Im writing this report because I stumbled on a report write in September of 2007 by a fella named Leroy. He described his experience he had with the New York State Child Support System. After reading his story I felt compelled to share mine.
My daughters mother and I have not been together for over 3 years now. Since then I have moved on to finding the true love of my life. When my daughter was conceived we were both young. After the child was born things were still rocky but we were maintaining. Everything started to fall apart when my daughter turned 2. We started arguing and fighting all the time. We ended the relationship but still lived together for another 2 years.
In September 2008 we got into another big fight which resulted in me leaving. I moved into my mothers apartment thinking I would save up money to get my own place. BOY WAS I WRONG! As the months rolled on I got my daughter every weekend. Things seem to be ok till i found out she met a man online and after knowing him for only a few months moved in with him with my daughter. It is the worst feeling in the world to have your child for the weekends and when you are taking them back, have them start crying and tell you they don't want to go there they want to stay with you.
Around the time my daughters mother moved in with that young man I met my current girlfriend. I've known her for over 10 year and apparently we always had feelings for one other. So started dating and its been a dream. Once my daughters mother found this out she became uncivil. Sending disrespectful text message, nasty phone calls even got into a heated argument with my current girlfriend over the phone, which resulted in her taking out an Order Of Protection against me.
Now you wold think you would take the order of protection out on the person you just had the dispute with but no it was taken out on me. But before all of the happened I was giving my daughters mother between $425 - $500 a month. Mind you I only bring home $860 semi monthly.
So around the same time she took the order of protection out on me she also filed for child support. To sum it up the child support enforcement agency is now taking $768 a month from me. That including $949.09 in back child support. Now if you asked "Where did the back child support come from?" here is your answer. Remember the order of protection she took out on me? One of the stipulations in an O.O.P. is that I can not have ANY kind of contact with her and my daughter. Which means no call, text, email, regular or third party. I was giving her money orders in person for the child support. But since there is and O.O.P I was no longer able to give her the money. So thats where the back child support came from.
Now mind you, my disposable income after taxes in $860 semi - monthly which totals $1720 a month. Subtracted $768 from that, that leaves me with $952 a month. And because where I work, I only work 10 months a year that leaves me with $9520 to live off with. While my daughters mother is receiving unemployment benefits and now child support benefits and doing all this while she sits in a shelter with my daughter.
I was told it would not look good in my favor if I filed for custody because of the order of protection she took out on me. So New York State will allow this woman to sit in a shelter that the city pays for her to stay in and now the State is trying to get every penny back from me. How is this allowed? I have to now find a second job to support myself.
I am a grown man living in his mothers house sleeping on a futon that cant afford to live on his own because of this unjust and borderline criminal child support system. Is there any help out there for guys like me?