re: The Christmas blues are kicking in

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Damn. A nice post from Mingo. You feeling ok, baw?

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I’ve spent the better part of a decade and a half developing cold blooded killers on this site baw.

You have to know what kind of buttons to push to motivate your men. Onward and upward

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I’ve spent the better part of a decade and a half developing cold blooded killers on this site

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I aspire to be a cold blooded killer…with lots of cash.

Lead from the front!

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he state sort of set everything I have currently. I don't see how I pay less than the 20%.

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Child support is child support, that's it. Dump the house, and pay for NOTHING else other than child support (and health insurance, assuming that was in the decree.) My ex wife threatened to bill me for meals my kids ate on trips to Dallas, etc., and I (toning down language here) very nicely explained I was already paying well more than 20% of my income to feed my children, regardless of where they were at.

Its the extraneous crap you have the opportunity to cut. I won't even get into why you're paying as much as you are for an almost newborn, but this will balloon, and you will get guilted into more crap unless you start addressing this now. If you think what I spent was expensive, play out braces in 14 years. Written into the decree that both parents get consulted on major medical treatments in non-emergencies. Ex decided to give me five days of warning that she selected a treatment plan that cost 40% more (an extra $3k or so) than what I'd agreed to, and I owed the balance in ten days, after the MSA had already been cleaned out. Your life is going to be 17 more years of that if you don't address it ASAP.

This is me after I'm mostly out of militant f&*ed over dad mode. Imagine how bad it was a month after I moved out. I was fully prepared when I refused to pay for tuition to Vanderbilt??? and LSU to show both kids how much money I'd paid their mom in their lives that should have been invested for such an occasion. Now, I think I'll frame it and give it to them when they graduate HS.

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Just enjoy the time with your kids.

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I had to spend $20k to get this far. Trust me, I am. I'm just trying to express to the OP how bad it can get if you let yourself get pushed around. It's an feedback loop that goes nowhere good.

My kids asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I told them I wanted them to pick their favorite picture of themselves from 2024 and give it to me framed. Not that it was my intention, but when it popped out of my mouth, I thought, holy shite, this is going to come up in therapy in 20 years with the girl at least.

One of my kids asked me what made me happy two weeks ago, and I instantly said, "cooking for you two." Food is love (and some other Hallmark BS I never thought would come out of my mouth.) But I never would have gotten here without help.

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pleased as can be that I don't have to see my family on christmas

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I haven't had to since 2020.

It has been peaceful to say the least.
Rarely if ever do I even speak to them except for a nephew and his family.

He was smart. He moved away and hasn'tlooked back.

I am divorced and it was finalized in Georgia. The things that you are saying are not true unless they have changed drastically in the last 10 years. I was in the same boat you are in in terms of getting screwed by her lawyers. I too believed everything her lawyers told me and the reality is they lied to me about what we agreed upon and what was “standard”. You need to be proactive now and fight for what is right. You need a change of circumstance like moving, or something similar that is happening in your life that affects you. You need to hire your own lawyer that has experience with divorce law for fathers and you need to tell her that you are going to take her back to court for more visitation rights and less child support. If you don’t fight now, you will always be at the mercy of her divorce decree. I can tell you that there is no salary percentage that is a flat rate unless that is relatively new. It is a calculation between how much you make and how much she makes and that calculation is applied to the value or each child otherwise a father making 500k a year would be paying 100k in child support which is not how it works. You are supposed to get split custody on holidays, every other weekend, and time during the Summer at a minimum. Either you are not being truthful or you are still feeling sorry for yourself and are blinded by your own self pity. If she cheated on you, then you need to tell her that you will let everyone on the planet know what she did, including your children and all of her friends and family; his as well. And, you need to pick yourself up, go hire a good divorce lawyer, tell her that you will challenge everything even if it means you are have a side job just pay for lawyer fees, and that she can either agree to fair changes outside of court voluntarily or prepare to fight for what is right. She isn’t doing anything “for the kids” if she is four hours away and preventing you from seeing them. IF you don’t fight now, you never will no matter what you try to convince yourself. Good luck my friend, it never hurts less but someday you will get used to it and move on. Don’t let her dictate what your role is as a father or she will!