Don't make this mistake during divorce.

Ron McFarland

a lot of men probably made this mistake in the past when it comes to child support and alimony. I lived in Texas back in 1996 at which time I moved back to my home state of North Carolina. I just got out the military at the time, and have been divorced for a few months. Like many individuals who are divorced and move away from the area that they divorced their former spouses it takes time to find work in a new area, so needless to say I had got behind in my child support payments. The law does allow for a grace period to get back upon your feet. Well, in some states anyway. My court ordered support payments where $417.00 per-month.

It took me about 3 good months to find a decent job that I could support myself, and also pay those high (for the time) support payments. I only had 1 child by the way. So I resumed the payments at which time I started working. About 2 months later I received a call from the human resources manager at my employment and was told to come in to see her upon getting to work that day. I went in and she told me that we just got new paper work from the state of Texas and your child support was going up. I elected to have my support payments come straight from my paycheck each time I got payed. For me it was better this way. My way of thinking is if I don't see the money to start with then it won't hurt as much. In amazement I was like WOW! I only been working here about 3 months, have not gotten a raise, and I'm already having to pay more. I ask her what was it going to be now? She says $585.00 per month! What! And that's not counting the health insurance that I have to keep on him each month which was costing me another $150.00 because he was what they called Out of network.

Well, There is a lot more to this story, and I will finish it in part 2. Stay tuned for that..It gets even wilder. Look guys out in divorce land who wanted to do the right thing like myself ie..Take care of their child and provide a better life for them even though you are absent from their everyday life. Take my story and learn something. Look for the other half of this article soon.

Ron McFarland