Child Support

This post is a continuation of “Lies Fed to my Children (Part One)” and “Lies Fed to my Children (Part Three).” The reason for this additional information concerning the subject of my child support is because I came across some damming evidence (for my ex) I have had for many years stored in a storage unit but had forgotten about—until a few days ago when I stumbled upon it while going through some other paperwork.

For context, it would help to read “Part One” and “Part Three” if you have not already, or if you already have, to review the information it contains.

What I re-discovered in this storage facility was a stack of money order receipts for child support payments I made years ago. Note that this particular stack does not represent all of the child support payments I made, but only a small portion. The time period for these particular payments were made near the end of the time of all the years I had already been paying child support. Below are some pictures:

In this stack of money orders, I counted 38 that are child support checks. Thirty eight. In general, I paid my child support every month. The 38 money orders in this stack, then, represents three years worth of support payments.

One question that might arise is this: “Roy, why did you pay your child support in money orders and not regular checks like most people do?” That is an excellent question. Here’s why:

I have often explained in this “Divorce and PAS” section of my blog the unsavory fact that my ex-wife is a pathological liar. Understandably, this is something my children may not, at this point in their adult lives, realize or agree with. But there is little doubt they know, on some levels, their mother is not one that can be trusted to tell the truth on a consistent basis.

It took me some time before I realized the extent of her lying as she hid this dark portion of her character from me. But soon after she divorced me, her true colors quickly rose to the surface.

To list all the examples of how I came to realize she is a flagrant liar is beyond the scope of this post, but for the sake of why I started obtaining money orders to pay my child support is relevant to this story.

Post divorce, we were both living on the same street, Sendero Uno, in the same townhome complex here in Tucson. Unfortunately, this development, as beautiful and safe as it was, became ground zero for some of the most contentious post-divorce litigation we engaged in. And for the most part, it was about money (my ex lives, breathes, and exists for money).

During one of our many court battles, she claimed I refused to pay my portion of some needed medical and dental bills for our daughters. She claimed she sent me six separate letters in the mail requesting I pay my share of these expenses that I refused to respond to. In fact, she never sent me one single letter requesting anything of the sort.

Did she have proof of any of these letters, I asked in court? Could she produce one single copy as evidence? Or how about producing for the court, as evidence for any of these letters, proof that she sent even one of them certified mail, where I would have to sign for it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing to prove she sent even one of them.

And, as I have endlessly pointed out in this “Divorce and PAS” section of my blog, men—fathers—get routinely fleeced in the family court system and face incredible bias; in other words, the deck of “justice” is firmly stacked against us. Most fathers cannot win and do not win, but women routinely are victorious (which is why they drag their ex-husbands to court so often).

Our family law judge, Stanford, ruled overwhelmingly in her favor. And he ruled in her favor during this particular aspect of our post-divorce litigation concerning these medical bills and ordered that I not only pay my alleged portion, but her attorney fees and court costs as well: the judgment came to about $11,000. Eleven thousand dollars.

I paid every penny of this unjust judgment, but not all at once. I memory serves me correctly, I wrote her attorney—Bob Wolkin—a personal check for $5,000 within a few days of receiving this order from the court.

I had to do a bit of scrambling to pay the remainder and it would take me some time to get together the rest of this money. I was furious, of course, over this latest unjust decision of the court, but what could I do? Absolutely nothing but pay the judgment or risk going to jail.

A week or so later after paying the five grand, I check my regular “snail mail” and discover to my horror that my checking account was overdrawn by a lot of money and that I had bounced check after check. I was dumbfounded because I had never bounced a single check for decades and always made certain I had plenty of money in that account to cover each check I wrote.

I rushed over to Well Fargo where I had my checking account and spoke with a supervisor. He explained to me that the reason I had no money in my account was because they had received a writ of garnishment from the court. Simply put, her attorney filed the necessary legal paperwork and had all the money in my checking account removed and given to him to pay this debt. Being inexperienced about these type of matters and having no clue this kind of stuff could happen, I was broadsided and taken completely off guard.

Worse, I had overdraft protection on this account I did not even know I had and had never used. After they zeroed out my account, they further dipped into it and removed over $1,000 of “overdraft money” that was not in there.

I was livid! I asked this bank official why I was not contacted about this. His snarky reply was something like this, “Mr. Spears, if you would have known about this garnishment, you would have removed your money before it could be taken from your account.”

I shot back, “And did it ever occur to you that maybe this garnishment was in error, that maybe someone lied to the court?” I was so angry over this injustice I was almost speechless. I immediately, while still in the bank, closed the account and left.

This is why I started using money orders to pay my bills because I refused to have a checking account for years after that. And I kept virtually every single child support receipt and kept them stored away, forgetting about them until I recently stumbled on them again, as noted above.

I inputted all the figures for all 38 money order checks into a spreadsheet and totaled the column: $12,700 paid in child support for approximately three to four years that ended in around 2014. Note that this does not include all the other child support payments I made prior to this, when I was making these support payments with my checking account.

And also realize that these particular payments reflected child support near the end of my child support obligations and not at the beginning of these payments. In other words, when I first started paying child support, I was paying for all three of my daughters and the monthly amounts were significantly higher than what is reflected near the end of the support obligation when I was only supporting my youngest daughter. As they each turned 18, my court ordered child support ended for that particular child.

But in the final analysis, the paragraph above is not that relevant. What is relevant is this: my ex lied to my three children and told them for almost two decades—upon my information and belief—that I never paid a penny in child support for them. And what do I base this allegation on? Because my youngest, Aimie, wrote this to me in two separate emails as I have already discussed in Part’s One and Three, as noted above.

Think about this for a moment and the conclusions it presents to the minds and hearts of my three children. They believe, according to what Aimie wrote, that I never paid anything in child support (or at least Aimie believes this as I can’t say for certain what her two other sisters believe as I have not heard their takes on what they believe about this matter).

What has these lies from their own mother done to their opinion of me? Obviously, nothing good: they believe I’m scum, a loser, a man who does not care about them because I never financially supported any of them.

Then, they look upon their mother as someone in line with a true saint, for she is the one who supported them all of those years when they were living with her. My ex, then, is falsely claiming that all the money I gave to her via my child support checks to help pay for their needs were paid by her: I get credit for nothing and she appears as a savior/hero in their eyes.

What mother would lie like this to her own flesh and blood, knowing the hatred and resentment these lies would no doubt foster in their minds?

Would a normal, loving mother do this to her own children? Of course not; only a psychologically deranged individual would do something like this. In fact, as I wrote in a previous post, a loving mother would downplay and minimize her ex-husbands faults only because she knows that, for their children to grow up as mentally healthy as possible, they must have a positive viewpoint of him.

Think about what kind of a parent would routinely lie, for years and years, to their own children? Can that parent authentically love and respect them? I believe the answers to these questions are clear.

As also previously noted in another post, what are my kids going to do with this proof of their mother’s lies to them for decades? How can they psychologically and emotionally deal with the knowledge that for most of their lives they have been believing in a story about me that has been constructed around lies, half-truths, and deceptions? Can they trust or believe anything that comes out of her mouth?

I believe it is important to state this: even though my ex-wife has wrecked untold damage to her own family by her unending lies and deceptions, she is still an important part of our daughters lives. I would never counsel my children to completely cut her out of their lives if they come to the realization of what she has done to separate them and myself from having a relationship with one another.

Some children do just this: once they “wake up” and come out from underneath the brainwashing inflicted upon them by their alienating parent, they overreact by cutting that parent out of their lives—exactly like they did to their other alienated parent. When they understand the depth of betrayal this alienating parent did to them, this cutting out process is understandable.

But I would never counsel this because I know how important both parents are in a child’s life. I would never even hint to my children this detrimental course of action. Of course, being human, and having been separated from my daughters for 20 years, I would be less than honest if I did not admit that I feel strongly that my ex should “receive as she has given”; in other words, it seems justice would be served if she would lose the affection, love, and companionship of our daughters like she caused me to lose out on for 20 years.

“When they understand the depth of betrayal this alienating parent did to them, this cutting out process is understandable.”

But again, I know this is not the best thing for them. Like I have repeatedly stated like a broken record, children need both of their parents in their lives for them to live up to their full potential as human souls.

Might there need to be a time of separation from her so they can “clear their heads” of her undue influence? Undoubtably so. In fact, I would think this time of separation would be a necessity. Without it, I do not believe they can completely break free from her poisonous influence in their lives and undergo the needed healing process each need to undergo.

Long term, though, I think they would need, at some point, to reconnect with her in some fashion. The point I’m trying to make is this: what is best for my daughters? What course of action will provide the best path for their lives? And in keeping with my lifelong belief (shared with by most experts) that children’s best interests are met when they have relationships with both parents, I would encourage them to maintain some semblance of relationship with her. The final decision, of course, would rest in their hands, as they are adults with their own lives.