Doing The Right Thing

Ok here's my random vent for the day.  I wrote it earlier today when I was a little angry and had to come back and edit it.  So here is the freshly edited, "nice" version without all the cuss words:

Today I had an appointment with the lawyer that handled my divorce from the Boy's father nine years ago.  I didn't want to have to do it, but I really have no choice.  The man is a tightwad and doesn't want to have to pay anything for the Boys college.  Oh, he says he will pay half, but he also said he would give the boy $20 a week spending money (yes, $20! Stop laughing!) and hasn't done any of it.

The Murph (aka Ken) pays ALL of his daughters college which is 4x the cost of the Boy's and doesn't even have anything in writing requiring him to do it.  He does it because it's the right thing to do.  Unfortunately, my ex, who I will call the Tightwad, needs a judge to point out to him (in writing) what the right thing to do is for his own son.

Over the years, Tightwad has done the minimum he can do in raising the Boy and that is only the child support which he was legally required to pay.  Nothing extra and he even wanted me to give him back some money on child support when he had the Boy during his summer visits.  He couldn't get that, of course, but he asked me to send food with the Boy on his visits and when he was taking the Boy snow skiing one time he expected me to buy the ski jacket, pants, and long underwear, gloves, etc. so the Boy would have something to wear during the trip.  A trip, by the way, that the Tightwad's dad (who's retired) probably paid for so Tightwad would go.

I actually did send food once with the Boy because the Boy said his dad wouldn't buy any food for him and he was at his dad's house by himself sometime with nothing to eat!  I also bought the ski jacket and pants for the Boy because I wanted to make sure he stayed warm on the trip and didn't trust the Tightwad to get what he needed.  If I remember correctly (that was about 5 years ago), I actually think the Tightwad wasn't going to take the Boy at all if I didn't get the clothes for him.  And no, Tightwad isn't destitute by any means.  When he says he has no money, he means he has no money in his pocket at the moment and doesn't count all his many investments accounts and the thousands of dollars he probably has in the bank.  Basically what he means is, he has money, but the Boy isn't getting it.  Not without a judge's order anyway.

 I can only wonder why Tightwad isn't even sending the Boy the $20 a week allowance that he promised him.  After all, 20 bucks isn't even all that much for a tightwad.  I've given the Boy more money than that, plus paying about $500/semester for him to meet with a tutor once a week.  The Boy can't talk to Tightwad at all about money without getting verbally attacked, so for now we just don't know what happened to the 20 bucks a week.

The first step is to send a letter to Tightwad and see what response we get.  Hopefully, he will agree to do the right thing and I won't have to take further steps.  He never agrees on anything though, so I have very low expectations.

My lawyer told me there are laws in Alabama called the Bayliss Laws which are established to support children in college full time when they are no longer minors.  It now covers tuition, books, living expenses and health insurance.  The Murph is paying for our health insurance now and doesn't mind, but Tightwad should contribute something for his own son.  We'll see.

I am concerned about the fact that the law only requires the parent to pay for college if the child keeps a 2.0 average.    The Boy struggles in school so what if he dips down to a 1.8 or 1.9 for a semester.  It doesn't seem right to me that he could loose it all.  Financial aid would be lost for sure, but Tightwad was on academic probation for most of his college career with a grade point average under 2.0!  He still graduated, got a college degree and his dad paid for it all and had two other children to put through college.  Tightwad only has one child, not three!

I don't get it.  I will NEVER get it!  I will protect my child though.  He deserves better than that.

Words of wisdom - Don't marry a tightwad.  I was young, but there were signs even back then when we were teens.   I should've run!  I should've run FAST!!

If only I were doing speed work back then...

Whew!  And that's all I'm going to say about that!