So angry I don't even remember what I said
Haven't been on here for ages, mainly because I have a toddler now and just get on with it, but wow - today, I just freaking lost it. SS16 and SS13 are constantly at each other - they just hate each other so much. Their relationship is pretty much why I decided I only wanted my BS and no more kids. They are miserable together and make everyone miserable around them because they are so passive aggressive towards each other. I can see they have picked this up from their BM and my DH's interactions, so yeah, reap what you sow, yadda yadda yadda, but my god, I can't wait til they age out.
We can't leave them in the house together because they fight and can't be trusted. We can't leave the toddler with them because they would destroy the house and each other, and likely forget the toddler was there.
They only do dishes as a chore, and it's just this constant b**lsh*t between them - one won't even put his plate in the dishwasher if the other is on dishes, they won't start the dishwasher if it's full because it's not "their job" that weekend. I just want to strangle them because the people that are really getting p*ssed off by all this is me and DH!
So there was just another incident and I lost it. Like I yelled so hard at them my throat hurts. Told them the only people they were hurting was us because of their petty horrible behaviour to each other, and I was just so over it. I don't know what DH thinks, he was sitting on the couch and has now (probably very smart) disappeared to do some work downstairs. I'm a bit horrified at myself but damn, I'm so over it.
It's also not helped that we've just found out that CS payments will go up $400 a month because BM is now claiming that she has zero income. She is married to an accountant, runs her own successful business and he's obviously cooking the books. Her Instagram feed shows a lot of international travel, trips away, shows and events that cost $$ so we know she's lieing, but if we report her to the tax dept we're likely to get investigated too and it has historically not gone well for men in our country with these type of investigations.
So DH is stressed and resenting the kids, I'm stressed and bloody can't stand having his kids. We have them most weekends due to the CO which has been in place since the skids were toddlers - so unsuitable now they are teens but she loves having her weekends so we are stuck with this til they age out.
I just wish the skids would grow some balls and tell their mother they don't want to come here - I'd pay the extra money not to have them here. Fuck having step kids, this is a nightmare. I'd leave if I could, but the housing market is insane here and I'll never get a place to live as a single mother. F*ck my life.
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Ahhhh!!
Wow woman. First of all give yourself a giant pat on the back! I'm sure it took every ounce of energy not to murder them! I'm sorry you feel this way. I know it sucks! But let them Duke it [out! Or better yet video their behavior and show them and their mother!
Hang tuff! You got this! Play their game!
Thank you! Just nice to be
Thank you! Just nice to be able to vent somewhere and have someone understand sometimes. The relationship with BM is hostile at worst, non communicative at best. There is no benefit to involving her unfortunately. But videoing them might be a good idea - might make them stop and laugh if they saw how ridiculous they sound.
That sucks about the CS. I,
That sucks about the CS. I don’t understand why BM’s income should affect what your DH pays her. What a crock of sh*t.
Why doesn’t he take her back to court to amend the CO though? Or, simply stop taking them every weekend? He doesn’t *have* to exercise visitation, and if the skids are this awful honestly I’d be pushing for him to either have the CO changed, or have visitation out of the house if he insists on every weekend. There’s no reason your & your DS’s sanity need to go to hell just because his kids are horrid people. Honestly, good on you for losing it, the person you should be losing it on though is your husband.
Yeah, I don't understand that
Yeah, I don't understand that. BM can just quit her job and he has to pick up the slack? Or is he doing it voluntarily?
If her business is showing
If her business is showing "no income" it's probably all done legally via tax laws in place. This is part of a larger tax problem. Why would people continue to run businesses (large and small) that have "no income". LOL, it's just not logical, but, legal due to the current laws.
ETA: It would be interesting to see how much she is paying her husband for accounting services though...
Even if it’s done legally I
Even if it’s done legally I don’t see why her ‘lack of income’ should affect CS. She has a responsibility to provide for her kids as well & all this does is encourage CP’s to milk the system.
Ahhh, let me take you through
Ahhh, let me take you through the joy and wonder that is CS in our country. We have been advised by DH's lawyer not to go back to court to get the CO amended as the lawyer said we would likely end up with less nights (hallelujah!) which would mean we would pay more (so DH isn't keen there.) If we don't have them, then BM could submit to our tax department that she has them X number of nights more per year - the CO and the court system is separate to the tax department, so it comes down a "he said / she said" scenario when you're logging the nights. And our CS is calculated on the number of nights - not the days we have them. So we have them from 3pm Friday through to 8pm Sunday, which is - you know - when all the extracurricular expensive stuff happens, but it's only calculated as two nights. We have tried to get their sports fees taken into consideration but the BM came back with "I don't think kids should have to do any extracurricular stuff, let them be free" which is total BS from her, she just didn't want DH to get a reduction in payment. The reviewer agreed with her, said that DH "chose" to put the skids into sports and he has to pay out of pocket.
The CS system here until 2016 was solely based on the father's income. The mother's income didn't even come into it. If you had the kids less than 40% of nights per year then you were seen as "non sharing" and you would have your full wages calculated as taxable. And this is calculated on your gross wages, not net. Of course we have them 39% of nights so we were seen as non sharing. Because it's through the tax department, you could rack up non payments and penalty payments really quickly. I think I heard that the outstanding CS payments for the country were around $2.7 billion, but the actual outstanding CS was only $617 million - so that's just over $2 billion in penalties. This is why guys commit suicide over this stuff - it destroys you.
As of 2016 they finally changed it so that it took the mother's income into consideration as well, and they reduced the percentage calculations down so that if you had the kids at least 24% of nights per year then you were seen as "shared care" which helped the payments. However about that time BM started her own company and hooked up with an accountant who is doing her books, and she reported her income as $60K, then 2017 she was down to $30K, now she's reporting $0K. I've looked into the number of fraud investigations that are successfully prosecuted in our country, and it's usually when the person is in arrears of over a couple of million. She's counting on the fact that it's small potatoes to the tax department. And if I report her, you know damn well she will report DH and me to the tax dept as well. My DH has been through this circus with the tax dept before - he lost his job at one point and was genuinely unemployed. BM was writing reports to the tax dept stating that he did it "on purpose" and we got a case reviewer that agreed with her so put his potential income at $180K. It was a nightmare.
So yeah, if you run your own business and you're unscrupulous and are just a money grabbing ho then it's totally scammable. Basically all I can hope for is a nasty dose of corona virus takes her out - but then we'd have the kids full time so that's not great either.
I wouldn't mind so much if the kids got the money, or we saw that she spent the money on them - but they have like one pair of shoes each and two pairs of socks. It's so depressing.