Rebuilding Rob

It turns out that Kanye West was wrong after all. At least, in the case of Kid 1.

Last weekend, not this past weekend but the weekend prior, I get a phone call from X1. Instead of the usual “hey Rob, how’s it going?“ Or hey, I got this letter in the mail, what’s going on?“ it stated like this:

X1: so, we were just going to not tell me that you were stopping child support payments? 

Rob: what are you talking about?

X1:   I got this letter from the court that said that you filed to stop child support payments. 

Rob:  I did nothing of the sort. In fact, I was getting ready to send you down this month payment for [Kid 1’s] graduation present.

X1: well, I want you to know that if you’re not paying child support anymore, that’s going to affect my finances greatly. 

Rob: [X1,] even if I wanted to, and I don’t, I don’t think I could just tell the court that I’m gonna stop paying my child support. 

X1: okay. 

Rob: If something got filed on my behalf, if somebody was claiming that they are me and they filed it, I want to know what’s going on as much as you do.

X1:  Okay. 

Rob: Can you send me a copy of that letter? Like scan it, or even just take a picture of it and send it to me in a text message? Because I haven’t gotten anything like that yet.

X1: Sure. 

I didn’t hear anything else from her regarding the letter. I never got a scan or even a picture of it. But about a week later, I received a copy of the letter myself from the South Carolina clerk of the court.

I read over the letter myself and immediately called their offices. Before I explain, let me go back in time a little bit.

When X1 and I first divorced about 12 years ago, I was under-employed when I moved back to Michigan. I was making child support payments as soon as I was working again, but not before falling behind. Once I started working consistently full-time, I made an arrangement of the court that I would pay an extra 20% on top of my regular child support payments in order to make up for the, missing payments.

Fast forward, 12 years later and the state never dropped those additional fees for me. In fact, the letter in question explains it. I had worked up a balance of several thousand dollars with the court. Because there was extra money sitting there, presumably in the state’s bank account, the state decided to stop pulling child support payments from my paychecks and pay out what’s remaining until Kid 1 turns 18.

This is good news. This is one time that I actually did something good in advance, and it paid off. Keep in mind, I never intended to work up a credit with the court. In fact, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was still making child support payments after kid 1’s 18th birthday. It turns out that I was wrong. I underestimated how much I was actually paying and for once it turned out in my favor.

Let me be clear, this is not to say that I am not going to continue to help my 17 1/2 year-old son out with money. I will always be here for him and continue to provide for him whenever I can and whenever he needs it. In fact, I told both him and X1 as much.

But there’s something different, at least in principle , about directly giving money to my near-legally- adult age son; as opposed to having it automatically deducted from my paycheck and going to his mother.

What really set me off was the entire tone of that conversation. As I mentioned above, X1 didn’t even ask me if I knew what was going on. She immediately assumed the worst case scenario, one in which I somehow defiantly told the state of South Carolina that I was immediately ceasing child support payments. The truth is, this type of “panic, assume the worst possible case scenario, throw as much blame as possible, and never, ever apologize when I’m wrong” approach is nothing new for X1.

What’s so hurtful about is the fact that I really thought things were different between one and I. For the first time in a very long time, maybe ever. I wrote about Kid 2 and I traveling out to Illinois to do a college tour with Kid 1 and X1. I didn’t have to offer to put X1 up in the hotel room for the night. I knew that her and Kid 1 had been on the road trip camping for over a week already. I was trying to be considerate about it. I was happy to let her stay at the hotel room with me and the boys. I paid for lunch and dinner for all of us, including her. And I even ended up picking up the “pet fees“ for bringing their dog to the hotel. And I didn’t complain about it. It didn’t bother me. I was happy to do it. Again, because I thought X1 and I were at a different place in our post-divorce lives. I thought that we were civil to each other; even borderline friendly.

There is a positively worn out cliché, one that I absolutely despise, but it is very appropriate here: it is what it is

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

• Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
• Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
• The Muscle of Empathy
• Where Do We Go From Here? Five Years Since January 6.
• Bugs, Boundaries, and the Art of Not Being Invisible

The article “17 1/2 years “first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.