My ex-wife has brain damage. She was recently stopped and her driver’s license revoked. Her job involved a lot of driving, so she claims that she cannot work and has no means of subsistence and now needs to support.
Because of her condition, I have our children most of the time and she does not pay any child support. I don’t know how to pay her child support as she says she cannot work and be solely responsible for our children.
I’ll have to find a second job to make ends meet and yet there aren’t enough hours in the day to look after our children and have two jobs.
In these circumstances, will a judge really order me to pay child support?
As you have probably already said in previous columns, maintenance is still based on the neediness of one and the solvency of the other. If she has a need and you are unable to pay while being solely responsible for the basic needs of your children, she will be disappointed with the result.
Brain injury or not, your ex has some responsibility here and should be encouraged to help yourself – even if that means asking the court to help her help herself before being asked to pay child support .
If it turns out that she really is unable to help herself, then you should ask the judge to appoint a guardian to take her place in this action. That way, the guardian can take the necessary steps to find alternative forms of income for your ex that are not on your wallet.
For example, if she were fired because she no longer had a driver’s license, she would probably be entitled to unemployment benefits for a certain period of time. Unemployment gives her time to undergo an assessment to determine if she is fully disabled as defined by the Social Security Agency. If she is fully incapacitated, your ex should qualify for Social Security disability insurance. The nice thing about SSDI is that in addition to making payments to them, there can also be dependent payments that will help you support your children.
Before taking these questions to a judge, you could offer to help her claim unemployment and SSDI and suggest that these resources could greatly benefit both she and the children. Maybe she is desperate and doesn’t know how to ask for help. Depending on the nature of her brain injury, she may not be able to fill out the required forms herself. Making an offer to help can change the whole dynamic of your relationship.
But if not, you still have the option to ask the judge to either do her paperwork or have someone do it for her if she rejects you.
Email questions to whickey@brickjones.com
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