I guess last week’s court ruling didn’t phase Dave. The court orders were sent to his lawyer and Dave still has not provided me with the support arrears payment or my court costs.
Instead, Dave sent me an email telling me that we have “a fundamental difference of opinion”. He plans to continue to fight me in court with respect to refusing to pay any pet expenses. He believes that his support payments should cover those expenses and even though he agreed in mediation to pay 50% of the pet expenses he wants a court to rule.
He believes that the same holds true for our daughter’s dance expenses. He wrote that he agrees to pay for 70% of her “dance lessons” (even though our mediation agreement says “dance expenses”). But Dave doesn’t want to pay any portion of her dance shoes (she can’t participate unless she wears proper footwear in each class–ballet shoes, pointe shoes, tap shoes, hip hop shoes, jazz shoes, and foot undies for Lyrical). Plus our daughter is enrolled in competitive dance classes. Dave doesn’t want to pay any portion of the competition or festival fees, or any travel expenses to get her to the competitions. And yet, when we signed her up he knew all of these expenses are part of our daughter taking dance. This is her 7th year dancing at this studio so it isn’t a sudden surprise we have to pay for these things.
Why does a parent pay for all of these things when they are part of a family without any issue yet when they decide to fool around and leave the family they feel their kids should do without? Did they every love their child? I don’t believe Dave ever did love our children more than he loves himself.
It isn’t a financial issue. I saw his bank account balance in his court documentation. He can certainly afford to pay. His dividend cheque alone that he deposited for one month is more than my entire year income by 1 1/2 times and he will have another one in a couple of months. I have managed to pay these expenses without going into debt but it has meant me and my children had to do without in other areas. It has been a 3 year struggle. I try to spend wisely and cautiously and I abhor the wasteful cost of having to fight for our rights. I can’t afford the alternative either. The Divorcemate calculations are tested and considered fair and equal to both parents based on their earnings. Dave doesn’t want to do without for himself and I wonder how much influence the Other Woman is applying.
He wrote to me today saying that “the court speaks clearly” on these items and “it’s not that complicated.” I believe this to be true, in our child’s favour and our pets’ favour, not his. My lawyer doesn’t go to court to lose and she is very mindful of my financial situation. We have accepted chiselled down reimbursement by Dave every time in the interest of avoiding court and its costs but I cannot be taken advantage of by him any further and this is the only way to put an end to it.
Then Dave added: “The reality is that there is no negotiation with you. You want to win. So you end up submitting ridiculous expenses like $5.49 for this or that. Or even the fact that you mention the expenses are now being divided 71-29 rather than the current 70-30 and I will owe extra. It’s so ridiculous and counterproductive. That’s why nothing ever gets done with you. You take silly positions and then spend thousands on your lawyer for what? Just so you can say you won? But in the end you’re paying thousands out that could be used for many other things.”
This is the exact thing I would say back to him. I have no idea what he thinks there is to win. I just want fair compensation.
He sums up his email as follows: “So while I appreciate the “offer to negotiate” with you, the past has spoken very clearly that isn’t something you really want to do unless you get everything you demand. You’ve proven to be unreasonable and submitting unending expenses regardless of the value. I’m tired of this constant badgering and so I’m left with no choice but to let the courts decide what is or isn’t reasonable.”
I find it so interesting that he is trying to make me look like the bad person just for submitting expenses to him that he agreed to pay because he considers the amount to be too minor. That shows that money is not a concern to him and that it is a day-to-day worry for me. There will be an end to the expenses at some point in time but currently we share pets together and our daughter participates in dance so there will be ongoing expenses. David should have expected that when he agreed to adopt 3 pets into our family and when he decided to have children. I appreciate that he has decided to leave the family and it would be much more convenient if he could just continue to run away from his responsibilities associated with his family, too.
Dave feels badgered simply because there are consequences to his actions that he prefers to ignore. He is now being held accountability for his failure to honour agreements, take care of his responsibilities, follow court rules, pay bills and for making stupid decisions in his life. Dave’s decision to just let the courts decide saves him from having to own his life decisions and accept the consequences now. He will avoid, delay and refuse for as long as that works for him. When he loses he will just blame the courts, his lawyer and he will continue to blame me.
scornedwifeblog 
“Fair compensation.” That’s the operative word. I don’t know how many times Loser said through gritted teeth “I’m not paying you fucking alimony.”
That’s when my acting skills were called upon. I started pretending to still care about him (even to the point of calling him “my darling”) and just appealed on the basis of “equality.” It worked! He understood that…he couldn’t understand anything even remotely resembling “what he owed me.”
These men know what it costs to raise children while they are in the house and once they leave, they get amnesia. And a HUGE dose of SELFISHNESS. They don’t think that they are hurting the kids, they just think they are hurting YOU! Like my ex told me, “the kids will be alright.” He could care less if I wasn’t able to afford something, as long I don’t come to him asking for help. Cause I’m not his wife and if I’m doing something with the kids, i.e. buying groceries on my time, then that means it’s all on me. yeah….I just recently had to go to court to get my ex to sign docs so I can get their passports. I did not ask him to pay for them, just to sign the paperwork. Nothing will ever be easy with him. Narcissists are just that way.
I also used to question, how can this be, why do they make us look bad for wanting to raise our children. It is mind bending, but it happens ALL the time. I wanted to say to my ex, why not thank me for raising the children and be grateful I am doing such a great job while you run around town and only spend less than 2% of the month actually with the. But I have realized this is a waste of my time worrying about why? Now do I think you should ask for what was agreed upon – YES. Fight to the end for your kids, I have. I dread thinking about how they will have excuses for not paying for graduations, weddings, college extra, house help, broken cars. It can be exhausting, so just realize your right and don’t look back.
I totally agree with Laura. Fight to the end for your kids is key here.
I just find this all baffling. How else do expenses occur, if not bit by bit. Unless it’s a vet bill, animals don’t have enormous expense, they have incremental supplies. If he didn’t understand pet expenses or dance expenses in mediation he should have asked. Or decide that equipment for xyz classes are yours and abc are his to cover… Or whatever. He is arguing to you for wasting… Such hilarity. If it didn’t cost so much it would be worth a laugh. Cheers and much love. Talk about someone who is displacing his unhappiness. Needs to make you miserable to prove to himself his lot is better and being a cheater was a good choice. That’s incredibly sad if you think about it.
You do know he is dragging his feet so that your youngest gets past child support age. Then he can just wear you down financially. He sounds like a narcissitist creep. Those are his children. I guess his penis doesn’t care.
Narcissistic.
In our state child support is paid through an agency which can document it. The two exes don’t have to communicate at all once the court order is in place. Perhaps you could have your atty. suggest something like that then you could go no contact and breathe some fresh air into your life.
We are getting to that point where once we have all the orders Family Maintenance can handle and deal with him directly. I have some court orders. The pet issues and dances expenses are the next thing to be heard in court. That aspect was adjourned until a later date. I am not sure if the plan is to get the other orders taken care of first so we can deal with everything one last time in court incase he doesn’t comply. My lawyer did warn me it will probably take two times going back to court. Trying to save costs and get it all done at once. It sure doesn’t help my ex’s case to ignore orders.
I never just submit one invoice for $5.47 as he suggests. I don’t think I’ve ever submitted an invoice that low either. I haven’t provided him with anything for the new year yet because I do accumulate them before sending. I am almost out of cat food so I am going to get that bag and then send him everything for December/January.
It doesn’t help his case either that he finally paid for 9 months of expenses at once after the house sold based on his agreement but now is just refusing again. The pets still need to be fed. The doesn’t stop with the sale of our house. It isn’t as though I am buying the pets outfits to wear or new beds to sleep in. Just the basic needs–food, litter, vet (rarely–annually max) and boarding if necessary. I have suggested he can board the pets or pick up the food and litter if he is concerned I am spending too much (same food and litter as when we were together) but he refused.