Ruling on area man's quest to stop child support sets a new tone

TimesLeader.com ^ | April 1, 2003

[citizen]

What's this "toss him aside" stuff?

As I see it, if the court finds the child was fathered by another man, the first responsibility the court is to assign the bulk of the financial responsibility to the real father, if available, and also assign such financial responsibility to the mother as is practical. The ad hoc father remains the childs father in the nurturing, day-to-day-parenting sense or as the father-of-record after a divorce.

This means that the cheating mother shall be required to forego such niceties as may have been available to her under the previous marriage situation or previous child support arrangement obtained under false pretenses. Meaning the child comes first and the court is unsympathetic to an argument of maintaining a "lifestyle to which I [the mother] have become accustomed to." So the cheating mother pays as much as is possible - then, and only then, should the court consider continuing to force the wronged father to pay all or most child expenses.

This isn't a black or white situation [ruling], the wronged man should not necessarily be absolved of financial responsibility - but the cheating woman must be forced by law to assume as much of the financial burden as the court can compel. Hey, plenty of folks work more than one job.

If you screw around it should cost YOU - not your spouse.

[theoriginalgriff]

In the interest of being fair, I think custody of the boy should be taken away from the mother and awarded to the "Dad," if he wants him (which I would). "Dad" would assume full support, and would not pay any further child support to the woman.

If the mother retains custody, then "Dad" should not be made to pay one red cent in further support payments. Either let her new husband pay the support or let her hit up the biological father for some spare change.

Divorce is not pretty or fair. Women often use children as weopons against ex-husbands, and vice-versa.

[OneVike]

My point, and let me put my own feelings aside, is that we finally have a judge that ruled for a victimised man. We need to realise that when we allow a court to rule in a womans favor, only because of the welfare of the child. Well, then we allow a court system to not seek justice.

Remeber, even when justice is dealt, sometimes people get hurt. Should we not send a man to jail for robery because he has a child at home that needs his income to survive? No, we cannot alow innocent people to get screwed just because we do not want innocent children to get hurt. What kind of lesson do they learn in that?

[ijcr]

Setting the financials aside...Because nobody told the truth, what if you found out your wife is your half sister?

[Dark Knight]

>>I wish I could have put it as diplomatically as you did. Thanks for a little insight into the world of a legaly abused innocent ex-husband.<<

I haven't gone through it. If I had, I'd have much stronger feelings and surely a whole bunch stronger words. The article is talking about child support for non-bio fathers, but I have even seen biological fathers as ex husbands treated the same way. Your ex moves to Asia with new hubby. Now try to have a relationship, the move was voluntary for a set of jobs that pay four or five times what you make, but they still want more child support. Oh, and your kids treat you like some guy they have to listen to on the phone every once in a while, but you really aren't part of their lives anymore. Just an income source.

Those guys, and I don't blame them, become numb to all that crap about being a man and father. They've taken out of those roles, and sometimes cheated out of them. Calling them names or insulting their manhood is such a lack of conscience that I want to scream sometimes. The other scream is when they are immediately accused of also somehow being responsible, before their side is even presented.

DK

[OneVike]

the wronged man should not necessarily be absolved of financial responsibility

BULLCRAP

If a man is wronged he should never, let me repeat that NEVER!!!!be responsible unless he wants to be. Who are you to tell a man he should help if he is not the father?

If he wants to then ok, but let it be his desire not the courts, or yours!

[gcruse]

Hurray!!!!!

[OneVike]

Tell me about it! I am one of the many that you speak of.

[ChemistCat]

I never said you weren't married. I said you had unprotected relations with a woman you didn't know well enough to know you couldn't trust her. And if that isn't true, why are you screaming obscenities at me in public?

A marriage license doesn't make a healthy, trusting marriage, as you well know. You married someone you couldn't trust, and that was a foolish act, and you paid for that mistake--but your child paid more.

As far as your temper tantrum goes--if you treated *her* that way, maybe she wasn't the problem after all. Hmm?

[citizen]

Don't display a fragment of my post out of context please.

[Nick Danger]

I really don't think a 4 year old needs to know things like this. A 4 year old needs to know his parents love him and not think that he's screwing up anyone's life.

The mother is using the child as a human shield to protect and defend herself. Most people would consider that fairly reprehensible behavior, but you seem to be advocating for it, i.e. using the child's vulnerability to protect the mother from the consequences of her actions. You aren't of course calling it that, but that is what you are doing.

Is this what you meant by "thinking like a mother?" Do you think that most mothers view their children as tools to be used to protect and reward themselves? Do you think that most mothers view human males as meal tickets to be lied to and manipulated? If not, why defend the practice, and why try to fool us into thinking that it's "for the chill'run" when it is clearly just an arrogant self-centeredness and a lack of concern for anyone but herself?

[honeygrl]

"In the interest of being fair, I think custody of the boy should be taken away from the mother and awarded to the "Dad," if he wants him (which I would). "Dad" would assume full support, and would not pay any further child support to the woman."

That I can agree with. There are many Dads in this country who deserve custody but don't get it.

[citizen]

PS - I'm on your side....

[GoreNoMore]

I believe that if the courts are really looking after the child, all divorce involving children would not have property settlements. All property is given to the Children. They own the houses, cars, boats, computers, cell phones, everything and parents will have to figure out how they will end up visiting the child instead of the other way around. If parents knew that to get divorced, they would have to give up all assets to the chilren with oversite appointed to a guardian. People might think twice before putting the children in this position in the first place.

[honeygrl]

Actually, if you read one of my other posts I did say the mother was wrong in what she did. But a 4 year old doesn't need to all of a sudden find out that daddy doesn't want him and mommy doesn't deserve him before he's old enough to understand why.

[ChemistCat]

I think some people here have no idea of what a 4 year old is like. They're still very much babies. The kind of thing happening because people insist on sleeping together outside of commited, REAL marriages, is child abuse, plain and simple.

I know adults thrown for a loop by parents divorcing, even when the parents did their best to keep their adult child from having to choose sides!

The overall problem is that people simply don't understand what children need...! They only know what they, themselves, want, and they want it now, and they don't want to take the time to read the fine print.

Some of them, apparently, cannot read even normal print particularly well, and jump to hasty conclusions very fast. Of course, maybe that type is incapable of a happy and mutually monogamous marriage!

GoreNoMore, that's an absolutely brilliant idea. I wonder what it would take to get it into law someplace.

[Dark Knight]

I want to sell you a car!!!!

Are you saying that you could determine a future act of another person with certainty? Over a long term? And you believe condons are 100% effective? And you have never expressed yourself in anger after being cheated to your very personal core?

I would start looking for Stig Mata, because you sound like a saint.

If you are betting on people being perfect, I'll take that bet. Give you 50 to 1 on it. And if we use SAT scores, it has to be pre 90's when having an 800 really meant something.

Sorry, all kidding aside. If you expect people to be rational, unemotional, and calm, when describing having pieces of their core beings tossed into the trash by someone they trusted and had a long term relationship with, you have to be crazy. That is such an unreal expectation that it defies all semblence of knowledge of the human condition.

If you ever decide to go into the psych field, mature a bit, and maybe get out more.

DK

[Nick Danger]

a 4 year old doesn't need to all of a sudden find out that daddy doesn't want him and mommy doesn't deserve him before he's old enough to understand why.

Don't you figure this woman has already filled the kid's head with "Daddy doesn't want him?" This couple divorced in 1995. Do you believe for one minute that this mother told the kid, "Daddy left us because I cheated on him?" No, she blamed the whole thing on him. She -- and apparently you -- will call this "protecting the child," when in fact it's just the mother lying to one more person to suit herself. It's all about her. The kid is just her little shield and meal-ticket. The words are oh-so solicitious of the child, but the behavior is all about her.

[Dark Knight]

You must know what you are saying is a beauracratic nightmare or you are just being flippant. Please come with me to a domestic violence situation and spout something like that. They'll both turn on you. Real people with real problems don't need poseurs with flip answers that get to turn off the problems with the computers at night.

DK

[JudyB1938]

I don't know anybody personally who has been involved in a situation like this. However, this has been a bone of contention for me for a long time. I've never thought it fair that men be forced to pay for children who are not their biological offspring.

I don't understand the idea either that the child will suffer. Go after the REAL FATHER for child support. Let HIM have visitation rights to provide paternal nuturing. It's HIS job - not some guy who got tricked by some unscrupulous gal!