Divorce Support Forums: Role of a child in a divorce?

You should have ZERO role as you've been taking it. The role of a child in divorce is to stay away from the issues of the divorce, of the money, of the relationships. You love your Dad. You love your MOm. You spend as much time as you can with each of them, separately. Find things you like about each of tehm, separately, but other than that, you have no role. For them to have put you in ANY role is inexcuseable, especially as young as you were when they started this. It's going to take a long while for you to get away from doing this stuff, but you MUST. For your own good and thiers. The problems will continue until you get out. THEIR problems with each other probably will continue, but at least you won't be part of it.

THis is going to be a VERY LONG e-mail, maybe one you'll have to print out to read later... because it's going to take a long while for you to grasp it... becasue you've been living in the WRONG position for way too long. You've got a habit, a way of being that you don't even realize how wrong it is, and you're probably convinced that if you had NOT had this role, that things would have fallen apart, so it's going to take a long time for you to figure out and internalize that things went really wrong at the start of this adventure of divorce, and even though the answe ris as simple as "don't talk about it any more, don't think or worry about them any more"... it's going to take a whole lot more thinking through it for you to fully understnad what to do and why. And I cant' do all of it here for sure... you'll either have to re-read it or find a counselor who can help you ... starting with the premise that you need help in finding a way to stop worrying about the details of their budgets... so here goes:

You are way too involved in your parents' finances. You need to get out of it for your own good. BUT ALSO for your parents' good. Here's the thing. If you have been mediating and trying to cajole one to pay the other for this, that or the other thing, it comes off as a KID who is not responsible for CREATING the finances, wanting to tell the parents where to PUT those finances. And at your age (even the ripe old adult age of 19 with a few years of college behind you), you do not have the life experience to really understand what it costs to run a house, raise a family.

You are not their financial planner, and to try to be (for them to put you in this position where you feel like you must try to be) is absolutely wrong. They need to do it for themselves.

If you interfere/mediate less and leave them up to it more, then you migth find things get easier for you.

I want to give you a concrete example, and this is really hard for me ... my husband's ex is always saying she's poor. THe kids believe it. She earns twice the average, and on top of that, gets another $20,000 a year from us, mostly tax free. She gets $100,000 a year to live off of. She has made some really bad choices on what to do with that money, including frequently buying new cars, taking frequent long weekends (once or twice a month) as well as lavish longer vacations... and a few other things. She convinced the kids that state colleges were not good enough for them and they MUST go to colleges which were more expensive than the family could afford.

For the last 7 years of the marriage, she had been spending $2,000 per month more than they had been earning. It was a drop in the bucket so she didn't think anything of it... as they were earning more than $200,000 a year between them, so the extra $24K she was spending every year didn't seem like a lot to her, but over time, thier net worth ended up being nearly $200K less when they divorced than it was just 7 years earlier. Needless to say, they had ZERO savings for the kids' college.

There are reasons things ended up like this and I'll not try to explain it all here. That's just the situation.

Now, with them divorced, the obligations of alimony and child support are fixed by the court at something that's reasonable... and the court defines "reasonable" as being something that's within a pretty high budget for her, but she's required to stay WITHIN that budget. She does not get to demand extra when she pays for a new car and leaves the kids' dues for thier sports to get behind. We SPECIFICALLY put their sports dues into the child support formula so she would have to stop telling the kids that we did not support thier sports. She got the extra money and put it into a car rather than their sports and is STILL telling them that we don't support them. It's sad.

The oldest is now going to a college that he applied to behind hsi father's back, that his father told him NOT to apply to because he had no reason to go other than that it was far away from home... and that costs $40,000 per year. THe kid is furious at his father for not shouldering any part of the costs. Yet he never sees fit to ask his Dad to go to any parent days, visit him at school, meet the roommates... he never shares his grade reports or tells us of any extracurriculars or interests. He had to repeat at least one required course because he did so poorly in it and we had to find this out through the grapevine. He comes to us demanding money, then chooses not to work the work-study job they'd offered him that wouldu have paid him $2000 for the year. He refuses to visit his Dad during his school breaks when he's in town, saying always that he has to work... in a very snide, resentful way like if it weren't for his father refusing to pay for his excessively priced school's tuition, he'd have plenty of time to visit his father. Last weekend, Saturday night, he was at a ball game with us... we invited him to dinner afterwards. He declined, saying he had to go home, clean up, and look for a summer job (for one month, he has to go back to school in June... no explanation of why he has to go back... but we're pretty sure he's in summer school repeating classes again). Yep, at 6 pm on a Saturday night he was going to go home, take a shower, and start a job search.

Look, if the kid wanted to make points and still be able to go otu with his pals on a Saturday nigth rather than his Dad... the way to do it would be to say, "gee Dad, it's Saturday night, I've got friends getting together"... but no, the kid had to lie... he had to look for a way to rub it in that Dad is no longer supporting him. He's 20 years old and has been living with this resentment for 3 years. He's FURIOUS.

And this summer, for all that he was working so hard to tell us how much he had to work rather than have fun as he felt he was entitled to... he got angry at us again for not handing him $10,000 for his summer vacation. He had planned to spend the summer in Europe with pals. He figured that since we wouldn't pay for his tuition at the school he applied to in defiance of his father's orders (and in defiance of his father's instruactions about what the budget for school needed to be)... that maybe Dad would hand him cash so he could go to have fun in Europe over the summer.

THIS is what happens when a kid feels like they have the right to get involved in thier parent's money matters. The wallets close up & the kid gets resentful.

I can tell you if this child were to share his life with us, spend time with us OTHER than when he felt a gift was at the end of it (he ditched us for Christams the past 2 years... the first year we had a pile of gifts for him, but because we wanted it to be a surprise that he was getting the expensive electronic toy .... why a college kid needed a video Ipod, I'll never know, but that's hwat he wanted... not a laptop, ... not a computer program... not some thing to help in school... he wanted a video Ipod that year... anyways, we got it for him as a peace offering... and he didn't show up to get it. The deadline for returning it without penalty to the store arrived and I had to take it back. For his spring break, the younger kids told him how his gifts were still wrapped at our house in a little pile near the fireplace... even the gifts "they" had gotten for them ... with money we gave them to use for the purpose... were still there. THEN he finally showed up. Ate, took the gifts, looked disappointed that the Ipod was not there, and left. he's not been back since then).

Now, on to the younger ones. They get to go on these long weekends with their mther to disney or wherever she decides. She puts them in tournaments & contests & pageants... is the perfect stage mother & sports mother, but ... well, a little rabid about it.

They come to us to pay their fees for entry to the contests, for travel to them... thier regular dues to thier regular sports clubs. THey dont' get it that we can't afford this. That they couldn't afford it when the parents were married, either. That what they're wanting now is MORE than what they got before the divorce and the money for it doesn't just grow on trees. They heard that we were saving for THIER college expenses... we've got all of $2000 saved so far in the past 2 years because we keep giving extras to them, there's a new request for another $1000, $500, or $795 every other week... We simply can't afford all this. We have a mortgage, utility payments, and we pay thier mother $1500 a month, which she spends on things that make them think we're being stingy... that we're boring ... she finds ways to get them booked for special events on every time they're supposed to spend with their father, and it's kind of pathetic. He gets time with them only if he agrees to pay for something and drive them to & from it. If he doesn't pay, she'll do it and she'll allow them to ditch the rest of the weekend with him.

She bought them a car (with money she stole from his accounts) and tells them that they can't drive it if they're at thier father's house. If they find a way to convince him to let them stay with her, however, they can spend the weekend driving it wherever they want, whenever they want. They are unsupervised when they are at her house and she feels it's perfectly appropriate to punish them for wanting to see him by not letting him drive the car (THAT HE PAID FOR) that she told them she bought for them for her purposes.

He refuses to give them the details of what really wrong things thier mother has done, so they only get her side of the story. THey spend lots of time with him... basically, whatever free time they have after thier social lives... but unfortunately between their sports and social lives, they don't have a lot of free time. Thier mother is not one to help them figure out how to spend their free time unless it's to book another special event, party, tournament... so at least we have THAT with them.

The high school junior is getting Cs (often failing but bringing the grades up by the end of the semesters by finally doing the homework.) and the freshman is finding that high school grades aren't as easy to come by as her grade school straight A record.

When they found out that we had a few thousand saved up for their college, they told their mother. She told them to come ask us to take it out so they could apply to this tournamen & that one. They were convinced that if we took a thousand each & spend it on them NOW, that they'd get scholarships from it that would increase the value of the $1000 that we'd saved.

They have not looked into the availablilty of full scholarships for the sports they're interstsed in. They dont' get it that the price of school AFTER SCHOLARSHIPS at the schools they're considering will be higher than the price of going to school without scholarships at a nearby state college.

When she picks them up from their visits with us, she will shout out of the car as they're getting in, telling us what more money she wants for them, for various things she's arranged for them to do. She says if we "support" them in thier favorite activities, we'll hand over the cash. She also tells anyone who will listen that we're in arrears in thier support. That's not true. The child support agency does not count the direct payments that happened before they got involved and the jduge has already said that those payments count... but it's not listed on the amounts that came through the child support agency because those checks went directly to her in court and in attorney's offices rather than into the child support agency's account books. So she looks at that and tells everyone that we're in arrears. Not true, we're a few thousand ahead based upon what the jduge says we owed and owe in the future... which does not count the extra thousands we hand over every time we turn around for all the extras that she says seh wants.

But she gets to do this in front of th ekids and then talk about it with them for the 20 minute drive home. It's all a very happy thing for her to be able to convince teh kids that thier father is stingy, while planning her next vacation to Disney... while driving them home in her brand new SUV.

THey dont' understand ... or they don't OCMPLETELY understnad because she doesn't explain finances to them in a reasonable way, she explains it in the skewed way that most advantages her... they don't get it that her choices to buy new cars, live in a million dollare home in an expensive neighborhood, to take them to double the number of contests & tournaments & pageants than their friends go to... that these choices are all the things that combine to make their finances bad... and thier father is not required, becasue he DIVORCED her, to make up for the bad budget decisions that she has made.

They do not understand that college is not a right, that it is something they have to think about, budget for, get loans and talk to their financing agents (Mom, Dad, grandparents and maybe school counselors and the banks) to be sure they GET financing. They dont' get it that they can't do what thier brother did... trash dad, treat him like a jerk, and expect him to be forced to pay for a school he doesn't approve of, anyways (we're talking $40,000+ per year for a school that's not well-known, that he has no real reason to attend other than that it's far away, and that he refuses to share with his father... that he's on academic probation for because his grades aren't athat good... becasue he's not partiularly interested in college, just interested in not working for another few years before he has to support himself...)

They dont' get it. They dont' understand budgeting. THey only understand thier mother's version... which is full of blame of their father for not providing enough... which was full of bad decisionmaking at the time of the marriage... which has resulted in thier older brother and father having such a strained relationship that he only shows up when he's got a hand out.

The complex decisions on how to afford a mortgage and utilities and food and gas and car payments and insurance, on top of child support and alimony and vet bills for the puppies... on top of taking vacations and paying sports dues and buying the long johns & cute ski jacket for the ski trip thier mother has arranged for them... on top of the trips to Hollister and Aero-something and American Eagle or Urban ... whatever... on top of the cellphone and picture sharing and XBox and summer camps ... THEY DON"T GET IT.

And neither do you. I know you're much more mature than our 20 year old. That is obvious from your intent ot deal with an engineering degree, graduate as soon as possible... even your handle on the finances of your own schooling. BUT... for you to feel any responsibility for your mother's support is ridiculous. She needs to support herself on her own two feet (and with whatever support your father gives her from the court order). She AND he need to stop returning to court to spend more money on trying to get more or less money going between them. AND if she can afford it, she needs to contribute to your education rather than allow you to contribute to her household bills.

In an intact, two-parent family... it's possible that you'd be expected to pay rent if you stayed home while going to college, and your responsibility would be to see if the rent you paid to them was more or less than what you'd pay if you lived on campus or with friends. Most intact families would only do that if they could not afford your school and could not afford to continue to feed you. The fact that your mother has spent $100,000 on returns to court suggests to me that she could find enough beans & mac & cheese to feed you, and probably has a bed for you to flop in... so why is she needing you to give her every cent you earn? You should be putting that towards your tuition if you're really a year & a half behind on that. Consider going to live with your father while you're in school rather than staying with her if paying your college bills is such a burden when you're in your mother's household.

Stop feeling responsible for keeping your mother's budget. It's not yours to keep. It's not yours to decide what to do with. If she chooses to spend it on a new car rather than your college tuition (as our oldest son's mother chooses), then you don't need to find a way to convince your father to give her more money... he will ONLY see this as you trying to get him to bail her out of her bad budget decisions, something he no longer has responsibiltiy for since he divorced her.

You have been doing this for far too long adn you know far too much about your parents' finances. A kid of an intact familyi would only know whether or not the parents had enough savings to afford thier school and whether they needed to get loans or scholarships to make ends meet for themselves. When I was growing up, I was told that I couldnt' go to a partiualr camp because my parents were saving that money for my college, and I resented it at the tme, but for the past 20 years, since I've been out of school and without any debt whatsoever because it was all paid for by their savings... Iv'e been very happy at THAT decision that they made.

It's a matter of choices. Your mother is making hers, your father is making his, and you need to make your own. Your own hoices should not include trying to force one parent to pay more to the other. They should not include paying your parents for stuff when your OWN stuff is not paid for yet. They should not include figuring out how to feed your younger siblings.

I know this will be hard because you've been doing it forever, but figure out how to get out from between them. I'll bet it costs MORE for them to deal with, becasue of your attempts to mediate the issues. The fact that the courts, in a decade of doing this, have never resolved the issue in the way you want, should speak for itself. Recognize that you've received an odd version of budgeting education... it may be more extensive in some areas, but lacking in the basics. You'll have to start from scratch and take your mother's and your father's opinions and budgets and issues OUT of it... so that you can figure out how you're going to make ends meet in your OWN household when your'e out of school in 3 years. You need to stop listening to and worrying about thier issues.

Do this. Stop listening to your mother's talkl about money unless it involves your tuition and rent. And if her plan for your tuition and rent involve ANYONE other than HER paying for it, then stop listening. She is not in charge of the bank loan or scholarship or any contribution (if any) by your Dad, so stop listening to her about what she WANTS all these other people to do or how she THINKS you can do something to GET all these other people to do it. JUST stop listening. Stop listening to her if she says she can't afford the mortgagte or eletric bill or whatever. Treat her like a roommate who didn't pay the bills after you gave them the money for it... and look for a new roommate.

Once you are out, you'll see... she'll maybe sell the house & find someplae smaller. Or she'll stop spending money on ... I dont' know, cigarettes or something... everyone has something they waste a few $$ on from tiem to time... WHATEVER she does, when you're out... you just watch. She will NOT end up on the street. SHe will NOT end up eating out of garbage cans. This is the stuff of movies and does not happen in her circumstances. Yes, there is always the possibility, but the facts are that if you let her do it on her own, she will... she'll solve the issue.

If you keep trying to solve it for her, all it does is help her remain in the wrong frame of mind.

Same with your dad. If you keep trying to convince him to do one thing or another... if you keep looking for ways to spend his money for him. If you keep trying to interfere in how he spends his budget, then he'll simply refuse. If there si not a court order and someone is trying to force him to send more money to the woman who has been complaining about not having enough... well, he will NOT send more to her under those circumstances. Have you ever heard the stying, "you catch more flies with honey"? That's what you have to do here. His decisions about his budget are voluntary. He will be more likely to spend any EXTRA money that he finds (and thats hard to find, takes a while, requires advance planning usually) on things he feels positive about. His EX is probably not one of those things.

Consider stopping the talk with him about how he needs to apy her more. Talk to him about anything other than that. After a WHOLE LOT fo time talking about other stuff, abotu how you're doing in school, about how you'd like to see what he does at work during the day, about how maybe he has a way to find a job you could help his compeny with during your summer break... then when you receive the bill for next semester's tuition and you can't afford it, you would be reasonable to explain it to him as being th ereason you're upset today... of coruse, you ahve to SEE him frequently in order for him to NOTICE that you're particularly upset on any given day... but if you get to the point where you're treating him like a dad rather than just a wallet... (where He FEELS like you're treating him like a Dad rather than just a wallet)... then it'll be a natural thing. IF THAT HAPPENS... watch. He might just have a good suggestion on how to pay your back bills. He might have a few bucks available to help you stave off the wolves.

If you save talking to him about school until the bill is an emergency and your whole topic of conversation of the moment is your financial situation, then of course he's going to think the only thing you ever want out of him regarding school is cash... and that's not a very good way to approach it.

Stay out of thier finances for a while. Dont' let them talk to you about it. Focus on your own needs (including moving, if your mother's "rent" needs are higher than maybe your best friend's would be)... and watch what happens. I'll bet it gets a whole lot better. You'll be surprised. Once you leave them to their own devices... it'll take a while, your mother will be frantic, may even panic, may even get nasty about it... so will your dad... maybe... but if you stick to your guns & stay out of it... you'll see... Mom will figure out how to stand on her own two feet. So will Dad. Both will manage thier own budgets and complain to someone ELSE other than you if they are upset at each other in regard to finances... and if you are not hearing the complaints, you'll see... the sky really is NOT falling in EITHER of their worlds. TRULY. THey'll get by without you organizing them for themselves and each other. REALLY.

I promise!

FOcus on your own finances and you'll figure them out. Just the way your parents will figure THEIRs out, you'll figure yours out. It migth not be as wonderful as graduating in 3 years... it migth not involve living for free at home like other kids might... it might involve having roommates or working part time or whatever... but you WILL figure it out.

You will. They will. I PROMISE!