My situation is that my husband's ex-wife has a doctorate and a full-time teaching position that she got by using the military spouse incentives. He retired in 2005 and she receives 47% of his retirement as per the Uniformed Services Former Spouse Protection Act. This amounts for $834.25 a month to her. Then she got awarded $256.67 for child support even though he was unemployed at the time. He gets $904 of his retirement after taxes. Once he pays the child support (1 kid, 18 but graduates next summer) and the rent we are -$103. She just took us back to court for another increase in child support. He lost his job the same day that we got the court summons. We now must travel from Florida to Virginia to defend ourselves against this increase which we cannot afford. Neither one us can find a job right now, running out of savings, and have 2 children.
My questions are...
1. How can I get this dismissed out of hand? She wrote fraudulent and easily disproven lies on the motion to amend form and has already had 2 cases for increases dismissed out of hand but we had to travel both times and received no travel expenses or lawyer fees.
2. Can we stop this harassment? The judge dismissed her case last time when she asked for a $23 increase after 2 continuances (her continuances)
3. Can we counter her motions with our own for return of stolen money, still opening his mail after 2 years of divorce, and constant harassment?

I know it is a lot but we are backed up against the wall and are desperate for any help we can get. She has a doctorate, spent Christmas in Mexico, has a personal trainer, and got a boob job with the $1100 a month we give her between the retirement and child support. BTW the son has his own full-time job, pays his own insurance, and rarely sees her.

It is a crazy world once you enter family law. By contrast, my ex has not paid any child support maintenance since around June/July 2006, a few months after we separated. Since then he has been to the UK and the US twice on three different trips and just the other day, my daughter said he has told her he might take her to Paris next year if he can afford it... uhhmmmm... I can only laugh in disbelief and just get on with my life. And he's an intelligent (gifted) man, who in his youth won a scholarship to do his MA in creative writing in New York. Go figure.

I can only sympathise with you, knowing the sort of person you're dealing with and suggest you ask a lawyer for a professional opinion.

I have tried to laugh it off over the years and just know she is certifiable but we are slipping into debt and might soon lose our excellent credit rating. I don't want this dried up, bitter old jerk to spoil everything that we have. I am fed up with the constant court dates, text messages, demands for more money, and lies. I wish I could come up with a solution but there just doesn't seem to be one. Our lawyer is going to take a look at it on the 2nd, after the holiday. We just don't have the money (literally) to pay him anything and lawyers don't work out of the goodness of their hearts last time I checked. We need this fraudulent motion dismissed.

Sorry, I wish I could offer you something more concrete that would be reassuring. I never see or hear from my ex, so at least I'm not being harassed. Is it possible to put a restraining order on her to prevent her contacting you??

The problem is that she is an "upstanding member of the community." She teaches school, land and home owner, etc. We were shot down when we called the police. They said our problem was "sour grapes." She has bragged about opening his mail and cheating him out of money for medical reimbursement but nothing we do is bringing her to call for her actions. It is so frustrating. We have those claims on email BTW. She can't deny she ever said those things and we have saved letters that she opened, (addressed only to him from the government) read, and then put in another envelope and mailed to him. But we can't get the police to do anything about it.

Oh yes, you have to admire their intelligence (my sarcasm aimed at my ex, sorry).

It does sound like an awful situation and I do honestly sympathise with you. Hopefully someone with a legal background or similar experience can advise you here. Unfortunately, you and your husband seem to be her project at the moment and you may just need to be emotionally resilient and financially a step ahead... you could also hope the boob job gives her a more interesting life to pursue.

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Originally Posted by Mom of Colin

My questions are ....
1. How can I get this dismissed out of hand? She wrote fraudulent and easily disproven lies on the motion to amend form and has already had 2 cases for increases dismissed out of hand but we had to travel both times and received no travel expenses or lawyer fees.
2. Can we stop this harassment? The judge dismissed her case last time when she asked for a $23 increase after 2 continuances (her continuances)
3. Can we counter her motions with our own for return of stolen money, still opening his mail after 2 years of divorce, and constant harassment?

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Hello and welcome to American family law.:)
My answers:
1.As an American citizen she has rights and you cannot dismiss her rights.She has right to ask increasing CS whenever she likes.No one says she can get more money.
2.No-you cannot... The only way to stop her claims is a judge to dismiss it with prejudice.I am sure there is no a judge who will do it.
3.How can you prove it?

I am sure those are not the answers you like to read about... but the law is very cold.

Depending on the state she isn't allowed to ask for an increase anytime she wants. There has to be circumstances to merrit it. And for a lot of family / civil courts they put a cap on it of no closer then every 2 years. If she is doing it more often then that and with the documents you have can prove she pugured herself in documents then when you file your response make sure that you ask for her to pay lawyers fees. If she loses then she must pay. Also you can ask a judge to instruct her as to what the conditions are for a change. If she is stealing money then she needs to go to jail. Get your proof in court then if the courts do nothing call the DA in her city / county and file for theft charges against her. Make sure ANY mail that is suppose to come to you is done so by you notifying the parties so she no longer had that opportunity.

Normally she has to show cause to ask for an increase, did government pensions go up, did he have a new job ( before he lost it) that requires him to have to pay more.

Even if not working ( not even retirement) the courts will award a base amount of support due. There is a formula.

In fact you could and should hire an attorney there, who will figure it and see if the ex has a valid claim for it.

Also often increase in paymnet is done "per document" there is no actually appearance, you supply all pay records to court, and the judge does a summary judgement based on the figures supplied by both parties.

You need to discuss this with the FL attorney that is used

First, YOU can't do anything. You are not a party to this its between your husband and his ex. So HE has to initiate any legal action.

He can ask for a modification of the support if he feels that false information or fraud was used to obtain previous awards.

If she continues to file frivilous motions for modifications, your lawyer should be pointing this out to the court.

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Originally Posted by califdadof3

Depending on the state she isnt allowed to ask for an increase anytime she wants. There has to be circumstances to merrit it. And for alot of family / civil courts they put a cap on it of no closer then every 2 years

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

Normally she has to show cause to ask for an increase...

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OK - what about if she enrols her kid every month in different classes-the first one in dance,after that in in MMa , etc... She has cause to ask for CS modification every month.It is her right. Another question is whether she will be awarded with bigger sum.

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Originally Posted by ScottGem

First, YOU can't do anything. You are not a party to this its between your husband and his ex. So HE has to initiate any legal action.

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You got it up!:)

Thank you all for the information. We can prove the stolen money. He was ordered to split all medical expenses for the son down the middle. She would send receipts for the amounts and he would pay them. This continued for a year or so. We began to get suspicious (as is our nature now when she is involved in something) because she was taking him to appointments several times a month. He said he wasn't sick. We have Tricare as insurance so we used their online feature to get a listing of all paid claims for our own records. It turns out that we were receiving the bills that were pre-insurance. We were paying her for nothing. Most of the appointments had been paid in full. Upon closer examination, we revealed that she had pocketed over $1,500 in payments that we did not owe, but she still refuses to return it to this day because she says he owes her for divorcing her. She also received a money order from me for the retirement before it had been auto-paid through the government for $794.30 because he was out to sea for his job at the time. I had little contact with him because he had forgotten his charger for his phone. Little did I know that he had paid it before he left but she began harassing me for a payment, so I sent it from my own checking (specifically stating it was not a gift and for retirement pay purposes). Once I found out she had been paid twice, I asked for it back. She has ignored my requests to this day. (Incident in 3/07.) It is difficult to do anything from Florida when she is in Virginia. The police told me that it was unfortunate but that I should forget it and chalk it up to experience. I personally don't think she deserves to get away with stealing from us.
He has received no additional government raises and even if he did, she would be paid by them. We have no control over "her share".
The parties sending the mail have been informed several times that he no longer resides there but they keep sending it there and she keeps opening it before forwarding it. The police said to forget this too.
I guess we are headed to court again. I just wish we had some way to pay for it.