grocery trip. Even if we can get a lawyer to demand the child support in court or whatnot, a fear is that the father uses the fact that my gf hasn't been visiting against us as like a counter accusation and complicate the situation. Please help, money is a HUGE problem.

Summary: Girl agreed with father to stop visiting, father stopped paying child support after a while, family can't afford lawyer and is scared that father will bring up fact of no visitation.

Made a reddit account for this, desperately need help. This post is about the family of my girlfriend of ~1 year (17F), but she's kind of scared to reach out for help herself so I'm doing it for her. I'm not extremely versed with family legal terms so please bear with me and ask clarifying questions. [Texas USA]

My gf's parents have been divorced for 9-10 years now. The custody situation is the typical deal where she lives with her mom majority of the time, then she goes to visit her dad on some weekends as well as a longer period during the summer. After some family drama around 4 years ago, she stopped seeing her dad completely and now lives with her mom full time, a decision in which her dad is completely fine with and does not complain about. However, around November 2025, the child support checks stopped coming. The father reached out and said that he recently lost his job and needs to halt child support for a bit. This does not fare well with my gf and her mom because they are barely affording their $1,200 rent by a bag of groceries (Both gf and mother have jobs). It has been now almost 8 months and still no checks. However we suspect the father is back on his feet because my gf's brother (who lives with dad) tells us they are living quite comfortably, so money must be coming from somewhere. As of this week, gf and mom are no longer able to pay rent and are thinking about moving into the mom's boyfriend's house (whom manipulates the mother, MY gf absolutely hates, and does not welcome me into his home or like me dating his 'step daughter').

So, the biggest question is, how do we get child support back? Good and experienced (expensive) lawyers are out of the question because they can't even afford a grocery trip. Even if we can get a lawyer to demand the child support in court or whatnot, a fear is that the father uses the fact that my gf hasn't been visiting against us as like a counter accusation and complicate the situation. Please help, money is a HUGE problem.

Summary: Girl agreed with father to stop visiting, father stopped paying child support after a while, family can't afford lawyer and is scared that father will bring up fact of no visitation.