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When writing this article not only did I have to think about my own personal experiences with taking my first children‘s father to family court, but I also had to reference the number of horror stories I’ve heard from my friends. For starters, I never ever, ever wanted to end up in family court. I would have much rather settled the situation out of court, but unfortunately for me, that wasn’t the case. So off to the court house I went looking for some very much needed financial support that I wasn’t getting.

What most men don’t understand is that most women (and I do mean women, not girls) do not want to waste their time taking off from work to go to court to have a judge tell you what to do. You should already be doing what you’re supposed to be doing. The fact that a woman is taking you to court should be the last straw…..in my opinion anyways. I also understand that some men have issues finding stable employment (at least that was the case with my first childrens father). I’m cool with all of that! To me, as long as you’re spending quality time with your children and letting them know you want to be a part of their lives is good for me until you can get back on your feet. However, don’t abuse this excuse either. You should have a plan and be able to express your goals and plans to your child’s mother and let her know you are actively seeking employment.

All in all, it should come down to the fact that if you are not going to marry the mother of your children, you should at least have a good relationship with her should you breakup. I know this takes time, but you MUST put your children first and your hurt feelings (if any) to the side. In a perfect world this would be easy to attain, but unfortunately, this takes hard work and effort on both parties to get.

My situation was one where I tried to have a dialogue with my children’s father and told him I needed some financial assistance and he laughed at me. At the time, he was giving me $50 a week and thought that was enough. Please keep in mind he was making well enough money to have given me more, but he wanted to be a hard ass just for spite! I swear to you I didn’t want to take him to court, but he left me with no other options. When our court date came, the judge ordered him to pay $175 a week plus half of my childrens daycare and medical expenses. Although I made out like a bandit back then, he was not happy about the judge’s decision. So instead of appealing the courts decision, he decided not to pay me one red cent for the next four years! He eventually accumulated arrears in the amount of $65,000 and lost his drivers license privileges. I had him locked up three times because at one point I was struggling so much I got into debt running up all of my credit cards.

My children’s father finally got his act together, but it took him years to do that and to this day he hasn’t gotten over me taking him to court. He did finally pay off ALL of his arrears and for that I am grateful, but dang I had to go through hell and high water just to get some money to take care of his kids. I mean why put me through that when I was taking good care of our kids? I’ll never understand that. Now this is just my side of the “child support” process. There are some really good men out there who get taken to court forchild support just for spite from their childrens mother and to me this is the worst kind of woman! This is the type of woman who lives to make her child’s fathers life miserable. She loves nothing more than to see him vulnerable at the judge’s mercy…..and in all honesty most men are at court due to the judge’s mercy. Some of these judge’s pass out child support orders I couldn’t even imagine!

A good friend of mine not only had to pay off the mortgage on his house him and his girlfriend lived in, but he had to continue to pay for her car as well as 75% of the daycare and medical expenses for his children…..that wasn’t including his monthly child supportorder which was well over $1500 a month! These two weren’t even married and she got all of that. Thankfully for her, my friend was no slouch and did everything he was supposed to do. However, despite her great child support order, she gave this man the run around just to see his children. When he went to pick up his kids, she wouldn’t answer the door. She’d say things like she wasn’t home, or claim it wasn’t his weekend. She made his life pure hell just to see his kids. But God is good and my friend eventually took her to court and got legal 50% custody of his children.But its sad when you have to hear stories like this.

My point in writing this article is that if we all collectively communicated what was going on with a clear understanding of what we are saying to each other, things would be so much simpler in life and we wouldn’t have to go through things like going to court. I mean, in all actuality, who really wants to be sitting up in court? I know I sure didn’t!

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