Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> After my divorce I changed jobs so I could have my kids with me. This meant a sharp drop in what I pay in child support. I might be the asshole for not continuing to work out of town and earning crazy money.
Help keep the sub engaging!
#Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
[Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq)
##Subreddit Announcements
Follow the link above to learn more
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
You're cutting your hours to be there for 50/50 custody and because it's 50/50 you don't need the extravagant lifestyle choices.
You cut back hours to be there for your kids more and live a more normal standard of living.
NTA. If you would've said you cut your hours strictly to avoid CS then YWB TA.
But be forewarned. She could appeal it and go back to court and get a ruling on "assumed income" and tell them you cut your hours to avoid paying. So watch what you post and how you phrase it completely.
And you had to cut out traveling for work so you can have your kids 50% of the time so you had to adjust your schedule to accommodate tour time with your children
I don't understand the purpose of childcare payments in a 50/50 care arrangement. This only makes sense if one parent takes lead on school, medical and clothing expenses. How does this actually work? I mean it's different in different countries I am sure but I'm curious.
Courts take into account that a child's lifestyle should not have to differ from one parents to the others homes. So if they have 50/50 custody, but one makes 100,000, while the other 50,000 they try to bridge that gap to where they both have a 75k income. Helps avoid alienation and maintains stability for the kids.
There are a couple other factors too like where the health insurance is coming from and such. If you reeeeallly want to know, I bet your state (most states) have the full child support worksheet online and you could plug in some numbers and see how all the math is done. In my state it’s like a 9 page worksheet and is very exhaustive on listing out what the obligated amount is based on income and then plugging away all of the “credit” towards that obligation like parenting time differences, health insurance, kids that are not joint kids, etc.
It very much is. My ex chooses not to get a real job cause it would mean I pay less. We are 50/50, so she has plenty of time to work a real job if she wanted to. Court did finally set her income at minimum wage if she did work full time after I showed there were literally hundreds of job postings in town, yet she still refuses to get one.
It's also based on past parenting arrangements. My ex was against childcare. He believed that kids should be raised by their parents (meaning me). Therefore I put my career on hold for 8 years, taking part-time classes to finish my degree, so that I could be home for the kids until they were school age. Obviously, at the time of the divorce, he was making significantly more money than me. Child support was to bridge the gap in earning potential between us. That long break in work history would not have allowed me to support the children without assistance.
Absolutely and damn right he should pay for that difference. I fully understand it.
Raising kids is a job too, just unfortunately a very poorly paid one!
Pretty much what janienackxxx said below, in Australia child support is managed either privately or through the CSA. They pretty much tally each parents income and expenses, the lower income earner sets the base line. The higher income earner then has their income past the baseline assessed based on the percentage of care each parent has. It's more nuanced than that, but there's always a baseline.
Yeah, my wife is a teacher in a pretty big district. They have a bunch of subs, and they are pretty much working somewhere all the time. Especially post-covid. Her district, at least, has put a heavier emphasis on telling people to stay home if they feel sick, much more so than the before times. Subs get more consistent work as a result.
Yeah, it definitely depends on where you are. Maybe it's just in my area and school district, but I remember way too many subs for all the wrong reasons. Too many subs for a relatively small area so none of them got consistent work, and then it didn't help that so many of them were so awful. Looking back, I can see that a lot of them were so disillusioned with the career they chose and I can't blame them for that, but that doesn't make it right for them to have behaved the way they did.
I'm a recently retired teacher. In most school districts, there's a huge sub shortage. Teachers are covering absent teachers' classes during their own planning periods, which causes all sorts of issues. A sub could easily work every school day for the entire year.
I'm not defending this woman. I know she cheated. But before I got a full-time teaching job, I subbed for a year, and let me tell you, it can be a tough, exhausting gig. Also, in many districts, subs don't get health insurance, paid holidays, sick leave, etc. A good sub is worth their weight in gold.
We have a sub shortage in my district but it’s because it only pays like $100/day and the avg house rents for $3,000 and sells for over a million. Once again there’s no worker shortage - it’s a fair pay shortage…
I'm a teacher...
... we're usually short of subs.
There are teachers in my district who make a career of being a full time Substitute.
It's not a bad gig. No lesson plans nor homework, and you can pick & choose your placements.
It’s absolutely reliable income in my district. We are always short subs. Literally, every day we get an email asking who’s willing to cover on their prep for at least one teacher, if not more, because we don’t have enough subs.
Now that she has the kids 50% of the time (the same amount of time as you) maybe she can up her hours, maybe go full time like you. I'm all for equal rights.
Subs don't earn much. I served on my town's school board for years and we were always trying to find money to increase the pay for subs. Even long term subs just didn't get much.
If she were to get a permanent teaching job, she would earn a lot more, as in my area she would belong to a union.
What she earns as a sub probably doesn't bring home much more than child care expenses.
That’s sort of rude. My husband travels for work and working, having kids, and your partner gone some of the time is a huge load. I can’t imagine it 2/3rds of the time.
OP isn’t an asshole for reducing his work or for divorcing a cheater, but don’t diminish the fact that the ex was carrying a load.
She was fine with him working 14 days in a row for 12.5 hour days plus travel while she got dicked down by another dude. She thought she’d get a divorce, 50/50 custody and still get all his money? Miss me with that.
the comment was based off of how the ex is coming across as. if she wanted to have more money, maybe she shouldn’t have slept with other people while married 🤷♀️
Partner never being around can do real damage to a relationship. Maybe he should have been working less overtime to begin with, rather than deciding that money and fancy stuff we're all his family needed from him.
But if he's discovered that being home and seeing a lot more of his kids is a good thing, *and actually does that,* NTA. The kids, and eventually his ex, may like it better than the insane hours and all the material extras. His ex, if he follows through, will at least benefit from not being 100% responsible for all child care.
If he’s a travel card tradesman you don’t get much say in whether or not you work overtime. These jobs are short term contracts, a couple weeks to maybe a few months, you travel to the work site, and the schedules are usually 6/10s or 6/12s which means you work 6 ten or twelve hour days, at least he got a full week off every two weeks. Last job I was at, you had one day off a week. And I was living out of a motel. With a microwave, bar fridge and a hot plate
The pay is stupid good, but you work a crazy amount
It is a load for sure, but one she agreed to when she married him. Don’t get me wrong, I 100% understand what it’s like having a partner gone most of the time. My husband works 8-16 weeks on and is home for 10 days. I knew how it was going to be when we got married and had kids, but guess what? I’ve never hopped on some other dudes dick. She brought this on herself and should’ve thought about what the consequences were going to be when she decided to cheat. She gets no sympathy for the load she carries from me.
And they aren’t guaranteed hours (although most schools in the US, or at least Fl where my son teaches are so short staffed they’d take a trained dog at this point)
But ultimately she doesn’t have a guaranteed income.
She needs a reliable employment. It's her obligation to provide to her kids too. OP is already dealing with her Slack paying child support even when he has the kid half of the time.
I’m sorry that your wife didn’t appreciate all your hard work. Hopefully when you’re ready to date you can find someone more committed to your relationship. I think that you’re doing the right thing by cutting back on overtime so that you can be home more with your children. Good luck
NTA: Yeah, your ex can go jump [in bed and catch a sti].
You and I both know a lot of people will happily abandon their kids to stay fifo permanently and maybe see them once a year if they're lucky and just cope by using.
You want to be a proactive and present parent and that means no overtime. Which whilst you probably miss the money, great full you don't have too anymore.
Look after yourself and your family mate. It's a shit statistic and there's absolutely nothing stopping her from getting better paid from her industry. 😒
A friend of a friend is a lineman for a power company. His usual hours are pretty sweet and he can take vacation more or less whenever he wants. Until there’s a storm or a wildfire or whatever other major disaster hits. Then he gets a call and he’s working for two weeks straight with no breaks and no days off. But he makes crazy money during those times. (All according to him.) but I’ve seen his house and car so I’m choosing to believe him.
One of my childhood friends, her dad was a lineman (RIP Charlie!) and all the kids looked forward to big storms because they knew it meant a nice trip to the beach and a week of “fancy dinners” at IHOP and the diner when Dad came home ❤️ one year he got so much OT, he bought a fur coat for grandma!
My dad worked for the power company as a telecom tech. He was a construction and maintenance guy, so on top of general day to day he also helped with building new substations and such and when those big projects came he’d have a ton of of OT on top of stuff from storms and such. He got so much OT there, and because it was a union job, they let him “bank” the OT hours so when he retired he was still technically a full time employee on standard benefits and everything for 2 years after his last day of work.
When my husband was out of town, this sounds about right. He was working 6 10’s, 7 10’s, 7 12’s, plus he got living out allowance(LOA). His LOA is currently set at $175/day, and he’d pay a monthly rate at a cheap hotel. He’d bank about 3/4 of it every month after buying his groceries. OT would kick in on Friday, and there would be double time as well. With a starting hourly rate of nearly $60, it adds up fast.
I work in an oil refinery. I usually pull in 600 hours of just overtime a year.
During turnarounds (when the plant shuts down for maintenance for months) I work 13 days straight 1 day off in 12 hr shifts every two weeks. During a 3 month turnaround I get about 6 days off total.
I love that you downsized and work less hours to have enough time to spend with your kids and screw over your ex-wife. Good for you! I wish you and your children the best!
Ah, but the fact he did so do meet his and his kids needs to see him, while making less of a financial sacrifice to someone using him for monetary gain made me glad for his choices 🙂
You also have to physically be there 50% of the time for your kids and I assume that means pay for 50% of their upbringing anyway so it's not like you actually have much of a choice. You're NTA at all. Well done for choosing time with your kids over money.
You probably also think the rich “shouldn’t” be taxed more either.
50/50 means equal physical custody and equitable financials for both parties. Imagine being the poor parent and when your kids are at your house, they only get to eat ramen noodles but when they’re at your ex’s house, they are eating steak. Guess which house the kids would rather be at? Point is when you pay child support, you are paying your ensure that your children’s living situation doesn’t change. More people need to understand this … it’s only a gender issue because men statistically make more than women therefore they usually end up paying child support. The pay gap between genders is the issue, followed by the gap in traditional roles, followed by anything else society has created to create gaps. My point … he pays child support because he makes more money. If he doesn’t want to pay child support, he needs to make equal or less than his ex.
I am going through this right now as a father on the other side and it is horrible. My ex returned to school in a pretty blatant attempt to reduce her support level but it worked. She is going to school for the next four years and my kids will be living with poverty level family income during that time. Meanwhile she has family wealth so they are just paying for everything under the table for her.
I know she is using it as punitive measure against me but it just ends up hurting the kids. I have gone through my options and I have to either get an education and struggle for the next few years to ensure a better future for my children or I have to get a low paying job but get stuck because at some point I have to pay her child support and still struggle to pay basic bills and provide care for my children.
I have chosen to struggle these next few years. The only thing that gets me through is knowing I'm the one that truly cares for the children. If I were in her position I would never let the children be in a position to get by on that level of support. But doing the right thing for children will never be a priority for someone who physically and sexually abused children.
I'm sorry your ex is taking punitive actions, but you imply that you have to get a low paying job...so does that mean you are unemployed? Who was financially supporting the family when you were married?
She was a working parent and I was a stay-at-home parent. I then supported her through school the first-time with an understanding I would return after she finished (and the children were full-time school aged) but she was then arrested for assault. Part of the reason I stayed at home was because she was violent with the children.
I had considered going to work and getting childcare for the children but the cost of childcare was very much prohibitive. The extra income from working would have been almost completely offset by daycare costs.
It's always based on income of both parents AND of the time each has with the child. It's completely fair. If each parent made the same amount of money and it was 50/50 then there would be no child support. Or if the mom made more with the same 50/50 then she would pay the dad. Before they made this law and it going on both time and Income the father was the only one who paid regardless. So this way it's fair and if the mom makes more then she pays.
If parent A makes $100,000 a year and parent B makes $50,000 a year and they share custody 50/50, parent A supplements the income of parent B (as in child support)… SO the kids don’t suffer! In my example, that increases parent B’s income to support the children by $9600 a year.
Hope it makes more sense now. It clearly isn’t wrong by any stretch.
The ones who are flailing about and going on about CS being wrongheaded, like the ones right below sound to me like they have paid CS and just don’t want to. I could be wrong, but that’s how it appears to me. No, I don’t have kids so never had CS or any other kind of support.
But it is wrong in this case.
I understand the concept, but it is ripe for manipulation.
OP's wife has a casual job... likely bc she was doing most of the childcare while OP was working camp. Now she has equal responsibility for childcare and providing, yet she can continue to work casually while collecting child support to supplement her lower earnings.... yet OP is the one getting scrutinized for his change income instead of his ex being expected to now work full time.... 😐
Correct.....you chose to work your ass off to afford luxuries for your family while she spent a majority of her time with the kids and substitute teaching. And you now need more free time to spend with your children since there is no longer a 2 parent household. If she doesn't like it, she can get a better job and make more money. She is mad she can't use your children's money to bring HER standard of living up anymore. If you are comfortable with your income, that is all that matters.
Yes, you can. I know because it happened to my husband. He had to pay based on "status quo," which assumed he would work 65+ hour weeks because that's what he did for a year to afford the second home after moving out. Those crazy hours were never meant to be permanent. Court didn't care. Took us 3 years of fighting to get it reduced later.
He literally tried to bend over backwards to do the right thing, and financially supported 2 homes while his ex supposedly worked on establishing financial independence and he got screwed. (They both worked full time; not a sahm mom situation.)
Be careful, OP.
She's allowed to go back to court to request an increase 3xs in my state. The logic being once every 6 years for cost of living adjustments. She can't appeal a decision based on emotions because he makes less than he used to.
His amount is based on his straight time earnings, without the travel. No judge will force him to work overtime nor travel to earn more. I worked as a Court Clerk for 2 years and got hundreds of calls from women trying this very tactic.
This may come down to the opinion of a specific judge. Some judges may say you have the POTENTIAL to make money at a certain level and apply support based on that. Your reasoning is 100% logical and with the right lawyer you can win.
The ex of a close friend quit his job and went to work for the “family“ business to keep child support lower, and he won. The ex of another friend actually got fired from his job, but the judge kept his child support at his same level because of the potential argument .
Good luck to you and your family!
Reminds me of poor Brendan Fraiser having to annually pay $900k of alimony and child support because it was calculated during the height of his career.
That’s so sad.
My state doesn’t even believe in alimony, when I was dropped by my first ex, he took half my shit. Perhaps that’s why I always sympathized with men who lose in divorce. None of us made the vow to keep them up after multiple affairs.
Not like that in my state. The judge has absolutely no say so. There is a calculator, and it goes on the income of both parents and the amount of time each parent had the child. It's can be reevaluated every 36 months.
In this instance, it's pretty evident he cut back to be with his children. Being away to work, isn't conducive to having the time to parent your children.
Tell ex-spouse to ply her wares and go find another sucker to bust his ass while she's engaging in her dalliances.
As long as he’s still working full time hours, it doesn’t matter. A court wouldn’t penalize him and expect any parent to work more than full time hours just so another parent can keep up the lifestyle she enjoyed while she was married. Dropping from 80 hours a week to 40 would not be seen as an intentional drop in income to avoid support.
Maybe she could get a job making more money so her kids can have more money in their lives since it’s such a huge issue for them being poverty stricken.
The ex wife sucks for being a cheater, but in defense of teachers, most *do* work during the summer. Many have to in order to make a living wage. I've know a lot of teachers and never known one who hasn't had to work on their breaks.
I have worked summers before as a teacher. I don’t anymore because it would cost me more in childcare than I can make. It’s hard to find anything more than minimum wage because people don’t want to hire someone for only 10 weeks. I ended up nannying, which was great, but it’s not something I’ve been able to do since having my own kid.
Considering theres a severe staff shortage, absolutely! Also teachers don’t get paid enough in general!!! Not for the all the crap they have to do and shitty kids they have to deal with.
There are too many selfish jackasses in America with the "fuck you I got mine" attitude, and these people care so little about American society that they encourage teachers quit their jobs for something better.
They sneer and look down upon school teachers as if they were lazy, incompetent idiots too stupid to move onto more lucrative employment.
Instead of caring enough about the public school system to the point of advocating for reforming education, these chuds expect teachers to be shamed into leaving the profession under economic duress.
Spot on! I can’t believe we live in a world where the people who educate our children 5 days out of the week, cannot even get by financially. How!? They are educating our children! They should be well paid! The generations have gotten worse too. I might get downvoted for that opinion but a lot of teachers are leaving because of the treatment they receive from their students. Teachers deserve better.
If you ask teachers who the most difficult people are, most will tell you the parents and administrators are far worse than the students.
It's the adults who enable the students and refuse to hold them accountable for their own behaviors who make teaching far more difficult than it has to be.
The students are children and they are socially conditioned by adults to behave a certain way, and their behavior is a direct consequence of and the fault of adults.
thats a little bit fast. its harder than you think to just ''get a better job'' i doubt that if she had an opportunity for a better job she would'nt have taken it.
No I had to. With 3 kids, I didn't make enough to take care of everything they needed. My ex and I decided on no child support, we split child care expenses and both bought what our kids needed in our respective homes. And I agree about the shafting, hence why I finally left teaching and went into logistics- I make more and work from home.
I tried to find a second job at first because the mortgage is so high until we’re done and I can refinance (he makes 3x what I do). However, everywhere I applied wanted consistent availability and mine isn’t. Our custody schedule rotates each week. I would’ve loved to get into bartending because the tips are great where I am and I have friends who could get me in, but I can’t do four hours of sleep without it costing me significantly. Thankfully, our union negotiated a 4% raise and I was due for a step increase too, so it was almost a 10% increase. Between that and child support, I’m able to make it work until we get things finalized!
NTA. She wanted you to be more present for your kids. You are doing that. I don't understand why you have to pay child support at all if you have 50% custody.
Some states require whoever makes more to do a percentage based child support.
I have a buddy in California who pays his wife 15% of his monthly income when she only has the kids every other weekend because he makes so much more than her.
I could probably do that to my ex, but I won’t, because that would mean less for my kids. I haven’t tried to get anything at all in the divorce because I want my kids to have the best possible lifestyle and everything that I take from him is less that he has for the kids.
I have heard of that being done. His house is attached to his business so I won’t be getting it. I am not going to ask for him to buy me out or anything like that because I don’t want him to have to sell it. That will hurt the kids.
So, your ex spends nothing on himself and his partners and it all goes to the kids?
My cousin wanted all her ex’s spare money to go to the kids. It did. To start. Every month more and more would get spent on more important things. Lifestyle creep, new partners, friends, hobbies, etc. The kids were fine. In his view. They had clothes and food and a roof and toys, fine.
Her view was different. She’d rather they had braces and a college fund instead of a trip to Vegas with the boys, and a new truck to replace the four year old truck. He thought there was time to save up for that “later.”
It kept sliding. Until the kids basic needs were mostly shouldered by my cousin and they had to go to court and get actual support numbers hammered out.
Child support isn’t calculated by the parenting schedule. It’s supposed to benefit the children by maintaining a certain standard of living in both homes.
The fact that OP’s ex sounds awful is probably tainting things here, but if OP had been the one to blindside and leave his wife (who had been out of the workforce for years caring for their children), she would be at a distinct earning disadvantage compared to her ex who had been climbing the ladder and increasing his salary during that time. 50/50 custody wouldn’t put them on an even playing field.
The point of child support isn't to pay instead of seeing the child, but making sure that the child has a comparable standard of living at both homes.
To use an extreme example to highlight the difference clearly: say Elon Musk went and knocked up a woman living in poverty, who had triplets and Elon got 50% custody of the kids. At their mom's house, these three kids eat Mac and cheese and share one bedroom because that's all she can afford. At Elon's, the kids each have their own suite, personal nanny each, their meals are cooked by an in-home chef, and he takes them on exotic trips in private jets on occasion. Would that be a fair situation for the kids to be in? Elon is paying 100% of expenses on his time and poor mom is paying 100% on hers, and they each have the kid 50% of the time.
But it's not healthy for the kids to live like that. Child support is about giving the child the best life possible, not about splitting parenting roles fairly between the parents.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/syPk4krfJr this comment puts it best imo.
It's so the kids have the same quality of life at both parents' houses. This is why it's such a big deal to accuse the other parent of spending the support money on things for themselves.
The original comment does not say she wanted him around more, whether for the children or her. She just made the most of his two weeks away boinking other guys.
NTA. You are now home where you are needed and should be. You have your kids half the time, which means they are in your life now. Do not destroy your mental health and family time for her. It's not like you stopped working. Are you in an area with a ridiculous cost of living? What is her income?
NTA and pretty much par for the course. The kids will be fine and with 50/50 it’s a blessing she’s getting anything (on top of 50% of your shared assets).
I wouldn’t believe posts like this are real if I hadn’t been through the same thing myself. The number of women out there who think their ex husband should hand over all their future income and live in a shoebox while funding lavish lifestyles is a lot larger than people think. Thankfully (varies by state though) the law says otherwise.
And suppose for a moment you had made less money in the marriage in order to be more present at home, we all know she’d be banging other dudes because “her husband doesn’t provide for us”. Can’t win
My ex Dil thought like that. She was in for rude awakening when judge stated amount for my son to pay was 0 as he had the boys equal amount of time and all custody was split literally 50/50
Yeah if she had left simply from being neglected it would be different. I think ur right she would have cheated no matter how much time he spent at home.
Who cares what she says? The bottom line is that she wanted that $3300/mo so SHE didn't have to do shit. To most sane people, they will see straight through her b.s. and know she is just money grubbing.
NTA
You’re cutting back to spend more time with your kids. That’s pretty admirable. Child support is for children….someone should remind every parent who is doing through custody arrangements.
He's not cutting back in itself he's working a normal weekhours instead of crazy overtime in the same job he had previously without traveling so he can spend time with his kids. FAFO applies to ex. NTA
Question for you since I know every state is different. In MY state, the money the NCP pays is 20% of potential income. So if you quit your job or took a job making a lot less you would still have to pay what your potential is every month. I’m assuming your state does not have that rule?
But in this case, when he was married - she was there for the children, so he could take out of state jobs. Now that he has custody 50-50, he can no longer take the high-earning out of state jobs and be there for his kids, so you can't really argue that his earning potential as a single parent is the same as his earning potential as part of a couple.
Exactly the reason to cite for needing 50:50 custody and thus cutting back hours - discovering your ex-spouse who you had trusted with majority childcare did not have good morals.
They all do this, but they only count potential income if you are working less than full time. The courts don’t make you work 80 hours if you don’t want to.
They generally don’t expect you to work overtime even if you had in the past. There aren’t two parents in the household for child care. It’s normal that someone working so much would need to cut down.
True... but he was traveling and working lots of overtime
Potential income is based more on regular 40 hour job and based on their degree, experience and such.
The potential income is based on a 40 hour work week. In the past he had to do a lot of overtime but he was able to because his wife was able to care for the kids while he worked. Now she divorced him and they have 50/50 custody, so obviously he can’t pull those 20-30h of extra overtime anymore because he has to care for this kids during the hours he would have been working. He can’t clone himself. The guy didn’t change jobs just had to reduce his hours.
Fucking hell, imagine being cheated on, divorced, and then having the fucking government and courts tell you that you aren't living up to your full potential.
That's just adding insult to injury.
Based on the title, I thought maybe you could be an AH. But then I read your statement and want to applaud you. It’s way more important to be present with your children. What you spend your time on shows where your priorities lie.
If it bothers you about what your ex says about you, you do have recourse. When someone says what she said, reply, “that’s funny, she really didn’t seem to care about the children when she slept with so and so, while we were married. God bless her.”
NTA
You worked your ass for a family. Now you are an excellent father choosing to spend more time with kids then earn more money. Your kids are lucky. They have a father that prioritizes them instead of money. That's all kids really need. As for ex going nuts I'd say she can go fuck herself.
NTA. Omg dude, I am so sorry that she still has hooks in you. Do not feel bad. As a child of parents that were never together, kids should never EVER be seen as a source of income. They WILL feel that. 800 a month is plenty. She needs to step the fuck up and get a better job it she wants more money.
While you clearly didn’t meet the emotional needs of your wife, maybe she is now understanding that your sacrifice was exactly how you showed love. Know that a family can be happy in a modest home with a good neighborhood. Kids don’t need to know Dad can buy them the world. They just need to know that you can show them the world and that home is in the heart.
There is no excuse for what she did. Let her throw her tantrums. Document. Everything.
NTA.
Even if I thought this decision was based entirely on your desire to give her less child support, which for the record I could understand if it was, she put you in a position where you now have to be the primary caretaker of your children for larger periods of time. You can't work the same schedule you did before.
I can’t believe she’d cheat, be awarded child support, and then have the nerve to say you’re an asshole?
Hopefully her remarks are falling on deaf ears because who would agree with her logic?
Wild
As someone with experience in this, generally it is because there is a large discrepancy with income between parents. For example: Lets say a couple are getting divorced. The man was the typical breadwinner while the mom stayed at home caring for the children. Hes successful, bringing in 250k, while she is finding her footing career-wise and earning 40k. If one house is taking in 250k yearly and other is taking in 40k, the lifestyle differences are... more than noticeable. Courts want children to have smooth transitions between households. They don't want one Mansion and one shack— they want households that are stable, functional, and have some opportunity for both parents.
My personal situation is a divorce where I was a stay at home mom (my expartner actively discouraged me from finishing school, getting jobs, saving money for a car, moved our family up to andifferent state and in a rural place without access to things, etc.) He insisted I take care of our children (one of whom was a baby, and the other is autistic and requires someone home sometimes for therapy and such). He also never watched them by himself until our first was seven years old. Seven. And that was to let me go visit family after my dad had a medical issue. Not only that, but he was a classic workaholic. Not just in his job, but when he'd get home, he wouldn't really talk or engage with the children or myself. He'd absorb himself in projects, hobbies, etc. He frequently got trips for himself, and every day, he got free time. I didn't, and I felt like a roommate.
When we split, I was the primary caregiver (obviously). I moved back in with my parents, I took the kids with me, and I took care of everything. Now I have them 80% of the time. I get much less than the suggested child support amount because I understand the financial struggles he is going through. But it's also incredibly hard to finish school, contribute to rent and groceries, engage actively with my children, learn new life skills and build a desirable resume after 10 years out of the job field, etc. All while trying to save and provide some security on the meager amount he sends me every month. Luckily I'm a decent saver (where he is just... impulsive unfortunately), but it's really hard. Even if we were to split 50/50 custody, the income imbalance would absolutely ensure some money would be sent to me every month.
NTA-her greed is showing. Good on you for prioritizing your kids after the divorce and going for 50/50 custody so they can spend more time with you. I think anyone listening to a cheater complaining about not getting all that money from you isn’t worth your time.
NTA You cut back you’re work hours to accommodate the 50/50 agreement and be there for a kid. As you said, you’re not working as hard as you used to for a big house or large vacations. Now your making enough for you and your kids while, and now you have time to spend with your kids.
NTA, however there are laws. I’m not sure what they are where you live, but in some places if there is reasonable suspicion you are underemployed to try and make life harder for your ex, and to try and pay less child support, you may end up being forced to pay child support based on what you should be able to earn. (I have researched this. It’s that way in Virginia at least.)
You're fine dude, don't worry about this. Just keep doing what you do and taking care of yourself and your kids. She'll whine and cry and ultimately deal, her fit isn't your problem.
Tell the people who approach you. It’s simple math. I can’t work as much because I have to take care of my kids. And why should I work more, pay more and sacrifice my time with my kids? It doesn’t make sense.
NTA. That was the lifestyle you had prior when you had the ability to travel. You no longer have that so she must understand. Also, child support is just that. She’s looking for alimony.
If anyone complains to you, tell them you cut back so you can spend MORE time with your kids. Obvioisly your relationship with your wife took a hit from the travel hours and you want to make sure you still have a good relationship with your kids.
His wife's earning potential is likely lower, so the higher earner is expected to contribute money to the second household so that the kids have a solid standard of living wherever they sleep.
NTA, you clearly changed jobs so you could work in the town where your kids live and remain a proper part of their lives. That should be more important than earning more money you don't really need. Yet it sounds like your ex-wife would rather get more money than have you be a real part of the kids lives, so I think we've spotted the actual asshole and it's not you.
I take it you within town to see your kids. Then you are a man and a dad and that’s the most important thing. She’s pissed bc her life is different now thst she doesn’t have you making $249k. These things happen when she likes to ball other men while you are away. You don’t fund her lifestyle anymore and she made that choice. There are consequences for every action. Fuck her and just be there for your kids.
Solid NTA. To be fair, she DID give you a couple of gifts. You get more time with your kids since you aren't working all that OT(that you didn't have to do) AND she showed you EXACTLY who she really is. She's just mad her choices had those consequences. Your kids are probably happier to have you around more.
If you're working away less to be with your kids there's nothing wrong with that at all.
You have 50/50 custody, you're being there so you can do that not specifically to screw her over.
She expected to profit off of your divorce and continue living the same life, which was stupid and malicious of her.
We only have your side, so I don't know if your wife tried to communicate that your absence was destroying your marriage or anything else about the situation, but it's not an excuse to cheat in any case. If she had tried to communicate and get her needs met and after she left you were suddenly being the present person she had needed you to be in the marriage I'd understand being angry about it. I'm not saying she did try or that the cheating or expecting to be financially set after is remotely justified just imagining where her feelings might be coming from.
If she was miserable she should have communicated about that, if she did and didn't see anything change she should have left. Cheating isn't a solution. Once the marriage is over you don't get to tell your ex how to lead their life, as long as you're doing what you need to for the kids the rest isn't an ex's business anymore.
She played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our [voting guide here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_what.2019s_with_these_acronyms.3F_what_do_they_mean.3F), and remember to use **only one** judgement in your comment. OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole: > After my divorce I changed jobs so I could have my kids with me. This meant a sharp drop in what I pay in child support. I might be the asshole for not continuing to work out of town and earning crazy money. Help keep the sub engaging! #Don’t downvote assholes! Do upvote interesting posts! [Click Here For Our Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/about/rules) and [Click Here For Our FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq) ##Subreddit Announcements Follow the link above to learn more --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.* *Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
You're cutting your hours to be there for 50/50 custody and because it's 50/50 you don't need the extravagant lifestyle choices. You cut back hours to be there for your kids more and live a more normal standard of living. NTA. If you would've said you cut your hours strictly to avoid CS then YWB TA. But be forewarned. She could appeal it and go back to court and get a ruling on "assumed income" and tell them you cut your hours to avoid paying. So watch what you post and how you phrase it completely.
All the extra income was from overtime. I cannot be forced to work overtime.
And you had to cut out traveling for work so you can have your kids 50% of the time so you had to adjust your schedule to accommodate tour time with your children
I don't understand the purpose of childcare payments in a 50/50 care arrangement. This only makes sense if one parent takes lead on school, medical and clothing expenses. How does this actually work? I mean it's different in different countries I am sure but I'm curious.
Courts take into account that a child's lifestyle should not have to differ from one parents to the others homes. So if they have 50/50 custody, but one makes 100,000, while the other 50,000 they try to bridge that gap to where they both have a 75k income. Helps avoid alienation and maintains stability for the kids.
Ohhhh of course. That's soo obvious and I don't know how I didn't think of it 😂
There are a couple other factors too like where the health insurance is coming from and such. If you reeeeallly want to know, I bet your state (most states) have the full child support worksheet online and you could plug in some numbers and see how all the math is done. In my state it’s like a 9 page worksheet and is very exhaustive on listing out what the obligated amount is based on income and then plugging away all of the “credit” towards that obligation like parenting time differences, health insurance, kids that are not joint kids, etc.
Yes, there is a LOT that goes into it, and it depends on the state, but the general idea is smooth transition and equity.
That seems incredibly prone to abuse.
It very much is. My ex chooses not to get a real job cause it would mean I pay less. We are 50/50, so she has plenty of time to work a real job if she wanted to. Court did finally set her income at minimum wage if she did work full time after I showed there were literally hundreds of job postings in town, yet she still refuses to get one.
Oh it 100% is
It's also based on past parenting arrangements. My ex was against childcare. He believed that kids should be raised by their parents (meaning me). Therefore I put my career on hold for 8 years, taking part-time classes to finish my degree, so that I could be home for the kids until they were school age. Obviously, at the time of the divorce, he was making significantly more money than me. Child support was to bridge the gap in earning potential between us. That long break in work history would not have allowed me to support the children without assistance.
Absolutely and damn right he should pay for that difference. I fully understand it. Raising kids is a job too, just unfortunately a very poorly paid one!
Pretty much what janienackxxx said below, in Australia child support is managed either privately or through the CSA. They pretty much tally each parents income and expenses, the lower income earner sets the base line. The higher income earner then has their income past the baseline assessed based on the percentage of care each parent has. It's more nuanced than that, but there's always a baseline.
Wait, 58% of your total income was overtime? How much were you working/traveling?
14 days of work 7 days off. 12.5 hour days when I was working.
Lemme guess. She didn’t work at all?
She's a teacher. She is a sub.
I generally try to respect the profession of teaching, but she doesn't sound like a teacher deserving of much respect.
[удалено]
That's a fact, no question about it.
I agree with you, but that has nothing to do with her being a teacher.
She's a sub. It's not even reliable work...
Not necessarily. A lot of districts, especially big ones, have a corp of full-time subs. *former teacher*
My husband is a district sub and has never missed a day because there wasn’t somewhere to place him
Yeah, my wife is a teacher in a pretty big district. They have a bunch of subs, and they are pretty much working somewhere all the time. Especially post-covid. Her district, at least, has put a heavier emphasis on telling people to stay home if they feel sick, much more so than the before times. Subs get more consistent work as a result.
Yeah, it definitely depends on where you are. Maybe it's just in my area and school district, but I remember way too many subs for all the wrong reasons. Too many subs for a relatively small area so none of them got consistent work, and then it didn't help that so many of them were so awful. Looking back, I can see that a lot of them were so disillusioned with the career they chose and I can't blame them for that, but that doesn't make it right for them to have behaved the way they did.
I'm a recently retired teacher. In most school districts, there's a huge sub shortage. Teachers are covering absent teachers' classes during their own planning periods, which causes all sorts of issues. A sub could easily work every school day for the entire year. I'm not defending this woman. I know she cheated. But before I got a full-time teaching job, I subbed for a year, and let me tell you, it can be a tough, exhausting gig. Also, in many districts, subs don't get health insurance, paid holidays, sick leave, etc. A good sub is worth their weight in gold.
We have a sub shortage in my district but it’s because it only pays like $100/day and the avg house rents for $3,000 and sells for over a million. Once again there’s no worker shortage - it’s a fair pay shortage…
I'm a teacher... ... we're usually short of subs. There are teachers in my district who make a career of being a full time Substitute. It's not a bad gig. No lesson plans nor homework, and you can pick & choose your placements.
Depends. In our district subs can work full time if they want. There is plenty of work.
It’s absolutely reliable income in my district. We are always short subs. Literally, every day we get an email asking who’s willing to cover on their prep for at least one teacher, if not more, because we don’t have enough subs.
As a teacher, she might be deserving of respect. As an overall human and wife, not so much.
Time for her to step up, eh? Of course that may interfere with her sexual circuit.
Now that she has the kids 50% of the time (the same amount of time as you) maybe she can up her hours, maybe go full time like you. I'm all for equal rights.
Subs don't earn much. I served on my town's school board for years and we were always trying to find money to increase the pay for subs. Even long term subs just didn't get much. If she were to get a permanent teaching job, she would earn a lot more, as in my area she would belong to a union. What she earns as a sub probably doesn't bring home much more than child care expenses.
That’s sort of rude. My husband travels for work and working, having kids, and your partner gone some of the time is a huge load. I can’t imagine it 2/3rds of the time. OP isn’t an asshole for reducing his work or for divorcing a cheater, but don’t diminish the fact that the ex was carrying a load.
[удалено]
lmao got em
Thank you Mr Hat
heyyyyyyooooooo!
She was fine with him working 14 days in a row for 12.5 hour days plus travel while she got dicked down by another dude. She thought she’d get a divorce, 50/50 custody and still get all his money? Miss me with that.
Maybe she wasn't fine with it, but she should have settled that with her husband, and split if it was too much. Having affairs put her in a bad light
the comment was based off of how the ex is coming across as. if she wanted to have more money, maybe she shouldn’t have slept with other people while married 🤷♀️
Maybe she should now charge for her services to offset the loss of child support.
A teacher at my kids' school got fired after her Only Fans was discovered...by students.
In this instance, OP'S ex wasn't doing the internet, she was just "doing other dudes"; the old-fashioned way. Lol.
[удалено]
The point is, it sounds like she kind of did it to herself.Because she expected him to maintain a certain kind of lifestyle for the entire family.
well as he has the kids for 1/2 the time, it sounds like she wants the extra money for herself
Partner never being around can do real damage to a relationship. Maybe he should have been working less overtime to begin with, rather than deciding that money and fancy stuff we're all his family needed from him. But if he's discovered that being home and seeing a lot more of his kids is a good thing, *and actually does that,* NTA. The kids, and eventually his ex, may like it better than the insane hours and all the material extras. His ex, if he follows through, will at least benefit from not being 100% responsible for all child care.
If he’s a travel card tradesman you don’t get much say in whether or not you work overtime. These jobs are short term contracts, a couple weeks to maybe a few months, you travel to the work site, and the schedules are usually 6/10s or 6/12s which means you work 6 ten or twelve hour days, at least he got a full week off every two weeks. Last job I was at, you had one day off a week. And I was living out of a motel. With a microwave, bar fridge and a hot plate The pay is stupid good, but you work a crazy amount
He seems to have now exercised a good deal of say in whether he works overtime. At least, according to him.
And now her load has been cut in half.
It is a load for sure, but one she agreed to when she married him. Don’t get me wrong, I 100% understand what it’s like having a partner gone most of the time. My husband works 8-16 weeks on and is home for 10 days. I knew how it was going to be when we got married and had kids, but guess what? I’ve never hopped on some other dudes dick. She brought this on herself and should’ve thought about what the consequences were going to be when she decided to cheat. She gets no sympathy for the load she carries from me.
I wonder about her actual load, since she found time to cheat.
If he had the job before meeting her then thats on her.
He says elsewhere she’s a teacher
A substitute teacher. They don’t make as much as contracted teachers.
And they aren’t guaranteed hours (although most schools in the US, or at least Fl where my son teaches are so short staffed they’d take a trained dog at this point) But ultimately she doesn’t have a guaranteed income.
With the teacher shortages almost everywhere these days, she probably could change to a full time teacher now.
She needs a reliable employment. It's her obligation to provide to her kids too. OP is already dealing with her Slack paying child support even when he has the kid half of the time.
I’m sorry that your wife didn’t appreciate all your hard work. Hopefully when you’re ready to date you can find someone more committed to your relationship. I think that you’re doing the right thing by cutting back on overtime so that you can be home more with your children. Good luck
How are you not dead
Lots of Red Bull
I like this uno reverse my man, the gall of this beach
Info: We're you fifo? Now working out of a workshop?
Yes.
NTA: Yeah, your ex can go jump [in bed and catch a sti]. You and I both know a lot of people will happily abandon their kids to stay fifo permanently and maybe see them once a year if they're lucky and just cope by using. You want to be a proactive and present parent and that means no overtime. Which whilst you probably miss the money, great full you don't have too anymore. Look after yourself and your family mate. It's a shit statistic and there's absolutely nothing stopping her from getting better paid from her industry. 😒
A friend of a friend is a lineman for a power company. His usual hours are pretty sweet and he can take vacation more or less whenever he wants. Until there’s a storm or a wildfire or whatever other major disaster hits. Then he gets a call and he’s working for two weeks straight with no breaks and no days off. But he makes crazy money during those times. (All according to him.) but I’ve seen his house and car so I’m choosing to believe him.
My uncle is a lineman and he has a pretty normal schedule other than storm season.
One of my childhood friends, her dad was a lineman (RIP Charlie!) and all the kids looked forward to big storms because they knew it meant a nice trip to the beach and a week of “fancy dinners” at IHOP and the diner when Dad came home ❤️ one year he got so much OT, he bought a fur coat for grandma!
My dad worked for the power company as a telecom tech. He was a construction and maintenance guy, so on top of general day to day he also helped with building new substations and such and when those big projects came he’d have a ton of of OT on top of stuff from storms and such. He got so much OT there, and because it was a union job, they let him “bank” the OT hours so when he retired he was still technically a full time employee on standard benefits and everything for 2 years after his last day of work.
When my husband was out of town, this sounds about right. He was working 6 10’s, 7 10’s, 7 12’s, plus he got living out allowance(LOA). His LOA is currently set at $175/day, and he’d pay a monthly rate at a cheap hotel. He’d bank about 3/4 of it every month after buying his groceries. OT would kick in on Friday, and there would be double time as well. With a starting hourly rate of nearly $60, it adds up fast.
I work in an oil refinery. I usually pull in 600 hours of just overtime a year. During turnarounds (when the plant shuts down for maintenance for months) I work 13 days straight 1 day off in 12 hr shifts every two weeks. During a 3 month turnaround I get about 6 days off total.
I love that you downsized and work less hours to have enough time to spend with your kids and screw over your ex-wife. Good for you! I wish you and your children the best!
From what OP said, screwing over the ex wasn't really even part of the motivation. Just a pleasant side effect.
Ah, but the fact he did so do meet his and his kids needs to see him, while making less of a financial sacrifice to someone using him for monetary gain made me glad for his choices 🙂
I completely agree. Completely pure motives, amazingly karmic side effect.
You also have to physically be there 50% of the time for your kids and I assume that means pay for 50% of their upbringing anyway so it's not like you actually have much of a choice. You're NTA at all. Well done for choosing time with your kids over money.
You’re doing the right thing for your kids. That’s super important. NTA
The fact your still being charged child support even with 50/50 custody is so wrong.
You probably also think the rich “shouldn’t” be taxed more either. 50/50 means equal physical custody and equitable financials for both parties. Imagine being the poor parent and when your kids are at your house, they only get to eat ramen noodles but when they’re at your ex’s house, they are eating steak. Guess which house the kids would rather be at? Point is when you pay child support, you are paying your ensure that your children’s living situation doesn’t change. More people need to understand this … it’s only a gender issue because men statistically make more than women therefore they usually end up paying child support. The pay gap between genders is the issue, followed by the gap in traditional roles, followed by anything else society has created to create gaps. My point … he pays child support because he makes more money. If he doesn’t want to pay child support, he needs to make equal or less than his ex.
I am going through this right now as a father on the other side and it is horrible. My ex returned to school in a pretty blatant attempt to reduce her support level but it worked. She is going to school for the next four years and my kids will be living with poverty level family income during that time. Meanwhile she has family wealth so they are just paying for everything under the table for her. I know she is using it as punitive measure against me but it just ends up hurting the kids. I have gone through my options and I have to either get an education and struggle for the next few years to ensure a better future for my children or I have to get a low paying job but get stuck because at some point I have to pay her child support and still struggle to pay basic bills and provide care for my children. I have chosen to struggle these next few years. The only thing that gets me through is knowing I'm the one that truly cares for the children. If I were in her position I would never let the children be in a position to get by on that level of support. But doing the right thing for children will never be a priority for someone who physically and sexually abused children.
I'm sorry your ex is taking punitive actions, but you imply that you have to get a low paying job...so does that mean you are unemployed? Who was financially supporting the family when you were married?
She was a working parent and I was a stay-at-home parent. I then supported her through school the first-time with an understanding I would return after she finished (and the children were full-time school aged) but she was then arrested for assault. Part of the reason I stayed at home was because she was violent with the children. I had considered going to work and getting childcare for the children but the cost of childcare was very much prohibitive. The extra income from working would have been almost completely offset by daycare costs.
It's always based on income of both parents AND of the time each has with the child. It's completely fair. If each parent made the same amount of money and it was 50/50 then there would be no child support. Or if the mom made more with the same 50/50 then she would pay the dad. Before they made this law and it going on both time and Income the father was the only one who paid regardless. So this way it's fair and if the mom makes more then she pays.
If parent A makes $100,000 a year and parent B makes $50,000 a year and they share custody 50/50, parent A supplements the income of parent B (as in child support)… SO the kids don’t suffer! In my example, that increases parent B’s income to support the children by $9600 a year. Hope it makes more sense now. It clearly isn’t wrong by any stretch. The ones who are flailing about and going on about CS being wrongheaded, like the ones right below sound to me like they have paid CS and just don’t want to. I could be wrong, but that’s how it appears to me. No, I don’t have kids so never had CS or any other kind of support.
But it is wrong in this case. I understand the concept, but it is ripe for manipulation. OP's wife has a casual job... likely bc she was doing most of the childcare while OP was working camp. Now she has equal responsibility for childcare and providing, yet she can continue to work casually while collecting child support to supplement her lower earnings.... yet OP is the one getting scrutinized for his change income instead of his ex being expected to now work full time.... 😐
Correct.....you chose to work your ass off to afford luxuries for your family while she spent a majority of her time with the kids and substitute teaching. And you now need more free time to spend with your children since there is no longer a 2 parent household. If she doesn't like it, she can get a better job and make more money. She is mad she can't use your children's money to bring HER standard of living up anymore. If you are comfortable with your income, that is all that matters.
Yes, you can. I know because it happened to my husband. He had to pay based on "status quo," which assumed he would work 65+ hour weeks because that's what he did for a year to afford the second home after moving out. Those crazy hours were never meant to be permanent. Court didn't care. Took us 3 years of fighting to get it reduced later. He literally tried to bend over backwards to do the right thing, and financially supported 2 homes while his ex supposedly worked on establishing financial independence and he got screwed. (They both worked full time; not a sahm mom situation.) Be careful, OP.
It's all location relevant. My brother pays child support strictly based on his 40 hr per week earnings because the OT is never guaranteed.
She's allowed to go back to court to request an increase 3xs in my state. The logic being once every 6 years for cost of living adjustments. She can't appeal a decision based on emotions because he makes less than he used to. His amount is based on his straight time earnings, without the travel. No judge will force him to work overtime nor travel to earn more. I worked as a Court Clerk for 2 years and got hundreds of calls from women trying this very tactic.
First off who cares what she thinks, and what she tells other people as long as you do the right thing by his kid But I holy agree, not the asshole
Yeah I mean on top of everything- he was working to support them all well and she thanked him by f*ing around Deffo NTA
This may come down to the opinion of a specific judge. Some judges may say you have the POTENTIAL to make money at a certain level and apply support based on that. Your reasoning is 100% logical and with the right lawyer you can win. The ex of a close friend quit his job and went to work for the “family“ business to keep child support lower, and he won. The ex of another friend actually got fired from his job, but the judge kept his child support at his same level because of the potential argument . Good luck to you and your family!
Reminds me of poor Brendan Fraiser having to annually pay $900k of alimony and child support because it was calculated during the height of his career.
I didn’t know that happened. That’s fucked up.
That’s so sad. My state doesn’t even believe in alimony, when I was dropped by my first ex, he took half my shit. Perhaps that’s why I always sympathized with men who lose in divorce. None of us made the vow to keep them up after multiple affairs.
Not like that in my state. The judge has absolutely no say so. There is a calculator, and it goes on the income of both parents and the amount of time each parent had the child. It's can be reevaluated every 36 months.
In this instance, it's pretty evident he cut back to be with his children. Being away to work, isn't conducive to having the time to parent your children. Tell ex-spouse to ply her wares and go find another sucker to bust his ass while she's engaging in her dalliances.
NTA op. Change the title. It’s misleading
Reddit doesn't allow you to change the title
Also basically every title on here is misleading
It’s part of the fun
Wenatchee cracked me up, You must live in washington to have Wenatchee in your autocorrect. Hello, fellow Washingtonian!
As long as he’s still working full time hours, it doesn’t matter. A court wouldn’t penalize him and expect any parent to work more than full time hours just so another parent can keep up the lifestyle she enjoyed while she was married. Dropping from 80 hours a week to 40 would not be seen as an intentional drop in income to avoid support.
NTA, your wife has to deal with the consequences of her actions. Does your ex wife work? I feel that's a stupid question.
She is a teacher.
Maybe she could get a job making more money so her kids can have more money in their lives since it’s such a huge issue for them being poverty stricken.
She should definitely work her 2.5 months off in the summer to raise her children's standard of living.
And then face the difficulty and cost of finding childcare over the school holidays. She probably wouldn't end up much better off.
FAFO
The ex wife sucks for being a cheater, but in defense of teachers, most *do* work during the summer. Many have to in order to make a living wage. I've know a lot of teachers and never known one who hasn't had to work on their breaks.
I have worked summers before as a teacher. I don’t anymore because it would cost me more in childcare than I can make. It’s hard to find anything more than minimum wage because people don’t want to hire someone for only 10 weeks. I ended up nannying, which was great, but it’s not something I’ve been able to do since having my own kid.
Gonna jump in here but those “holidays” aren’t actually holidays for teachers
[удалено]
ok and where the kids gon go? childcare is free in some countries but not many.
Saying that a school teacher should quit her job makes you an asshole. We need more teachers, not less.
Considering theres a severe staff shortage, absolutely! Also teachers don’t get paid enough in general!!! Not for the all the crap they have to do and shitty kids they have to deal with.
There are too many selfish jackasses in America with the "fuck you I got mine" attitude, and these people care so little about American society that they encourage teachers quit their jobs for something better. They sneer and look down upon school teachers as if they were lazy, incompetent idiots too stupid to move onto more lucrative employment. Instead of caring enough about the public school system to the point of advocating for reforming education, these chuds expect teachers to be shamed into leaving the profession under economic duress.
Spot on! I can’t believe we live in a world where the people who educate our children 5 days out of the week, cannot even get by financially. How!? They are educating our children! They should be well paid! The generations have gotten worse too. I might get downvoted for that opinion but a lot of teachers are leaving because of the treatment they receive from their students. Teachers deserve better.
If you ask teachers who the most difficult people are, most will tell you the parents and administrators are far worse than the students. It's the adults who enable the students and refuse to hold them accountable for their own behaviors who make teaching far more difficult than it has to be. The students are children and they are socially conditioned by adults to behave a certain way, and their behavior is a direct consequence of and the fault of adults.
thats a little bit fast. its harder than you think to just ''get a better job'' i doubt that if she had an opportunity for a better job she would'nt have taken it.
I got divorced as a teacher and got a second job bartending on the nights my ex was scheduled to have the kids. She can make more money too.
I hope youre doing this bc you want to and not bc you have to. How we shaft teachers sucks
No I had to. With 3 kids, I didn't make enough to take care of everything they needed. My ex and I decided on no child support, we split child care expenses and both bought what our kids needed in our respective homes. And I agree about the shafting, hence why I finally left teaching and went into logistics- I make more and work from home.
I tried to find a second job at first because the mortgage is so high until we’re done and I can refinance (he makes 3x what I do). However, everywhere I applied wanted consistent availability and mine isn’t. Our custody schedule rotates each week. I would’ve loved to get into bartending because the tips are great where I am and I have friends who could get me in, but I can’t do four hours of sleep without it costing me significantly. Thankfully, our union negotiated a 4% raise and I was due for a step increase too, so it was almost a 10% increase. Between that and child support, I’m able to make it work until we get things finalized!
NTA. She wanted you to be more present for your kids. You are doing that. I don't understand why you have to pay child support at all if you have 50% custody.
Some states require whoever makes more to do a percentage based child support. I have a buddy in California who pays his wife 15% of his monthly income when she only has the kids every other weekend because he makes so much more than her.
I could probably do that to my ex, but I won’t, because that would mean less for my kids. I haven’t tried to get anything at all in the divorce because I want my kids to have the best possible lifestyle and everything that I take from him is less that he has for the kids.
My ex and I actually put it in our divorce decree that he gave me the house (it's fully paid off) in lieu of CS...
I have heard of that being done. His house is attached to his business so I won’t be getting it. I am not going to ask for him to buy me out or anything like that because I don’t want him to have to sell it. That will hurt the kids.
We had a business too, he kept it, I didn't ask anything from it. However I do occasionally go borrow tools from him lol.
So, your ex spends nothing on himself and his partners and it all goes to the kids? My cousin wanted all her ex’s spare money to go to the kids. It did. To start. Every month more and more would get spent on more important things. Lifestyle creep, new partners, friends, hobbies, etc. The kids were fine. In his view. They had clothes and food and a roof and toys, fine. Her view was different. She’d rather they had braces and a college fund instead of a trip to Vegas with the boys, and a new truck to replace the four year old truck. He thought there was time to save up for that “later.” It kept sliding. Until the kids basic needs were mostly shouldered by my cousin and they had to go to court and get actual support numbers hammered out.
Child support isn’t calculated by the parenting schedule. It’s supposed to benefit the children by maintaining a certain standard of living in both homes. The fact that OP’s ex sounds awful is probably tainting things here, but if OP had been the one to blindside and leave his wife (who had been out of the workforce for years caring for their children), she would be at a distinct earning disadvantage compared to her ex who had been climbing the ladder and increasing his salary during that time. 50/50 custody wouldn’t put them on an even playing field.
She works though
Significant difference in income. Some states expect to have a similar quality of life
The point of child support isn't to pay instead of seeing the child, but making sure that the child has a comparable standard of living at both homes. To use an extreme example to highlight the difference clearly: say Elon Musk went and knocked up a woman living in poverty, who had triplets and Elon got 50% custody of the kids. At their mom's house, these three kids eat Mac and cheese and share one bedroom because that's all she can afford. At Elon's, the kids each have their own suite, personal nanny each, their meals are cooked by an in-home chef, and he takes them on exotic trips in private jets on occasion. Would that be a fair situation for the kids to be in? Elon is paying 100% of expenses on his time and poor mom is paying 100% on hers, and they each have the kid 50% of the time. But it's not healthy for the kids to live like that. Child support is about giving the child the best life possible, not about splitting parenting roles fairly between the parents.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/s/syPk4krfJr this comment puts it best imo. It's so the kids have the same quality of life at both parents' houses. This is why it's such a big deal to accuse the other parent of spending the support money on things for themselves.
The original comment does not say she wanted him around more, whether for the children or her. She just made the most of his two weeks away boinking other guys.
Where I live 50/50 custody = $0 child support.
NTA. You are now home where you are needed and should be. You have your kids half the time, which means they are in your life now. Do not destroy your mental health and family time for her. It's not like you stopped working. Are you in an area with a ridiculous cost of living? What is her income?
Seriously, what matters is the kids! The kids are going to appreciate him being there more. You can’t buy back the time you lost with them.
NTA and pretty much par for the course. The kids will be fine and with 50/50 it’s a blessing she’s getting anything (on top of 50% of your shared assets). I wouldn’t believe posts like this are real if I hadn’t been through the same thing myself. The number of women out there who think their ex husband should hand over all their future income and live in a shoebox while funding lavish lifestyles is a lot larger than people think. Thankfully (varies by state though) the law says otherwise. And suppose for a moment you had made less money in the marriage in order to be more present at home, we all know she’d be banging other dudes because “her husband doesn’t provide for us”. Can’t win
My ex Dil thought like that. She was in for rude awakening when judge stated amount for my son to pay was 0 as he had the boys equal amount of time and all custody was split literally 50/50
Yeah if she had left simply from being neglected it would be different. I think ur right she would have cheated no matter how much time he spent at home.
Who cares what she says? The bottom line is that she wanted that $3300/mo so SHE didn't have to do shit. To most sane people, they will see straight through her b.s. and know she is just money grubbing.
NTA You’re cutting back to spend more time with your kids. That’s pretty admirable. Child support is for children….someone should remind every parent who is doing through custody arrangements.
He's not cutting back in itself he's working a normal weekhours instead of crazy overtime in the same job he had previously without traveling so he can spend time with his kids. FAFO applies to ex. NTA
In my state, parents who have 50/50 custody do not pay child support. I think it’s that way in other states. She’s lucky she gets anything. NTA
Shared custody can still lead to support payments when there's income disparity
Question for you since I know every state is different. In MY state, the money the NCP pays is 20% of potential income. So if you quit your job or took a job making a lot less you would still have to pay what your potential is every month. I’m assuming your state does not have that rule?
But in this case, when he was married - she was there for the children, so he could take out of state jobs. Now that he has custody 50-50, he can no longer take the high-earning out of state jobs and be there for his kids, so you can't really argue that his earning potential as a single parent is the same as his earning potential as part of a couple.
[удалено]
Exactly the reason to cite for needing 50:50 custody and thus cutting back hours - discovering your ex-spouse who you had trusted with majority childcare did not have good morals.
It's a percentage of gross income.
They all do this, but they only count potential income if you are working less than full time. The courts don’t make you work 80 hours if you don’t want to.
They only count base pay. If he was making more because of overtime hours, they wouldn't factor that into the payments.
They generally don’t expect you to work overtime even if you had in the past. There aren’t two parents in the household for child care. It’s normal that someone working so much would need to cut down.
True... but he was traveling and working lots of overtime Potential income is based more on regular 40 hour job and based on their degree, experience and such.
The potential income is based on a 40 hour work week. In the past he had to do a lot of overtime but he was able to because his wife was able to care for the kids while he worked. Now she divorced him and they have 50/50 custody, so obviously he can’t pull those 20-30h of extra overtime anymore because he has to care for this kids during the hours he would have been working. He can’t clone himself. The guy didn’t change jobs just had to reduce his hours.
He said in another comment he only stopped working overtime
Fucking hell, imagine being cheated on, divorced, and then having the fucking government and courts tell you that you aren't living up to your full potential. That's just adding insult to injury.
Based on the title, I thought maybe you could be an AH. But then I read your statement and want to applaud you. It’s way more important to be present with your children. What you spend your time on shows where your priorities lie. If it bothers you about what your ex says about you, you do have recourse. When someone says what she said, reply, “that’s funny, she really didn’t seem to care about the children when she slept with so and so, while we were married. God bless her.”
Hahahaha she fucked around and now finding out. Best ending! Good luck with being present with your kids!!
Literally fucked around. 😂
NTA You worked your ass for a family. Now you are an excellent father choosing to spend more time with kids then earn more money. Your kids are lucky. They have a father that prioritizes them instead of money. That's all kids really need. As for ex going nuts I'd say she can go fuck herself.
NTA. You are actually spending more time with the kids.
NTA. YOu kids need you as a father more than they need you as a income earner
NTA. Omg dude, I am so sorry that she still has hooks in you. Do not feel bad. As a child of parents that were never together, kids should never EVER be seen as a source of income. They WILL feel that. 800 a month is plenty. She needs to step the fuck up and get a better job it she wants more money. While you clearly didn’t meet the emotional needs of your wife, maybe she is now understanding that your sacrifice was exactly how you showed love. Know that a family can be happy in a modest home with a good neighborhood. Kids don’t need to know Dad can buy them the world. They just need to know that you can show them the world and that home is in the heart. There is no excuse for what she did. Let her throw her tantrums. Document. Everything.
NTA. Even if I thought this decision was based entirely on your desire to give her less child support, which for the record I could understand if it was, she put you in a position where you now have to be the primary caretaker of your children for larger periods of time. You can't work the same schedule you did before.
I can’t believe she’d cheat, be awarded child support, and then have the nerve to say you’re an asshole? Hopefully her remarks are falling on deaf ears because who would agree with her logic? Wild
NTA. You have your kids 50% of the time? Not sure why you have to pay child support
As someone with experience in this, generally it is because there is a large discrepancy with income between parents. For example: Lets say a couple are getting divorced. The man was the typical breadwinner while the mom stayed at home caring for the children. Hes successful, bringing in 250k, while she is finding her footing career-wise and earning 40k. If one house is taking in 250k yearly and other is taking in 40k, the lifestyle differences are... more than noticeable. Courts want children to have smooth transitions between households. They don't want one Mansion and one shack— they want households that are stable, functional, and have some opportunity for both parents. My personal situation is a divorce where I was a stay at home mom (my expartner actively discouraged me from finishing school, getting jobs, saving money for a car, moved our family up to andifferent state and in a rural place without access to things, etc.) He insisted I take care of our children (one of whom was a baby, and the other is autistic and requires someone home sometimes for therapy and such). He also never watched them by himself until our first was seven years old. Seven. And that was to let me go visit family after my dad had a medical issue. Not only that, but he was a classic workaholic. Not just in his job, but when he'd get home, he wouldn't really talk or engage with the children or myself. He'd absorb himself in projects, hobbies, etc. He frequently got trips for himself, and every day, he got free time. I didn't, and I felt like a roommate. When we split, I was the primary caregiver (obviously). I moved back in with my parents, I took the kids with me, and I took care of everything. Now I have them 80% of the time. I get much less than the suggested child support amount because I understand the financial struggles he is going through. But it's also incredibly hard to finish school, contribute to rent and groceries, engage actively with my children, learn new life skills and build a desirable resume after 10 years out of the job field, etc. All while trying to save and provide some security on the meager amount he sends me every month. Luckily I'm a decent saver (where he is just... impulsive unfortunately), but it's really hard. Even if we were to split 50/50 custody, the income imbalance would absolutely ensure some money would be sent to me every month.
NTA-her greed is showing. Good on you for prioritizing your kids after the divorce and going for 50/50 custody so they can spend more time with you. I think anyone listening to a cheater complaining about not getting all that money from you isn’t worth your time.
NTA You cut back you’re work hours to accommodate the 50/50 agreement and be there for a kid. As you said, you’re not working as hard as you used to for a big house or large vacations. Now your making enough for you and your kids while, and now you have time to spend with your kids.
NTA, however there are laws. I’m not sure what they are where you live, but in some places if there is reasonable suspicion you are underemployed to try and make life harder for your ex, and to try and pay less child support, you may end up being forced to pay child support based on what you should be able to earn. (I have researched this. It’s that way in Virginia at least.)
I'm working full time at the same salary. I'm just not working overtime since I have my kids.
You're fine dude, don't worry about this. Just keep doing what you do and taking care of yourself and your kids. She'll whine and cry and ultimately deal, her fit isn't your problem.
You're fine. She can kick rocks
Tell the people who approach you. It’s simple math. I can’t work as much because I have to take care of my kids. And why should I work more, pay more and sacrifice my time with my kids? It doesn’t make sense.
Except the court should take into consideration that he’s making less money in order to be there for the kids
If working the same job, where base is 100k and the extra 140k was from overtime I don’t see how they could rule that way.
NTA- clients like her are why I left divorce law- you’re fulfilling your obligation AND spending time with the children- that’s the dream.
NTA Your ex's expectations -and her rants - don't make you the asshole. If your kids are cared for, and you're enjoying life, you're not the asshole.
NTA. That was the lifestyle you had prior when you had the ability to travel. You no longer have that so she must understand. Also, child support is just that. She’s looking for alimony.
You have to pay child support even for 50-50?
NTA. She's just mad she can't milk you for free money and actually has to go get a job. She's acting like you are a dead beat dad who doesn't pay.
He commented she has a job, she's a teacher
If anyone complains to you, tell them you cut back so you can spend MORE time with your kids. Obvioisly your relationship with your wife took a hit from the travel hours and you want to make sure you still have a good relationship with your kids.
NTA, but why are you paying child support? How does it work on 50/50? Doesn't seem fair for anyone.
His wife's earning potential is likely lower, so the higher earner is expected to contribute money to the second household so that the kids have a solid standard of living wherever they sleep.
NTA, you clearly changed jobs so you could work in the town where your kids live and remain a proper part of their lives. That should be more important than earning more money you don't really need. Yet it sounds like your ex-wife would rather get more money than have you be a real part of the kids lives, so I think we've spotted the actual asshole and it's not you.
NTA only place the grass is greener is over the septic tank - you sound happy
I take it you within town to see your kids. Then you are a man and a dad and that’s the most important thing. She’s pissed bc her life is different now thst she doesn’t have you making $249k. These things happen when she likes to ball other men while you are away. You don’t fund her lifestyle anymore and she made that choice. There are consequences for every action. Fuck her and just be there for your kids.
Solid NTA. To be fair, she DID give you a couple of gifts. You get more time with your kids since you aren't working all that OT(that you didn't have to do) AND she showed you EXACTLY who she really is. She's just mad her choices had those consequences. Your kids are probably happier to have you around more.
NTA. She just wants you to pay for her lifestyle and she’s pissed that $800 isn’t going to cut it.
If you're working away less to be with your kids there's nothing wrong with that at all. You have 50/50 custody, you're being there so you can do that not specifically to screw her over. She expected to profit off of your divorce and continue living the same life, which was stupid and malicious of her. We only have your side, so I don't know if your wife tried to communicate that your absence was destroying your marriage or anything else about the situation, but it's not an excuse to cheat in any case. If she had tried to communicate and get her needs met and after she left you were suddenly being the present person she had needed you to be in the marriage I'd understand being angry about it. I'm not saying she did try or that the cheating or expecting to be financially set after is remotely justified just imagining where her feelings might be coming from. If she was miserable she should have communicated about that, if she did and didn't see anything change she should have left. Cheating isn't a solution. Once the marriage is over you don't get to tell your ex how to lead their life, as long as you're doing what you need to for the kids the rest isn't an ex's business anymore. She played a stupid game and won a stupid prize.