***VERY LONG****What’s fair? What’s overboard? What can we do? Help!

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DH got divorced 5 years ago after he caught HCBM cheating. At the time they signed an agreement and had it notarized. He was dumb. He gave her everything and said he would pay child support along with all out of pocket expenses because she was a SAHM snd didn't have any income. This went bad real fast! She signed the kids up for everything under the sun, all sort of expensive extra curriculars and camps and out of pocket therapy! He started struggling (he makes good money but just couldn't keep up) this along with starting over from scratch, buying a house,and her claiming both kids in taxes which left him paying thousands he was just going into debt. When we met he was in the process of trying to work with her to get things changed. (This was 3 years ago) she would not budge. He said ok then I'm going to only pay for things I agree to going forward. Then of course the kids needed speech therapy, braces, all sorts of stuff which of course they need but again, thousands of dollars and the extra curriculars on top of this was obnoxious! Finally he had her served a year ago because nothing was working and we are in a court battle bad! She got served then did the typical things these crazy women do and started to say DH is abusivr all of a sudden. She withheld them. She kept taking them to things and DH said "look I just can't afford that right now" we had to sell an income property to get out of debt and she just will not stop!!! Now she's saying he still owes her for braces. She didn't ask for reimbursement for a year for speech therapy and now she's demanding thousands and thousands of dollars on top of over 2K a month in child support, she makes pretty good money. The attorneys are like "pay what you can" but it just never stops with her. Now we still are required to pay 100's a month on speech (he needs it, of course we wouldn't deny him) and braces and summer camp SS has always attended and travel sports, more and more and more!! DH said he would cover the baseball and cover the speech but he told her he couldn't do braces at the time and she went and did it anyway! We wanted him to have braces but we are drowning!!! Not to mention the 40K on attorney fees we have already paid and we haven't even been to court yet! (We did have at temp hearing for her withholding and he got them back because of course there's no abuse going on) so now she's on the war path telling him he needs to stick to the agreement when it comes to money. But, we just can't!!! That's why we are going to court. To get it readjusted since she's in a much better financial situation now snd abused the crap out of the agreement.

Sorry that was long but after all that....here's my question. Where do we go from here? DH of course wants his kids to have all these great experiences but the problem is that we put money aside for "extras"

such as a family trip or camps or what not. DH was expecting SS to do one week of camp as he always has. She signed him up for 3 weeks then said "okay 2 weeks...he wants to be a camp counselor so he needs 2 weeks" so either DH agrees and we have to put all that money towards camp and our money for a family trip is gone so the rest of the family loses out because SS wants to do 2 weeks or DH says no and SS misses out on this opportunity to be a counselor which he really wants to do.
It's scenarios like this all.the.time!
So, until we get to court what is "fair" could we say "look this is what I have, I can't go above this so the extra things for the kids need to stay within this budget or you have to cover the rest" or should we ask her to stay paying 1/2 or what??? We just can.not keep going like this. DH feels bad enough so I'm trying th hold myself together. He was naive and just did not expect things to get so out of hand. He gets it now. He wanted to make sure his kids had the things he didn't have growing up and knew she couldn't afford it so he said he would take care of it. He underestimated what that would truly look like and really screwed himself and has been doing everything he can to fix it. But, what should we do while waiting fir court?? She will not stop trying to spend every single dime he has.

What is currently court ordered?

What is currently court ordered? He does not have to pay anything more than that. A notarized agreement between the two of them is not enforcable by the court.

Look up the child support guidelines in your state, most of them have calculators on-line. Figure out what he will owe in child support and medical expenses and refuse to pay for anything other than that. Kids in intact families don't always get to do extra things that cost money, so there is no reason his kids should get to do things you can't afford just because their parents are divorced.

Your DH needs to start standing up for himself and he needs to quit paying for things that he can't afford.

He's not paying for things.

He's not paying for things. The issue is these things are in the agreement and we were told we should follow the agreement until court. Ugh!!! She took him to get braces when DH said we couldn't afford it at the time so Attorney’s are saying well what can you pay? Pay something. Then speech therapy. Are we supposed to say no?? He needs his therapy. But. It's $200 a month. It was only suppose to be 6 months. Then sports. Mom put him on travel ball. DH did not agree (she didn't discuss it with him) so this season of course SS wants to do it and he loves it so then she said "ok I'm asking...do you agree?" Are we supppse to tell him no? She lied on court and told the judge DH didn't take them to sports. He did and he even coached so now he's court ordered to take them. It's a nightmare that we can't seem to get out of. He does stand up for himself and he's not paying for things but she finds a way to make him look bad if he doesn't.

DH is only required to pay 50

DH is only required to pay 50%. Also if you are in the US then look into applying for medicaid waiver services for his autistic son. This qualifies him for medicaid to pay for services such as speech and anything else he might need.

As someone suggested, look up

As someone suggested, look up the child support guidelines and pay that. Typically if she makes as much as he does, she would pay half of extra-curriculars and medical costs like braces and speech therapy. Calculate it based on income and pay his pro-rated share of that. The worst that can happen is that the judge orders some arrears to cover what he didn't pay under the agreement, but that can't be worse than what's happening here.

Also, he needs to block BM and insist on email or Our Family Wizard. Ignore everything other than what he has to reply to. And always double check her claims - call the camp and find out if it's true that a) he wants to be a counselor, and b) that requires him going for 2 weeks.

He can decide what he's willing to pay half of and stick with that. Nowadays, braces, extra medical like speech therapy, camp and travel sports is pretty much par for the course for most kids, so I don't think that's too much - but he should only pay half. And he should get the information from the dentist and speech therapist to be sure both are medically necessary.

I would be wary of taking any vacations though, while he's claiming he can't pay for things. It's unfair, but the "optics" of that won't look good, and you can be sure BM will find out and use it against him.

I understand about the

I understand about the vacation but we budget. This is our budget for "extras" we budgeted one week or camp and a small trip. That's all we have to go towards that. If we pay for more than one camp than we can't do the trip. She probably doesn't make as much as him but she hasbf asked for reimbursement for some things for over a year. Clearly she can afford it. Why is she now saying "you need to reimburse me in full for all of this"

par for the course for most kids? Maybe! But $2000 for one season of travel all is obnoxious! That's only thd tuition. 2000 for summer camp? For ONE kid when we have four kids to think about? I don't think that's the norm. Maybe I'm naive but I have NEVER spent this on my kids extras. Art camp for $150. Running club $50. But $4000 just for one season of baseball and a couple camps?? This is only two of the about 10 things she expects!! I didn't list everything. Total for just spring/summer activities? $7000. Wha????? That is not par for the course. And no we are absolutely NOT paying that.

Everyone I know has kids in

Everyone I know has kids in travel sports - and yes, that's a choice. But it's going to be hard to convince the court that his two older kids can't play them because he had two more kids. Should he do all activities? No - but travel sports are expensive - and very common now. But he shouldn't be paying 100% of it, for sure.

I was just saying that going on vacation when you are claiming he can't pay for activities won't look good.

Who can afford $2000 in

Who can afford $2000 in travel ball?? When I say a trip I mean we are going to the mountains for 2 days and it's like $300 total!

Lots of people can afford it

Lots of people can afford it - lots of people prioritize it as a necessity in their minds. I get it that you wouldn't do it for your kids, but I don't think the court will care whether you or DH think it's appropriate, if he's already playing, DH will be ordered to help pay.

I get it that you are upset, but honestly, your DH signed an agreement that gave BM carte blanche to do whatever she wants with no limits - that's the source of the issue now. And so he's going to end up paying more than you would pay for your kids. I think your kids are not his kids, right? So maybe you guys need to separate finances so it's him who is carrying that load and your kids don't get shortchanged. In the court's eyes, he has two kids, not four, and his income will go to them.

I get that he never thought BM would do this, but still, he signed the dang thing. So all he can do now is plead poverty and not pay for anything. But even a $300 vacation won't look good if he's not paying what he agreed to pay.

If there is a document that

If there is a document that they both signed stating he would pay for everything- he might be screwed.

How did he get to the number of $2000/ mo in CS? Was that in the paperwork they signed?

He will probably be able to stop paying for anything more than 50% of 1 extra curricular per kid, but he needs to notify her that he is only doing that.

Medical stuff and therapy is going to be a tough battle. There is no reason she isn't taking the kids to a provider that takes his/her health insurance though. She can argue that the kids have a relationship with this doctor and it is in their best interests. In that case you might be able to argue that he will pay what the co-pay would be for a preferred provider ($25-50 per visit)- but you need to get all of this documented and show that she won't work with him in writing. The more verbally abusive she is, the better. He needs to stay above reproach.

What is fair?

CS as determined by the state calculator.
50% of 1 extra curricular per season
% based on income for medical. (If he makes 2x what she does- for a $100 medical bill, she would pay $33 and he would pay $67)
She must get his preapproval for anything not deemed a necessity and must use insurance preferred providers
All receipts must be presented within 30 days for repayment within 10 days.