r/ChildSupport4Men

Requesting some reassurance or some tricks and tips on my upcoming trial in July. We had a previous trial that was set for 3 hours but I never got to testify so they cut it short and scheduled us for another day. We both have lawyers. We previously signed and submitted a Marriage Settlement Agreement (MSA) and a Custody Agreement. The MSA was enforced and she received 40k in cash but then went back on the Custody agreement and put in a relocation request.

My STBX is currently residing with me and the children but is planning to relocate our two kids (3 & 7) to a different state which is a minimum 4 hour drive and give me every other weekend. She does not plan to move unless she gets the children. We are currently abiding by a court ordered 2-2-5 schedule that was created by us jointly at the Pendite Lite Hearing. I am paying all the household bills, groceries, insurance etc since she has been a SAHM for the past two years.

Some background, the place she plans to move to is a place my children resided at in 2023 for approximately 12 months while I figured out housing, career, etc in Maryland. So I feel like this will count against me, they stayed with her family in the basement with my MIL. I was never okay with them staying in the basement since we were promised separate rooms, but it never happened. They're currently arguing I never had a problem with it before so why now.

Since living together we've obviously had some arguments, police or CPS have never been involved, and for the most part we get along minus some tense arguments with name-calling from both parties. We were able to come up with a Thanksgiving schedule, Christmas schedule, Spring Break schedule, and Summer Schedule. Additionally, we were able to plan and celebrate a birthday party with classmates together. We both got each other Birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, and Mother's Day gifts (from the kids).

The thing I'm most worried about is we started this process in May 2025 and she still isn't working, she's claiming she's unable to find a job in Maryland and it's too expensive to live here. She's burned through the 40k she received on her lawyer which was intended to help her have a fresh start and be able to afford rent. I renewed the lease for where we've been living for another year with just me on it of course.

I plan to stay in her school district (and have renewed my 3 bedroom apt for another year) and I have a well paying job and understand I'll have an obligation to child support even with 50/50. I'm also curious if I should let my lawyer know I can take full custody of the children until she is able to find a job. Let me know if I missed any details thanks!

tl;dr: STBX is trying to relocate the children to another state 4+ hour drive away. Tips, tricks, worst case scenario options, and reassurance requested.

**Additional information, she claims to have job prospects on the place she is moving including family support. I have a six figure salary and career is pretty strict to the DMV area. Additionally, I have my Masters Degree and she has her Bachelor's Degree.

I work really early, so a babysitter will have to get them ready and take them to school/daycare Monday-Thursday**

** Will the judge make a decision at the end of trial or do I have to wait for them to come to a conclusion?**

hello,
Location: Texas
my fiance/boyfriend, whatever you want to call him, made some stupid decisions when he was younger, he got his high school girlfriend pregnant, after the baby was born, they decided to get married (only on paper, never lived together, never did anything you do with your spouse, he immediately left for the marine corps) and the marriage essentially was over before baby is 3. they’ve been separated for 4-5 years (baby is 7, 8 this year) but not legally divorced.
throughout the entire relationship she has called him a deadbeat, said he doesn’t do anything for her (baby), etc, despite him offering, trying to get her to come over so that he can get the things baby needs, etc. mom also has a history of going MIA for weeks on end,leaving her daughter with her parents to go pay bills at random men’s houses, she’s had men who put their hands on her around her daughter several times (one is a brother of a friend) her phone was just shut off for an entire month and he wasn’t able to talk to his daughter other than softball games that whole time. we have been constantly trying to get her over the last year and a half, with no luck. every time baby goes back home, mom says that she hates us, is scared, etc. we have recordings proving this is false, we have asked her if she feels safe, if she’s scared of daddy, and the answer is always a resounding no.
we are talking to a lawyer and are about to retain him, $5500 to start initial proceedings and get the “standard” custody agreement, which is 1st, 3rd, and 5th weekends, with alternating holidays, etc.
i asked about 50/50 custody, because mom has a history of making bad decisions and posting them all over social media, with daughter in pictures, as well as whatever else i have mentioned above. the lawyer said that it would be another $15-20k to do a custody battle like that, what i don’t understand is why we can’t just ask for 50/50 initially? would it automatically make it a different kind of fight? why would dad have to spend that much money to be able to see his child for the time that he is supposed to?
literally any advice would be great, we want to be informed before we go back.
EDITING TO ADD: there are no formal custody orders, no child support set up (that’s what WE are doing), no letters from the attorney general saying he has to pay (idk the lawyer said something about that so i thought to add.) she has done nothing to hold him accountable, so to be able to see his daughter, he is taking himself to court.

I'm doing some research so apologies if this violates any rules. I want to k ow if you could get your wage garnishments and/or child support payments reported as positive payments to.the credit bureaus would you be interested? The idea is to give "credit" for child support payments instead of just punishments. Thanks for any feedback.

i didn’t know what to fully expect. i had a feeling many may reply to the post, but didn’t realize how bad the situation was for many. i did help a few dudes but i’m posting this to say since i got a lot of responses, i had to do decide who i was able to help (i’m not rich, i have a regular job with my own bills and expenses).

i wanna be fair and next time maybe i’ll do a wheel spinner online to decide, simply bc i got too many replies 😅

original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChildSupport4Men/s/OeHkvSQvvz

is there any place you can find these men?

i honestly don’t know what to do anymore. i’m a single dad trying to keep everything together for my child while the other parent barely helps but constantly demands money from me. i’m already covering all of the responsibilities on my own, and it feels like I’m drowning financially and emotionally. i would appreciate any advice from anyone who’s been through this. how do you handle a situation where you’re doing your best, but it still feels impossible to keep up?

I believe my ex keeps reporting false employment claims. I’ve gotten so many letters from child support saying I’m working at jobs I’m not. They investigate and they always find that I’m not working at these places. Just found out bm can report I work anywhere all the time… even though I’m unemployed right now.

Has this happened to anyone else?

So I have been married for just over 10 years. My wife began withholding affection from me about 2-3 years in. She insisted on engaging in swinger activities, which I begrudging agreed to. After doing this, she continued to withhold affection and began verbally/emotionally abusing me on a daily basis. This went on for about 5 years. During that five year time, I engaged in an affair that she found out about. I slept with one person exactly one time and had a handful of exploit conversations with them afterward which ultimately didn’t lead to anything else physical. She found out by going though my phone and took screenshots. I don’t if she still has the screenshots of the conversations but that’s all the evidence she has. After this she decided to stop withholding affection and I thought we had fixed the marriage. However, about a year ago I was away from home for work and she began me reason to suspect that she was either having an affair with someone else or was thinking of kidnapping my children to another country or possibly abandoning them. She stated her intention to all three things to me over the phone. In addition to this, she provided me with completely unprompted verbal permission for us to have an open marriage until I returned home. Because of this I made a dating profile and tried to engage with someone but never ended up meeting them. This person contacted her and sent screenshots but all those screenshots can prove is that I was interested in seeing them, not that I actually had seen them. I came back home and it seems nothing had changed. Our marriage was great during this time. Then suddenly in December she started acting cold towards me again. In January she asked to not engage in intimacy anymore. Then about three weeks ago I went through her phone and found a lot of evidence of her having her own affair which o found out was going on since early December. I took videos of the messages using my phone and also sent myself screenshots of contacts, Apple Maps locations, location history, and financial transactions proving the affair. I sent all of these to myself. Now I had already offered her to let me keep the house but allow me to move out and continue paying all the bills in exchange for 51/49 joint custody, which is me offering her $2,500-2,800/month. This is in addition to my agreement to continue paying for everything for the kids. My financial will indicate that I have basically nothing left at the end of the month. She makes about $4,000-4,400/month, I make roughly $5,000. She suddenly got mad about something and decided to start demanding alimony. I know she doesn’t have the money to pay that many billable hours to an attorney and I don’t either. My question is this:
1.) does she have the right to request alimony (legally)?
2.) how much money could the court realistically go up to if it’s granted to her?
3.) how likely is her attorney to advise her to take the deal because it she will be better off with my proposal than she will with alimony?
4.) is there a way for me to request to pay alimony in the form of paying specific bills on time every month?
5.) how does this entire topic affect child custody discussions?
Location: Hinesville, GA

Hi all. I’m an alienated parent and could use some perspective from others who have been through high-conflict post-divorce dynamics.

I have not had a meaningful relationship with my child for several years, despite having a court order that still gives me parenting time and joint legal custody. The situation became much worse after my child reached the pre-teen/teen years, and the other parent has generally framed the estrangement as my child’s “choice,” even though I believe the other parent has played a major role in shaping the situation.

I have continued paying child support consistently, even though I have not been able to see or speak with my child in any normal way. I recently lost my job for business reasons and am actively looking for work. I am considering filing for a downward modification because I genuinely cannot keep paying the current amount while unemployed.

My concern is retaliation.

The other parent has a history of escalating when they feel criticized, exposed, or out of control. There have been past accusations against me that I believe were false or exaggerated, including claims involving alleged digital/privacy issues that did not appear to be supported by the actual records I later obtained. I worry that filing a support modification will trigger another round of accusations, attempts to portray me as unsafe or unstable, or efforts to further damage my relationship with my child.

Complicating things, the other parent recently experienced a major family loss. I sent a brief condolence message, and the response was an accusation that my knowing about the death proved I had accessed a private account, even though the obituary was publicly posted online. That reaction really shook me, because it reminded me how quickly a benign action can be reframed as something threatening.

So I’m trying to think strategically.

For those of you who have filed for support modification in a high-conflict alienation situation:

Did the other parent retaliate?

Did filing make the alienation worse?

Were there ways you protected yourself in advance?

Did you keep the modification issue strictly financial, or did you also raise interference with parenting time/contact?

Is there anything you wish you had documented before filing?

I’m not looking to punish anyone or create more conflict. I’m trying to survive financially while continuing to act responsibly and avoid giving the other parent more material to use against me.

Any hard-earned advice would be appreciated.

Hi, I’m a female but this feels like more of the subreddit I need. This is a vent/asking for help. My fiancé’s ex girlfriend recently took my partner into court for child support (conveniently around the time we got engaged 🙄) prior we had no issues. Provided money whenever asked and spent weekends with the child when asked (for reasons, I’ll get into later in this post.) we decided to take the high road, provided paystubs and expense reports and everything. She got in front of the judge and said she does not work, has not worked in over a year and has no intentions to start working and the judge ordered us to pay the maximum in our state, back pay from when she filed, as well as pay for private health insurance for her. This feels extremely excessive and vindictive especially when she makes more money than us. My partners ex is a very popular OnlyFans model and full out porn star. Her income is hard to prove as she only does “contract” work and when we asked the judge if her income could “actually” be looked into the judge just said “well, she said she was unemployed” but she’s REALLY NOT!! I truly feel like this is a petty way to dip into our wedding fund which is extremely annoying because anytime she wants to go “collab” with someone or work in a brothel for months on end she would drop A off with us and suddenly, she’s asked for a police escort to her car because she’s “scared of us”. My question is what should we do? We kinda are debating split custody however, I think she’s creating a narrative that he’s violent now (which could not be further from the truth) so it’ll be harder to get split custody and I’m unsure if I even want to do that if her mother is poisoning A’s thoughts on me and her father. I’m thinking we should get a lawyer about possibly getting it reduced but would that even be worth it if she won’t ever prove her income?