Income Inequality Dealing With Child Support

by Just Me
(MD)

Hello, My ex and I have joint everything and the boys spend a week at a time at each house and have been doing so for years.

I have fallen on bad times as I have been diagnosed with a neurological disorder and not only had to close my company but am now on disability pay. My health condition is part of the reason she decided to leave the marriage.

My ex has re-married and bringing in a good joint income with her hew husband, over 2 hundred thousand a year. They bought a million dollar house, new cars, all new furnishing, private plane tours with vacations here and there.

I bring in less than 2,000 a month and live from paycheck to paycheck. We have very little, no vacations, no Christmas or holidays to speak of. No new clothes and we drive around in a 40 year old car that hardly runs.

The dichotomy between houses is drastic in just about every way minus the love the boys receive. But they do go through quite a shock as they go back and forth between houses.

In the last few years my ex has seen the troubles that I am going through and has voluntarily started to send child support checks which have really helped. The problem that I am facing now is she is planning on stopping the support checks and that will simply be the end of my side of things.

I wont be able to pay bills and she will end up with the kids and I don't know how I would live without them.

So I guess I have a couple of questions:

Has she set a precedent with all of the checks she has already sent?

With the income inequality between the houses, would this be grounds for getting a child support order?

Would a judge calculate the amount of the support or would he/she just use the amount she has already been sending?