Today I am thankful for seeing the truth.
As you probably know, Colorado has a deadbeat parent excuse-making program called CO-PEP. They are funded by the National Fatherhood Initiative. Their primary purpose is to help men lower their child support significantly (even if it means ignoring salary data) and helping them regain a relationship with their kids.
My ex "lost" his job as an auditor making $53,000 a year. He was fired a day after his former employer took a black light through his office looking for "biological material." We were divorced. He refused to move from my home but it didn't cause too much of a stir because he traveled 75% of the time for business. I eventually realized that I couldn't date or have an intimate relationship until my ex moved from the house.
I'd ask him to move. He never did because he was always on the road.
Now, this was when the stalking was at it's height. I was freaking out so my ex bought a security camera and placed it in the living room by the front window. This device recorded every conversation I had and piped it to his work cell phone. He would literally play back my private conversations to me.
I learned, very quickly, not to have conversations in the living room.
One day, while he was allegedly in California, someone began banging on the front window. There was smell of smoke wafting into the living room. A few minutes later, someone turned on the garden hose. I ran to the front door, only to be held back by my eldest daughter who was afraid that the person was the unknown stalker trying to lure me out of the house.
When I went outside, I found burned paper on the porch, my yard decorations trampled and the garden hose cut.
I called my ex, to see if he could send me the footage of the event so I could take it to the police and, hopefully, learn the identity of the stalker.
He declined to share the footage and flew home.
He was fired a little over two months later. He claims that my request for the footage caused him to be fired.
This is the excuse he's giving now for refusing to speak to the children for over two years. He's claiming that I caused his job loss. He's also using this as an excuse to ignore our court agreement asking us to share salary information every year.
He had a $12 an hour job for six weeks two years ago, that is the income that CO-PEP used to drop his child support significantly. It's a shame they don't understand that providing paycheck stubs for a part-time/temp job is a strategy many men use to reduce their child support.
Now, two years ago, he claimed to have had a drinking issue so I agreed to drop his child support to $500 a month. Of course, now that he wants custody, he never drank a drop of alcohol. Oh geez!
There are too many games. There is too much chaos. What can I expect with someone who needs the drama? I should just cut my losses.
I wonder if he believes the crazy Djinn stories?
I wish for enough money to render my ex's support irrelevant.
This isn't to mention his $45,000 in arrears. I offered to drop the arrears and give him my car in exchange for him moving out of the house in 2016. He refused so I had to hire a lawyer to take him to court (that little adventure is a $14,000 credit card nightmare that my ex is court ordered to pay for but hasn't...$500 per month in interest but it's worth it to get the drama pushed away).
I didn't drop the arrears but he ended up with my car and he lied to the insurance company (he claimed we were still married) so I had to pay his insurance until the policy ended three months later.
Now...he wants CO-PEP to help him drop the arrears.
That ship sailed in 2016.
CO-PEP is the topic of many conversations I'm having with local lawmakers. They're supposed to screen for domestic violence, not condone it or help abusers engage in financial abuse.
He copies me on emails to his CO-PEP counselor expressing his frustration that I won't violate court orders to do what he wants. CO-PEP has invited me to mediate child support arrears on the condition that I won't have a lawyer.
With my ex, I need a lawyer.
It would seem to me that the CO-PEP department needs schooled on coercive control and mediation best practices. Mediation is a bad idea if one party expresses frustration when he doesn't get what he wants.
It also seems that an organization that has represented my ex in a legal fashion over the past three years is ill suited to mediate. It seems like a conflict of interest.
I probably should wait until my youngest turns 19 to run to the press.
Boy.....they're lucky I have to work two jobs and don't have a lot of time to mess around with local politics.
I wish CO-PEP would be defunded before they get someone killed.
Sigh.....
Love ya,
S.