Yet More Feminist Fake News from the Guardian

• One man is awarded custody for every 8 women.
• 95-98.5% of those incarcerated for non-payment of child-support are men.
• Women received over 94% of child support dollars paid.
• An estimated 50,000 people (95% of them men) are in jail or in prison on any given day in the U.S. for child support arrears.
• Even though 85% of fathers want to stay at home with their children full time, in 80- 90% of cases the courts give custody to women.

Contents

Summary
Introduction
Feminism and Divorce
Women-worstism
Fact check
Equavilised income
tl;dr

I have been alienated from my children for almost 10yrs now. I’ve done the best I could to keep going and move on with my life with the hope that one day it will be made right. I’ve suffered so much over the years. Not just from crippling depression and trauma from being helplessly ripped out of my children’s life, but also financial ruin. Child support has made it impossible for me to get anywhere in life. I’ve been homeless multiple times because of it…Lost jobs because of it… vehicles…my license…even been jailed for falling behind.

I just found out through a friend, who did some social media snooping for me, that my ex (the baby momma) has just bought a house. A nice one too. It’s big, 3 car garage, large in-ground pool, 2 kitchens, nice suburban neighborhood, you get the point.

Obviously my ex has come into a large amount of money. From what I have been able to see on casenet, she been battling in civil court for the past several years. But I can’t find out the outcome or details because it doesn’t disclose that info, plus apparently it was sent to federal court. But my hypothesis is she won a large settlement.

Meanwhile here I am…poor af, living in squalor, well below poverty level. They garnish at least 60% of my pay. Tax returns, stimulus check, all intercepted. I am constantly facing eviction and utility shut offs because I just can’t make enough to survive, much less get ahead or save up. I walk over a mile to work in rain, snow, cold, and heat because they suspended my license, not that I can afford to even own a car anyway. Every day is a struggle…and there’s no end in sight. I try very hard to stay strong, to be humble and thankful. Some days are better than others obviously, but overall I been pretty good about not letting things get to me so much and making the best of what I have.

I’m not even jealous. Obviously, like it would be to anyone else, it is kinda a blow to the gut. Feels completely unfair. But life is not fair. But honestly, I am glad to know that my kids are well provided for and getting to live the good life.

So what I am wondering is whether this could affect the child support amount? I can’t afford to even get on my feet, and she just bought a huge house (well over $500k). All I have wanted and been trying to do is build a life, one that is stable, one that I could have my kids in again. But I struggle to just keep my electric on and food in the fridge.

Is there something I should do? Or can do even? Is it even worth it? I can’t afford a lawyer. But anyone out there got any advice or suggestions? Thank you for reading.

At one point, i had my life planned out perfectly…I got married, bought a car, bought a house and had a daughter with the girl of my dreams. Fast forward 2.5 years, and she decides while attending college for the 3rd time, that she isn’t satisfied being a mother and wife. She files for divorce under the premise of “mental abuse” and is granted basically a clean break from everything that had to do with me, with the exception of our daughter.

I was left with the house and car payment, while she walked away with 30ish% of the household income. I was able to sell the house, but after the money i had put into it, i ended up taking an $8,000 loss which im slowly paying off. Due to a lazy judge and an outdated and sexist minimum percentage state law, she was given primary custodial rights to my daughter which gave her 20% of my paycheck while only getting physical custody of my daughter for 57% of the time.

Fast forward again another 2 years. I started dating someone who moved in, had a job and helped with the care of my daughter. i was barely getting by, but was surviving nonetheless. I filed for modification of custody and child support, on the grounds of neglect. (My daughter was spending the majority of the time she was supposed to be under the care of her mother with her grandmother instead) which we have proof of. My ex wife has managed to push the hearings back for over a year now, … I have sold off pretty much everything that i can sell to make ends meet, but after everything i do not make enough money to survive. I am getting into a deeper hole every day, just trying to survive.

If i wasnt paying child support, i could catch up, and actually live a fairly happy life. My ex wife has been making almost minimum wage for the last 3 years, and has done nothing to improve her financial situation, as she qualifies for all government assistance and is getting a decent sum of money every week from me. I cant help but think, that i did everything the right way in my life, and should be happy now, but because a woman can decide to just walk away, i have to struggle to survive with no relief in sight. If anyone has found a loophole, or just a way to deal with this, please let me know. I shouldn’t be punished for wanting to be a good father just because im a man.

tl;dr i tried to do everything right, but child support laws mixed with a vindictive ex wife is ruining my life.

My father-in-law’s ex-wife has been living with someone for 7 years. They wear rings on their wedding fingers. When the boyfriend was in the hospital, he listed her on the hospital records as his wife, they are each other’s beneficiary in case of death, and the list goes on. “My father-in-law pays her $3000 per month – 50 percent of his income. In the divorce, she received 100 percent of his retirement ($150,000), which she has spent, and is the sole beneficiary of his $1 million life insurance policy, even though he has remarried. After her son turned 18 and the child support ended, she took him back to court and had the child support rolled into alimony. “She would not settle for a reduction of alimony, so based on F.S. 61. 14 [the new cohabitation law], they went to court. My husband and his brother testified.

We watch him struggle while she goes on extravagant vacations (California, Vegas, and a 5-day cruise – all in 4 months). She had a brand-new home built and then remodeled. Her boyfriend’s Crown Victoria is paid for. She makes $11 per hour working 25-30 hours a week. The boyfriend makes $30,000. The ruling went to the ex-wife. So he is still paying $3000 a month and now he is responsible for her attorney’s fees, $10,000. This poor man is supporting not only his ex-wife but her boyfriend, and the courts are allowing it.”

We go to court in the summer of 2007 and the EX spends the first 4 hours character assassinating me. I tell my lawyer that she is constantly lying, but he responds that Florida is a ‘no fault’ state and her testimony is irrelevant. So she gets away with depicting me as a monster and herself as a tireless-hardworking-loving-saint…. Our rookie Judge X, who was seeing his first divorce case, bought into her lies and handed down an extraordinary unfair ruling. She would keep the house while I paid 75% of the first and second mortgages for the next 16 years, she gets half of my the 401K ($250,000), I am denied all of my pre-marital assets totaling $150,000, she also gets half of my $45,000 inheritance, she keeps our daughter’s state stipend as hers although this is expressly meant for the child. She even gets a car allowance, child support, and $3,005 per month permanent life time alimony. The judge gave her $5 extra so she would not be burdened with the state fee of 5 bucks.

I get to pay her attorney’s fees. I get to pay half of her extraordinarily high credit card debts. My equitable distribution of $50,000 is put on hold for 12 years with no interest accumulating, so inflation will reduce it to next to nothing. All of this nearly bankrupted me. I am stripped of everything and humiliated. I made less than $1,300 per week and it was taking $3,200 per week pay the court-ordered payments. I had nothing to eat except one peanut butter sandwich for supper each night, and I lost over 50 pounds in just a few weeks…. I was forced to default on all credit cards…. I had to deal with 2 additional lawsuits filed against me by banks. I worked 2nd and 3rd jobs that did not pay much.

At the Kennedy Space Center, I was the lead propellants engineer supporting the space shuttle and now I was nearly homeless. The judge in his arrogance even wrote in the final judgment that he impoverished me. All of this was affecting me at work. The EX and her agents harassed me at work and sent me inappropriate emails in an attempt to get me fired. They even resort to harassing me at my home. I was reaching a breaking point. I am eventually demoted and removed from my position as lead engineer, which I had held for 16 years and nearly 100 Space Shuttle launches….

Divorce makes men – and particularly fathers – significantly richer. When a father separates from the mother of his children, according to new research, his available income increases by around one third.

In principle, income gains for separating fathers may be over-estimated, because child support payments are not deducted from my definition of income. However, in practice, the bias is likely to be small: see the sensitivity analysis undertaken by Jarvis and Jenkins (1999).

the median income change for separating wives is –22 per cent, for separating husbands +13 per cent, and for children –19 per cent. For separating wives, there is little difference in the median change according to whether there were dependent children present at the pre-split interview: –21 per cent for those without children, and –23 per cent for those with children. By contrast, there is a large difference for separating husbands: for those without dependent children at t, the median change is 0 per cent; for those with dependent children, it is +32 per cent. As explained by Jarvis and Jenkins (1999), this differential is in part due to changes in household composition rather than changes in money income. Changes in incomes that are unadjusted for differences in household size and composition are similar for the two groups but, because children mostly live with their mother rather than their father after a marital split, the equivalence scale factor for fathers falls markedly, thereby increasing equivalised income.