SD whines for money and DH whines about the drive to get it to her, but not anymore. He gets paid to PayPal and has a PayPal debit card now. At some point he deposits what he's accumulated into our bank account to help pay the bills. Lately SD has been working with DH. So she then claims she can pay him back. When she works with him he gets the money for both their hours and then he pays her out of it. 

I have 5 children of mine and 4 step children. All 5 of mine are now adults although typically one of them at a time may move back in to our house to get "back on their feet" from time to time. My current and 2nd wife of 4 years has 4 children. Two of those are teenagers and living with us. My wife always has an excuse not to get a job. She hasn't worked in several years (before we married). She is always citing it is because she needs to be there for her teens.

Is there a way I can find out what my son's mother is using my child support payments for? She doesn't work. She's gets about $500 in food stamps a month, she lives with her parents and doesn't pay rent. Her husband is currently in Federal Prison, and about $140,000 was released to her when he was first incarcerated. Plus, I pay her about $600 in child support every month and our son is on my insurance so he gets free healthcare.

As taxes season approaches I'm just curious to know what some of your arrangements are regarding claiming dependents. DH CO states that he claims all 4 kids during the odd years and BM gets even years. This is his year, yay we will get a decent refund! It never fails that BM pokes her nose in our business and starts attempting to dictate what DH should do with the refund money. Also between Feb. and Apr. we are hit with a flood of requests from the skids to buy them things. I know BM sends them our way because she knows we get a return during odd years.

For those interested, the big Disney trip went well. The skids took excellent care of the homestead while we were away and several friends checked in on them for good measure. They seemed to enjoy the peace and quiet away from all of their noisy younger siblings (both our bios and their half sister from their BM). We enjoyed some quality time with our littles (even if they did spend a lot of time fighting with each other and complaining about being tired).

Do you ever feel like a yo-yo? I do. The skids get on my nerves and just thinking about them coming over stresses me out. Then something happens – some event or solitary moment – and I get the warm fuzzies for them…for like a hot second. Then *poof* it’s gone again and I’m back to boiling over with annoyance.

What have some of you done to fight child maintenance when you've not agreed with it ?

We have ss more than 174 nights which categorised us in the 4th column of paying less than 100 and I could say we have him 50/50.However maintenance have to validate it to the other bio parent. Which they are denying and even lied to get it to increase.

Salary is also taken in consideration but you know when you're paying too much.

BOTH skids made homecoming court. SS16 is going to be a junior representative.

FML.

And now DH is p*ssed at ME for being p*ssed at the situation. He is asking for counseling. He said 'I refuse to do to the littles what I did with the bigs. Take that as a threat if you want but I REFUSE.' Meaning - he refuses to lose time with the little boys by being separated from them via divorce. 

DH can't understand why I harbor resentment toward the skids. "You've known them since they were little! I don't understand how you cannot be attached to them! It doesn't make sense!"

Back in the day when DH and I first got married, he was paying BM in cash for everything. The bookkeeper in me put a stop to that and everything has been done with checks ever since for tracking purposes. Another thing I put a stop to? Handing over a wad of cash for school clothes every season. Instead of BM demanding a certain dollar amount, we started taking the kids shopping ourselves so that we could have more control over how our money was spent – plus it was nice to be able to help the kids pick stuff out and know what came from us.

DH switched jobs. Pay weeks are now opposite what they used to be and it’s really f*cking up my budget plan. Like, I literally have the shakes after trying to rearrange my budget spreadsheet so we can pay everything on time and not end up in the red week after week. We’re budgeted to the hilt and our credit cards are almost maxed. But I digress… In an effort to avoid blowups, I warned BM that we might have to double up on CS payments one week – meaning one payment would be a week late.