Dear former spouse and mother of our children, please take your jackboot off my neck.

My daughter is 20. The child support was completely paid off on July 2021. Due to a “system error” a $1.39 balance was left on my account for another year, despite two agents telling me they would wipe the remaining balance and CLOSE THE ACCOUNT.

They did not close the account. Today, March 2023, the account still shows as ACTIVE and appears on my credit report. Do you know what they call people with Attorney General Child Support accounts on their credit report? A deadbeat dad.

How My Wife Weaponized Our Agreement

“Let’s just go back to the decree,” she would say when I was asking for a variance in dates or such. When she asked to change our weekend schedule to allow her and her boyfriend to have an easier go of it. “Sure.” I’m a different beast. I have empathy and compassion for my ex, even when she’s being an angry-ex.

So, today, I’m still dealing with the fallout of her sending our “decree” to the AG’s Office for ENFORCEMENT. When was there ever a question of enforcement? My employer lost a huge client and told us we were going to get paid late. I told my ex-wife exactly what was going on. She was NEVER in doubt of getting 100% of the money we both agreed to. How can you throw a cooperative co-parent to the collections agency that is the AG’s office?

Well, the only reason to take this action is to hurt your co-parent. My wife, I repeat, was never at risk for not getting the money. I was not fleeing my responsibilities or my absolute attention to our kids. I was, actually, going over and above with my efforts to remain connected to both of my children. Why, why, why, would you knowingly and actively harm your co-parent? Don’t you understand that hurting me is hurting our kids by proximity?

Obviously, she does not understand this. Nor does she care how this egregious action hurt me or our kids. Nope. She’s distanced herself as far as possible from the events of our “cooperative” divorce that she renigged on. She’s gotten remarried. Good luck with that. She’s changed her name. Great. And now she rarely speaks to me. Also great. Unfortunate, but great.

All Those Aggressions Add Up

So, she filed on me, crushed my credit, and caused my house refinance with Wells Fargo to fail. (See: Fall of the House of Dad) And, of course, we moved on from there. I had no other options. But as our time as parents continued, she became less and less willing to discuss any kid stuff with me. She rarely returned my phone calls. And when I did text her, all hell would break loose. And effectively she was letting me know our co-parenting relationship was dead and she would go ahead with whatever she wanted to do from here on out. So that’s how it went down, say in the first 4 years of my divorce.

When we would see each other in person, at a school or sporting event, she was a sweet as if we were still on speaking terms. She put on a grand facade. It was often a very important part of her persona. “What are we going to tell everyone about XXX.” Didn’t matter what the event was, she was hyper-concerned about the appearances.

Twice during the next several years, she said she would be willing to readjust the child support payment, based on my current employment level. I was no longer a Dell executive. She seemed to have compassion. She seemed willing to make adjustments. So I schedule the appointment, in person, with the AG’s office and guess who didn’t show up?

So, I’m 60 days out on getting a response on a request concerning the AG’s office. And this was the typical smoke screen she always offered when I was asking her for a response. So, on the day she didn’t come to our appointment, even the Child Support Officer was surprised. “You should just ask for another appointment with me, and we can compel her to appear.” I started down that road, but then I got a high-paying job offer and we’re off to the races again. No need for a child support adjustment now. I let the matter drop.

While this was an email leading up to the missed AG appointment, her main point, repeated over and over for the next 8 years was, “Why should I trust you would share expenses and make your child support payments without the AG’s office?”

At a future time she said, “Everybody uses the AG’s office. It’s just like an accounting system. I doesn’t hurt you or your credit report.” I’d say that’s completely made up. Or perhaps, a “truism” from her new husband, the spectrumish new husband.

Today, I got an agreement from the AG’s office to CLOSE MY FKN CHILD SUPPORT ACCOUNT.

Update a week later: I just got a $189.43 check from the AG’s office. Did I over pay? Where they keeping my account open because it had a balance? Only forcing the close forced them to settle up and send me the money. So, the entire year and a half of waiting for them to resolve the $3 still owed due to their accounting error… Yeah, fkd up.

I’m sorry for this rant, but it’s ridiculous the lengths the mother of my children and her doting spouse do to continue blowing me off and hoping it will blow me up.

Bad Parents Lose

Neither parent should weaponize the divorce against the other. No parent should throw the other spouse to the AG’s office for collections as a deadbeat dad unless there are REAL reasons to do so. So many of the actions of my ex-wife have been designed to hurt me. She continues throwing Molotov cocktails into my relationship with my two children. She told one of them that I still owed her child support. TWO YEARS LATER. I am still trying to clean up that messy situation with my son. He believed his mom and her new man. He gets wildly defensive when I suggest perhaps his “not getting back to you for a week” was learned behavior from his mom.

Ho hum. No more attacks on his mom. But her non-responsiveness has been an issue since my kids were both teenagers. It’s no better. If I were to text her today, “911, we need to talk about xxxx.” I’m sure she’d eventually get around to responding. Thank god we’ve only had a few family emergencies and none in recent years.

She cannot escape her own treachery. She can change her last name, delete connections and photos from her LinkedIn and Facebook accounts. She can try and throw shade into my relationship with our kids, but it’s not going to work. She knows it. She knows the historical bones of this entire co-parenting fiasco has been due to her unwillingness to include me in 95% of all parenting discussions over the last 8 years.

You can see the anguish in people’s eyes who are not living their authentic lives. You can’t hide from your bad actions. You can’t blow smoke up your adult kids ass forever. One has gotten out and reconnected with me in a big way. (It just took the escape from their mother’s house.) But she still has access to their bank accounts. She still gripes at them for expenses.

No Win Between Angry Exes

A few months ago, my son’s car was hit while parked overnight. I texted my ex that I’d be happy to pay half the deductible to get his car fixed while he was in town for spring break. She said it was appreciated. A few weeks later, talking to my son, he said the husband doesn’t want to put the accident on insurance. Now, two months later, my son’s car (formerly a source of pride for him) is still wrecked.

As our kids grow up, our past transgressions and lies will come back to haunt us. I don’t think I’ve lied to them, other than the agreed-upon lie (giving my wife the all-important cover) that the divorce was a mutual decision. It was not.

Namasté,

John McElhenney – life coach austin texas
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Additional articles:

• Pay Attention: When Your Partner Says They Are Not Happy
• MNDFL + MFKR (You can be either, better to be both)
• The Art of Indifference After Divorce: Letting Go With Intention