How to deal with CS Arrears

I am a SM and have 2 SS's and 2 bios. All the kids are gone (adults) and now my ex has been caught with his CS arrears. The money has started to come in and it is causing a lot of stress.
For the bios entire lives, my husband and I paid to raise them, and my husband was also paying BM thousands (yes, no joke)....
Anyways, my BS is in some trouble, as he always is and my ex told him to "call your mother, I just paid x$ in child support to her"
I told my kids the following...
"you kids realise that the child support is from when you lived at home, and not "free" money right now.... Dad and I have already paid for your living expenses for the last 16 or so years, so this is debt that BIODAD owes. I told you I will help you out if I get the back payment, but this is exactly that, BACKPAYMENT. It really not any of his (BIODAD's) or anyone else's business where the backpayment money goes.... Just saying. I will do what i can to help if I can..... But having raised four kids, yes four, becuase dad (STEPDAD) was paying support to BIOMOM to help her and BIODAD wasn't never paying to help us, nothing was in balance. So we have debt to pay too."

I will for sure help them if I can, but in no way am I forking over the entire amounts when I can pay off debts that we accrued when the kids were home.
Am I wrong?

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This money belongs to YOU and

This money belongs to YOU and your husband, to reimburse you for monies owed when the kids were minors.

Tell your kid, and your XH, to eff off and then enjoy the money by doing whatever you want with it.

You might want to remove the

You might want to remove the real names for privacy. See FAQ for nicknames.

You are not wrong. Child support is for the parent to support the child. It is not meant to go straight to the child, even when it comes in years late.

Of course you can use CS how

Of course you can use CS how you want, esp given the children are adults. I'm sure you guys have debts from not getting child support or maybe didn't put as much toward retirement as you would otherwise because you were paying for the children without their dad's financial help. You are finally being paid back for his portion of raising the children, so no, it isn't for them now (unless you chose to give it to them).

IMO, no you are not wrong.

IMO, no you are not wrong. But you may want to edit your post and remove names. Privacy reasons and all that jazz.

Question. What kind of trouble has your BS gotten himself in? Legal or just financially needs a handout (or at least thinks he's owed a handout)?

If it's financial, he's an adult and no one , his bio-father, you or SF owes him. As an adult life is now on him.

He is one of those adult kids

He is one of those adult kids who think the world owes him, has been fired from a number of jobs and now is in legal trouble. He is always broke and feels sorry for himself. He has replied and is now mad at me... I did say I could help them if I got CS, but he seems to think all of it should go to them. He is just as manipulative as his biodad.

Doesn't always work out that

Doesn't always work out that way... you can raise 8 children the same way and end up with a bad egg anyway

oh I understood it as,

oh I understood it as, because the son asked and dad told him he just paid off mom... to ask her for the money... and that she said that to the kids in response, to kind of pre-emptively nip it in the bud

No, my daughter has also made

No, my daughter has also made comments about needing money, biodad made sure to tell his kids that they need to go see mom...

My brother was a total

My brother was a total asshole at age 12. It's not too young, sadly.

Some people are just born

Some people are just born rotten. You can try everything you can think of to turn them into decent human beings but at the end of the day if they are hell bent on never seeing their errors, there really is not much you can do.

He had influence from biodad,

He had influence from biodad, I said I didn't get support... Not that he didn't see his bio dad, and anyways I did the best I could...

I understand. I am so

I understand. I am so exhausted from the crap... You know? I thought after the kids left and we didn't have bm to deal with and all the other sh*t that things would calm down.. LOL partly my fault, I need a spine. You got one I can borrow?

Yes we did, and we did the

Yes we did, and we did the couselling, and the therapy and the years of trying to make things right. And he still thinks I should do everything for him and owe him the world... It breaks my heart to be honest.

Not to be a brat, but your

Not to be a brat, but your son sounds like an entitled snot. He's an adult, living outside of the home and calling you up like he is "owed" this money. Nope. And his father sounds like just as much of a brat.. probably where he gets it from?

I agree, he is acting

I agree, he is acting entitled. It's hard to watch. I don't help him anymore, he got a lot of help from us and we got nothing but crap back.

I would simply laugh and say

I would simply laugh and say ----

you are an adult, sort yourself out, my obligations stopped the day you turned 21. Sorry kiddo and for back pay regarding CS was to get your through school, food to eat, roof over your head and something to wear, which your SF paid even if it was not his responsibility.. stop being like your father, money does not grow on trees

Honestly, I never thought I

Honestly, I never thought I would see anything. And yes, I will keep my word. I regret saying that but I will for sure keep my word. Maybe in the form of a stock or bond... LOL

Quite frankly, you and your

Quite frankly, you and your EX should tell perpetually in a scrape son to man up and figure his own way out of his problems. Maybe if he actually has to suffer for his decisions, he will make better choices.

Re the back child support. That was to cover the cost of raising them as minors. You did that and this money is merely a repayment to YOU and your DH of money that was already spent.

Now, your EX can point out that you have a "new" pot of money and he has a hole in his wallet that resulted from the payment now.. but the source of all that is this backdated debt.

You do NOT owe your kids anything really. You probably should not have promised them as such either unless you did so under the premise that they were shortchanged on things as kids due to their father's non-payment and if you got the money, you would share it with them.