Need Advice for a Friend in Need.

As a mother of a combined family, my husbands ex sometimes tries to intervene. However, my husband and myself have set down and set rules for our household. When his daughter is here, she also has to abide by those rules. Somehow your friend and her husband have to make his children understand that their home has different rules and that the children have to abide by those rules while in the home. It's not for the ex to decide how she runs her home. As long as her and her husband are in agreement on those rules, and together they inforce those rules, backing each other up. As for his children, he accepted them as his own and now pays child support, and should continue to do so. It's the right thing to do. Not wanting to sound mean but, If he had questions requarding the paternity of the children he should have addressed that when they were born. Your friend needs to accept these children as his and treat them as if they were her own. I too was a stepchild but never raised as such. My parents had children, not stepchildren. And I raise my husbands son as one of my own, not a stepchild. And when his daughter is here, she is also treated no differently. Let the ex say and do whatever she wants, don't play into it. Ignore what she says and only deal with the children. He has rights to his children as defined by the courts. That is what he needs to be concerned with. If the ex does not want to honor those rights (i.e. using the kids as pawns) then the problem could end up being hers(in the eyes of the courts). If she continues to "bad mouth" him, especially in front of his kids, she will pay for it in the end. Her children will, when they become old enough, resent her for what she says. And it will be her own fault. She is just blowing smoke to people that may know each of them, and those people will eventually tire of it. She will end up a sad lonely person, and will have no one to blame it on except herself. Just advise your friend to be the best mother she can be to all of the children, and she and her husband need not worry about anything except the children. The stress in the marriage will be alot less, therefore already on the road to saving it.

I'm not certain about this but I believe if the husband went down to the child support office and told them that he is not certain whether the children are his or not they I think will have him take a paternity test to make sure the kids are his. If it comes to be that he isn't he might be entitled for reimburstment for all the money he has paid for basically nothing. It's worth a shot.

Tell your friend to get a paternaty test done on the kids. It is simply to do all they have to do is swab the kids mouth and check the mother and fathers mouth. It is a DNA test. It will tell if her husband is the father of all of the children or not and if he is not then he will not have to pay child support for the children and can collect it back from the mother of the children, wouldn't that be nice???? He can actually take her to court and sue her for all of the child support he has given her and get it all paid back to him for the children he has paid for that isn't his.

The law now a days does not look too lightly on a woman that has deceived her husband... They would hang the woman for lying to him all of these years and for cheating on him while they were married. He may even get custody of the child that is his if one of them are his. He ought to go for it...

Hello Tracy, I have worked for a Court Trustee for some time now. Your husband can request the test needed to prove if he is indeed the father. Please keep in mind, that some states will require a fee for the process and it can be very costly. In Kansas it cost as much as $700.00 per test. However, if the child in question turns out to be NOT his the ex will be responsible for the cost of the test. Try contacting the Court Trustee in your area, they are willing to help with, if nothing else advise on the best route to go. I will keep you in my prayers.

Needless to say, at this point in his life, and paying child support for so long, the courts will not relieve him of his child support duties as he as "accepted" these children as his. Even if paternity is proven that they are not his children, he has already accepted them as such.

I have been married for 18 years to a wonderful man. He had 2 very small children when we got married and I completely understand the hardship of high child support payments and a ruthless ex-wife. The kids are now 22 and 24 and child support is an issue of the past, but it was a very difficult 18 years to say the least (our child support stopped when his 22 year became 22 and graduated from college).

The only advice that I can give (from my past experience) is to make sure that she has a rock hard attorney that mainly represents men of divorce. Know the divorce decree like the back of your hand and make the ex wife stick by that decree. Needless to say, when a divorce occurs and the man doesn't have a good attorney to start with, the ex's attorney will take him for what he can. So, many times, the man is stuck with what occured at the time of the divorce. We would have taken her back to court, when we became more educated, but I'm sure, your friend, like us, just didn't have the means to bring up a court hearing.

Hello T.,

Your friend has inherited quite a situation with a lot of different issues that each need to be handled separately.

First, to preserve her relationship with the love of her life, she needs to allow him to vent his frustrations without necessarily buying into his frustration. Be a sounding board but don't absorb the hype.

For instance; he seems angry about having to provide monetary support for the children and now feels that he should segregate the children that are potentially not his for his own convenience, but that is not necessarily in the best interest of the children. It is mean spirited but he has to be able to vent his frustrations somewhere.

A truly supportive mate would not help a grown-up withhold love or support for children in need. Do it because it is the right thing to do.
Hear him, but don't allow yourself to be drawn-up into the drama.

Secondly, she must have a conversation with her mate about not getting any cooperation from the children on her turf.
It must be the couple as a United Front laying down the rules of the house. If the children can't abide by the house rules in civil behavior, then they should not be allowed to visit until they are capable of being civil.

This couple also needs to learn to give up wanting accolades for providing financial support. Give ungrudgingly or don't give all. You know and God knows what you Give to those children and that should be sufficient. They are both gifting the Ex-Spouse with power to disrupt their home. You are both giving too much time and energy to caring what she says or what she thinks.

Whenever people have children, whether it is one, two or ten there are going to be struggles. This couple seems to be spending way too much time feeling sorry for themselves, rather than trying to up the ante on their personal financial portfolio.

My parents had 5 children and my father laughingly reminds us that for the first 10 years of their teenage marriage that he didn't get one stitch of new clothes. Instead he bought clothes and shoes for his children (me included). But he gets the last laugh because they went on to do well in life as a couple and have been married for 50 years and now jokingly state that they are spending their children's inheritance....I think it is called equalization.

Of course they could have absorbed all manners of drama, cried the blues each day and wallowed in misery about their struggles, but they didn't...they improved their lot in life.

My humble advice is to quit giving the Ex- power to destroy your marriage and don't punish the children for the behavior of Grown-ups mired in Drama.

Sincerely,
Angie (Married 30 years and counting!)