Child Support Arrears After Stepparent Adoption

by Cassandra Skinner
(Glen Burnie, MD)

I have two children from a previous marriage. I have a son who is 9 and a daughter who is 6. My husband was "MIA" for 3 years and then filed for visitation and custody changes. I have lived in MD and he lived here with us until meeting his new wife ( she is #3) he also has 2 other children from his first marriage, a 12 y/o son and a 9 year daughter. Do that math! Those two children he did not see or visit with in 7 years and paid no support!

During our case he was awarded 5 weeks in the summer since he lives in TX, and every other christmas and srping break. His child support with me was set at $1156.00 a month and the support for the other two was $718.00. The first ex wife never had it reviewed for an increase. So our court date was Jan of 2008, and we did the summer visit. I had to put my 8 and 5 y/o on a plane ALONE.... which was the worse thing a loving mother should ever have to do.

They come back, 4 weeks after wards and my ex gets FULL custody of his first born son. This negates any new support to the first wife and an income deduction order was set at $600 a month to pay off the 36K in arrears to GA. While the kids were in TX he stopped paying the support to me. I called CSE here in MD to ask for help and it turns out they refuse to uphold the order because it was missing the statement" CSE will enforce this order if the fathers payments to the mother is more than 30 days behind" or some legal mumbo jumbo.

So In January of this year, my ex asked my current husband and the only father my daughter has really ever known aside from the 5 weeks in 2008 with my ex in TX to adopt my kids. He offered to terminate his parental rights to stop his child support all together. We go to court this week to finalize the adoption and the kids are so excited. But he currently owes me $9200.00 in arrears which he is obligated to pay. I cant get a lawyer to touch this case and CSE REFUSES to help me. This is money that is due to my kids and I need to know how to go about collecting it.

Can you help me?