When it comes to child support t what do you do?
I’ve been on a very sporadic private agreement with my narcissistic ex for the past 4 years. I can go weeks without payments but he can still live his life smoking and drinking without struggling and at times splurge and buy the children unwarranted gifts when he cries poor to me. Although some weeks he transfers child support and then I get asked for some back because he needs it - but promises to transfer it back again in a few days. I have said a few times about going through child support but I get laughed at and told not to threaten him.
I don’t know how the child support system works and I know with his sporadic work history and sporadic Centrelink payments that they may not be able to recover weekly payments but is it worth it? I’ve got nothing to lose really when I only get money here and there. Always promises that it will come, he will make up missed payments etc.... nothing.
I know at the end of the day it’s just money and by all means I’m not in a desperate financial position but at the end of the day every bit counts and in my eyes I shouldn’t be the only one financially supporting our children.
16 Replies
Going through child support is not a threat. Child support is the responsibility for getting laid and making babies. FFS. I tell my kid I'll break his arms off and beat him with the bloody stump if he doesn't get off the damned xbox. That's a threat.
Go through child support agency! I had a private agreement with my ex but he stopped paying because his partner at the time didn’t like that I could get Centrelink benefits and she couldn’t. Going through the agency means that I no longer need to stress about whether or not I will receive the money anymore and also stops the abuse around money that I would cop.
Call them and speak to them. They've always been really open with me about pros and cons.
Go thru child support! Once less thing to have to discuss with him. And one less way he can control you!
Going through child support makes no difference, he can cry poor and they won’t make him pay a cent. My ex works under the table, gets Centrelink and received a $200,000 inheritance, but cried poor to child support and said he couldn’t afford the $8 a week had was meant to pay me so the wiped his $450 debt (over a years worth of missed payments) and canceled our case. He has been deemed unable to pay
CSA collect! I really harp on about this because I ended up with a huge debt for staying in a private agreement. Long story short is he wasn't paying, Centrelink passed on a 3k debt to me because I had received "too much" child support. Their system does not care that he doesn't pay, they just assume he is and your Centrelink payments are adjusted accordingly. Then once I moved to CSA collect he quit his job and worked cash. The ATO caught up with him and amended all his tax returns and he ended up with an 18k debt to CSA. He would not have received that debt if I was collecting privately.
Pros to CSA collect -
*You don't need to chase or nag your ex for money.
* You don't need to wonder how much you're going to get or even if you're going to get it (assuming ex works full time and CSA know where he works)
* You don't need to worry about getting overpaid or underpaid from CSA and Centrelink, it's all sorted out through their system.
*You get back paid if he under pays
*If he has not lodged tax returns in previous years or previous years get amended then your child support will be amended too for the time you were collecting through the agency.
*Super less stressful! If he rings up trying to discuss Cs with you tell him he needs to sort it out with CSA!
Yep. All of this. I commented below, and the one thing I forgot to mention was the reduction in stress. My ex and I never discuss child support. Ever. And we haven’t since I went to agency collect. Even when I had to lodge a change of assessment as they cut my support by 90% due to an incorrect tax return. We still never discussed it.
Thank you everyone for your positive replies!
The biggest issue is him taking it as a “threat” and causing more drama than necessary with our children over it.
He has caused so much stress over my life I just don’t know how much more I could take.
He is being a bully and trying to control you by being intimidating! If you choose to go with CSA collect explain briefly why you have done it. Keep a record of what he says to the kids and how he acts and go to mediation with it.
So just tell him it happened automatically due to your debt for him missing payments. He can't prove it didn't.
A narcissist will see everything you do as a threat unfortunately.
Tell him you were made to change it. While he will still be angry he will be angry at someone else. Him asking for money back is him still controlling you. Having that control taken away is a threat to a narcissist
Just be careful of any attempt to hoover you if you change it to CSA collect as he wont like that you went against him and may try to hoover and diacard you as punishment. Also he probably wont pay them and try to get you to call them saying he paid for other things to reduce his debt. Tell him you did and they said no. Sometimes you need to lie to a narcissist to stay safe and redirect their rage.
Always seems like a no brainer too me. I have so many friends that go through this.. i have never had an issues and go through the agency.. it comes on time every time and its what the kids are entitled too in my case their father makes no effort so could never see him being civil or supportive
I am owed $29,000 and haven't seen a cent for 12+ years - that's WITH CSA collection.
Can I just give a heads up just in case from the employers point.
As it could be seen as stalling tactic, but it wasn't.
CSA contacted us (the employer) they were rude to us, telling us what and where to put his pay.
It took an extra 40 mins each week to fiddle with splitting his pay up.
Then CSA would ring and change the amount.
They wouldnt believe he was part time, they upped his payment to nearly 3/4 of his pay.
Now, I am positive he was probably doing the wrong thing, I am sure it was a bitter dispute with his ex and him.
But us as employers were called and interigated often about the situation.
Just keep that in mind when they blame their boss for it.
We have a small business to run, no time to fiddle back and forth with it.
Other employers may put it in too hard basket.
I’ve seen the fathers side of this issue: my dad and my former boss (I was his PA and handled his personal stuff as well) if a father has nothing to hide, he won’t care about going through CSA. They actually prefer it!
It gives a clear record of what they have paid, it removes arguments of CS from co-parenting and makes everything clear to both parties about what is expected.
If they are trying to say you are “threatening” them or avoid regular payments - they are using money to continue their control over you. Tell them that Centrelink have told you you MUST claim through CSA for the kids FTB (true) and you don’t have a choice.
Definitely go through agency collect. The first benefit to this is they can track all arrears owed from three months prior to the date you request collection. As of that date, any child support that doesn’t get paid they can then use other means to enforce payment such as tax cheque, or garnisheed wages.
The other benefit is if you have an ex who is delayed in submitting tax returns to reduce their income and therefore child support, and is only providing income estimates, they can reconcile any owed child support for previous periods if they were collecting on your behalf once tax returns are filed later. This is especially beneficial if an ex is under-estimating their income.
Private agreement only really works if you have a paying parent who is reliable and pays regularly and on time.
I have been on agency collect with my ex’s wages garnisheed for several years now. It works well in our case. At the time I went to agency collect I hadn’t received child support for months, and my ex hadn’t filed a tax return in four years. They collected the arrears owed through a payment plan to bring him back up to date. When he finally did lodge his backlog of returns I also received a fairly decent backpay of child support for the last two returns he did as they were covered by the agency collect period.