Divorce Support Forums: All SM settlement

There's tons of landmines there. Although spousal maintenance looks great because it's deductible and child support is not, you end up basically not deducting the children at all and if she wants to go back EVER and say you've not paid any child support, then they'll order you to pay it on top of the spousal maintenance which is what you thought was going to be combined & was supposed to take care of both.

My husband's ex tried to get him to agree to something like that (though her numbers for the total support were going to be outrageous, like it would have doubled her own $80K a year salary and he'd end up with a tiny little bit to live off of, so he didn't agree to it). He met me & we talked about it & I suggested he talk to his lawyer & find out what she said, and his lawyer was pretty appalled (at the amount), but also mentioned this other stuff about it not being final when you say "no child support".

THEN one day the ex decided that since he'd been paying his entire salary to her for the first 6 months fo thier divorce but doing it voluntarily and with no court order to support his children, that this meant that there was NO child supprot being paid. She went to court with the kids and had them helping her photocopy papers, talking to the people in the lobby about how he was a deadbeat and not giving any child support at all. Those poor kids... their dad had given his entire after-tax salary to thier mother for them all to live off of (on top of her own salary, they were not hurting in any way)... and they were being told that he didn't love them and was a deadbeat. It was pure evil.

Now, later on, they got an evaluation by a therapist & a diagnosis that she does have a mental problem. So seh was ripe for doing evil stuff like that in order to get back at him, even though it meant using the kids and hurting them in the process... it's all about her, basically...

But my point is:
Doing stuff outside of the ordinary like this can leave you open to all kinds of weird interpretations and problems... Stuff that lawyers worked out 30 years ago and so that's why they don't do it that way any more... to prevent these weird interpretations and problems.

Have you ever filed papers in any beaurocracy OUTSIDE of the normal course of business? Your taxes, your car registration? Have you ever tried to buy or sell a house using paperwork that is not standard in your own realtor's or title company office? EVERY TIME it gets messed up, you have to chase down things, etc. I did that last year and found myself chasing down $156,000 that was supposed to be deposited directly into my account immediately, but took a week to get there. You better believe that we followed up & heads were rolling and I got paid for the interest lost during that week, because I KNEW my papers were filed properly... just the lower level clerks passing them along from desk to desk to get the job done did not recognize my papers so every one of them took an extra day to do their jobs, asking their own bosses and me having to start knocking some heads around before it got moving!

Just my own little version of an example that even if it's something you agree to, and even if it's legal to do it that way, that doesn't mean it'll get done properly.

Oh, another example that's maybe more helpful to you. A friend in a support group just got custody of his kids 6 months ago. Ex is supposed to pay support. They filed all the papers & it's supposed to come directly through her work. However, because his name is MALE, some lower level clerk at the child support office got all confused and sent the support back to her rather than on to him. It took a while to straighten it out, and NOW he's getting the support he was supposed to get 6 months ago...

What you're asking to do is not standard, is subject to being reviewed because it says "no child support", which is almost never legal, and likely to result in problems in the future.

Your children deserve to know that you are supporting them, officially. It's worth working out all the numbers so that your child support is whatever your state's formula says it is. The rest of the numbers can work around it so that she ends up with the same AMOUNTS as you and she had agreed to, but with some of it designated as SUPPORT, you will never have the problem of ANYONE ever saying that you never supported your kids... you won't have the worry that she'll wnat to run back to court and demand support on top of the spousal maintenance, and you won't have the problem of having to explain and HOPE that someone agrees with you, that this unusual arrangement you've proposed is a good one.

Let us know what your laweyr says, though.