Paternity was just established back in November. As far as the instability, I don't have a clinical diagnosis or anything, just going off of her actions (so far).

Everytime my husband had court, BM would yell, create a scene, tell everyone that he dumped her once he found out she was pg. The "relationship" was cut off prior to discovery. As embarrassing it is to say, there was no relationship other than a 4am "booty call". She was pissed he wouldn't leave me for her. She claims to have not known about me, but we have the text messages that prove otherwise. She called and texted him harrassing for months, she harrassed 2 of the 3 last lawyers (yelling, screaming, etc.). Again, no excuse because my husband takes 100% full responsibility for his actions; she told him since she was older (she is older than both of us) that she couldn't get pg and that's why she had no kids. Again, very embarrassing to admit. At the courthouse she admitted to now having a piece of him forever and is going to make his life a living hell financially. That she got the kid she wanted and the money to go with it. She talked to the baby at court one day saying "I'm going to teach you to keep your d*** in your pants", incredibly loud for everyone else to hear. She brought random people to the courthouse, and they would gang up on my husband. She tried going after my money. She was pissed that my kids were calculated into a hypothetical CS first--meaning that "I" filed first without filing. And yes, she doesn't want to pay the copays (responsible for first $250), prescriptions, etc. Asked for more money to cover that.

Trust me when I say that my husband deserves some of this headache for his actions. However he is law abiding and is trying to do the best he can.

We have not tried visitation yet on the advice of our last attorney who put up with the brunt of her harrassment. Besides, she only wants my husband to visit at her house without me present. LOL yea freaking right! The attorney recommended for the child to be older (he is an infant now) before we attempt again. That attorney screwed us up because he did not put in for joint legal initially, and put nothing in for visitation. It's hard because my husband wants no contact because of her, yet he knows it's the "right" thing to do.

We have a family member who went through something similar. He ended up being out over $50,000; the BM convinced the child to lie about things that did not happen (the child ended up admitting it later that it was all a lie), and after all that he had no custody, his family was in shambles, and he admitted to us in the end as painful and hard as it was, it was not worth the fight. That's what we are afraid of, because again this state highly favors the custodial parent. This is already costing our children so much, we just can't see dumping more money into this right now. We have already spent $10,000 in legal fees alone, not the mention the CS.

We have another court date coming up for the arrears (she is asking for more money based on her faulty math). Plus she verbally threatened that she will involve social services if we attempt to get the child, even for visitation. I have 2 children of my own that we need to protect, I am squeaky clean so not worried about social services but I don't need that in my family and life.

Thank you for making me feel welcome. I'm not easily offended and realize that I open myself up to scrutiny and judgement by staying.

Thanks! It's been thru extensive counseling (individual and marital) that we have come this far, and even then it's hard. We are staying together more for us than the kids (although initially it was just for the kids for me). But we are happy for the most part, just the financial part of this has been incredibly difficult.

Wow ddakan. When we did the math, it was only $5000 retro. He was ordered to also part with a percentage of his profit sharing checks AFTER taxes. She is trying to get back CS plus the profit sharing at the PRE tax rate. The court order just stated that the CS was retroactive, it said nothing about the profit sharing check. That's an extra $1000 that after taxes is only about $450.

Also, the child was born on a Thursday and she was instructed to put down the CS for every Friday since. How can she claim a week's worth of CS when the child was less than 24 hours old that first week? It's not much; it's the principle for me.

The state we are in SUCKS. CS is until 23 if the "child" is still in college!!! WTF?!? At age 23 I was married, we were totally independent, and about to buy our first home!

And thank you. This was planned to a T on her end, and my husband was DUMB to fall for it.

The hard part for ME is that he wants 100% no contact with the child, because he doesn't want the mother in our lives as she threatened to make our lives a living hell. He is worried about our children's safety because she associates with criminals. In other words, he TOTALLY scraped the bottom of the barrel finding her ass. Plus he doesn't feel a bond with the child at all. It makes me sad because it's not the child's fault both of his parents were selfish assholes at the time of conception. I know it's hard for him because he IS an amazing father to our children and other than this is a good person. He never wanted to be "that guy". If she were to suddenly fall off of the planet, then this would be MUCH easier and the child would be in our home. Ahhh one can wish, huh?

Hopefully I can learn some tips and pointers from you folks in regards to how to deal with someone like this, give those ideas to my husband, and down the road we can have contact with the child.

stepaside, you made the hairs on my neck stand up. This is EXACTLY what we have been talking about. My husband has gotten a LOT of flack from family to put this child in our lives, but without thinking about the potential damage it will bring to our family. They want him to go for full custody, but that's 10's of thousands of dollars that we just don't have right now, for a conclusion that is not guaranteed. I hate to make it sound about money, but while we WERE doing quite well now money is a huge concern. I get angry when talking with others about this who say well then he is being a deadbeat because he's not actively involved with this child's life; however he is thinking along the exact lines that you are stepaside. And how is he a deadbeat at $1200 a month?!? This kid has a chance as long as the BM spends/uses the money as intended and wisely, and gets herself a job. This state now does the combined income method, which means that if she makes $35,000 a year the CS will be reduced by something ridiculous like $100 a month. In freaking sane.

For the amount of CS she is getting, I hate to say this but she better not come at us for more, although she already is. She wanted almost $400 a week but the courts awarded her $275 a week. That pays her bills and if she would just get off her ass and get a job, she could actually get off of public assistance (yea right) and the child can have a decent life. She was making $30,000 a year before, but the judge did NOT impute an income for her at all, left her income at ZERO and only counted my husband's. Thank goodness they didn't count my income because I make almost as much as my husband. At least they did count my kids first, and if we had future kids then they get counted and her CS gets adjusted minus the new hypothetical support. I guess that's the "best" they can do in situations like ours. Insane that he has to support 2 households!

My ultimate dream would be for BM to find her own man and he would adopt the child and they would all live happily ever after and we would NEVER hear from them again...but seeing as how the woman is nearly 40 and is surfing the web and hooking up with whoever will have her, I doubt this will happen. Besides, the CS is her income so I don't see her giving that up.

Thanks again stepaside. We have another marriage counseling session coming up and this will give me things to think about prior to it.

I forgot to mention I have an appt with a PI coming up soon, just an initial consultation to find out how much their services are because I have NO idea how much that costs. I'm sure it's not cheap.