Hey, who is this group!?! It's like human beings all being reasonable and just having a discussion. I'm glad I checked the thread now, I sat down at the PC and went "Should I even bother?", but lo and behold!
OK, lets see if I can cover all the questions and stuff.
In regards to my X being a scumbag for abusing gov programs... I don't even think twice about that. Maybe its just because its so common here? I just assumed its like this everywhere. I know a bunch of people who abuse Gov programs. I have friends who aren't married so they can claim shit. I have friends who aren't married so they can get financial aid for school. I have 3 separate friends who all get disability stuff for life after leaving the military, all for just made up shit. "Ever since boot camp it hurts when I stand for two long." Lifetime checks of free money (that guy just went backpacking across Germany for 6 weeks, I believe he is on food stamps too.) While I definitely know people who have huge issues with it - it seems like most people I meet are of the "Yeah, its a terrible rigged system that everyone takes advantage of, either you can join in, or just have a lower quality of life for your morals." kind of thing. When I hear someone is scamming free money from the government, its basically the same as hearing they pirate music on their PC's to me. (Obviously its not the same, I'm just saying, as far as my outrage is concerned.)
About not insuring my kids- My work plan is $844 dollars per pay period for family coverage (every 2 weeks), or $22,000 a year. So, that's a third of my income before taxes. I personally have been to the hospital one time when I was 7, and then again 2 years ago. So, twice in almost 37 years. I'm sure if my situation were different, I would feel differently, but as it stands, it seems like a huge scam to me. All insurance does really. Here is the other thing, each of my kids has had to go to the hospital once already. The costs of those two trips were $36,000 and $12,000, for a total of $48,000. I then called the hospital and said I didn't have insurance, so I need to get on a payment plan or something. They had me send over mine and my wives last pay stubs, and adjusted the bill. It went from $48,000 to $11,000. They just wrote off $37,000. On top of that, they told me I was free to make payments on the bill at no interest, as long as I made a minimum of $90 per month. So as far as crippling hospital debt goes, so far that hasn't been an issue. I understand if one of the kids gets cancer or something it will be some astronomical figure... but all that will mean is that I pay some minimum monthly payment for the rest of my life that is far smaller than the cost of insurance. Or I'll move to another country at some point and just forget about it.
Now all that being said, I would prefer to have the kids on health insurance, and yes, my x wife wanted $3000 more than she wanted that, but I just paid the difference so they could stay on it another year. So they currently do have health insure, its just the amazing free government insurance that I don't qualify for, but she does.
As for the house stuff, yeah, I have no idea what will happen with that if I have to go back to court for it. I assume nothing would change, but who knows, hence me leaning towards handling that before I go back to court.
As for why I'm paying child support with a 50-50 agreement- Here is the child support calc AZ uses (
2015 Child Support Calculator
) which, as you can see is very simple. You put in your kids info, you put in mother and father wages, and then you have three options. More time with mom (I pay her about $2,000 a month), 50-50 (I pay her $320), or more time with dad (She would pay me $900). If one parent makes more than the other the state makes them pay a little so that the kids don't have ramen at moms house and lobster at dads basically. Either one of us would be fucked if it wasn't 50-50 by the way, as 2k is half my monlthy income, and $900 is almost half hers, it's crazy how much the state decree's must be given.
As for why I pay child support under the table- it was to help her out, so that she wouldn't have to claim the income. That being said, when I go to court I would say "Well, we originally weren't going to do child support, I was just going to cover the costs of most things, but it was hard to manage, and she felt it was unfair, so after a couple of weeks and talking we decide to do it after all. We did it all according to the law, so we didn't think we need to waste the courts time with it as long as we weren't having problems. We still haven't had problems, but looking into it more, it seems like we should get it all on the books in everyone's best interest, which is why we are here today." or something to that effect. I obviously wouldn't mention anything untoward.
And BrotherWu, that's been my experience with Lawyers as well. When I had my whole giant stupid car thing I saw two lawyers, the first walked me through everything, referred me to the second, and didn't charge. The second sat down, told me all the ways it could play out, recommended that I not purse legal action as it would just cost me a bunch of money I would never get back, but made it clear if I wanted to, he would take the case and win (win nothing, but still). He also didn't charge me, and wished me luck. So yeah, I have no issue with talking to a lawyer from that perspective, the reason I didn't the first time is because A.) I didn't want her to get a lawyer and for everything to get mean, and B.) I knew a lot of the stuff we were doing was very shakey and a lawyer would say no way. Again, my belief that everything will work out ok won over. Which again, so far it has, but plan for the worst like Jx3 said.
