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This morning I faced something and someone I have been intimidated by for over a decade. For over a decade my children's father (my ex husband) has intimidated me, mentally bullied me, and gotten away with not supporting his children financially except on his own terms. Last spring he announced that he was going to change where our 14 year old son lived, out of no where. It was the line in the sand that I could not ignore. Today we went to court some six months later. It was a scary time for me, my children have never lived away from me, I have had them always, this man has broken many rules to win in the past.....and cheated to ignore orders..... but I knew that you can never ignore a bully's line in the sand. After sitting through several other cases, the judge not only affirmed my custody of our children, but affirmed our original orders, ordered current support to be overseen and past support of over $40K and changed his place to report these payments to our state and let him know that failure to do one payment would land him in jail without further warning. He has played the system long enough. I could have had him placed in jail, today until much of what he owes is caught up, but it is to no advantage to punish him, the goal is simply to stop the bullying, and affirm the original orders of custody and child support we made so long ago. I am so thankful. The judge accepted my suggestion of how much he could pay. (usually someone this far behind has to pay at least 25% of arrears before they can leave jail, but I did not want him to go to jail, to lose a job he has begun that was very hard to achieve, and I knew 25% of what he owes would be a hardship on his parents if he had to remand it in 24 hrs as other cases were told, for he doesn't have it and they shouldn't have to pay it.) Instead there was a low low monthly amount set, it was never about the money, and it will take him well beyond 10 years at the amount per month set past when our youngest is grown, but he can no longer evade it or use it as a weapon as to when he shows up, or demands additional visitation, or anything else. It has taken me ten years to trust God more than trusting the fear I had of the situation.....I am not proud of that.....but God indeed has provided more than we asked, in ways that are clearly his hand, and peace is restored to our son, who has been so caught up in all of it. He is happy to be home and without the inner struggle of feeling he has to choose.....the judge made it clear that it is not his decision, which gets him off the hook so to speak....and I feel strongly we handled it kindly, but rightly in not allowing the father to bully me any longer. God isgood....and I am thankful!
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