I lost all three of my motions today at court.
The two child-support motions were always long shots. “The” verdict, when I ran this by various attorneys, seemed to vary with the person. Losing this hurts financially, but it was child support that I wasn’t likely ever to have received anyway. And, on the plus side, I did get the ex to admit, in a sworn filing, that he had owed the amounts.
I’d really thought I’d had a chance on the motion to get my non-marital property back. But my witness was injured at work and is in the hospital today, and the ex’s attorney was allowed to spring a surprise witness on me, who of course lied through her teeth. I should have had the sense to subpoena the police officers who’d been present because, contrary to what the lead officer had told me, the report he’d written was not accepted as “evidence” by the presiding judge.
Live and learn.
As my sister pointed out, my ex hadn’t gotten the second “industrial-strength” shredder as part of the decor; he’d locked himself into his private home office and shredded documents by the hour because he’d been destroying documents. Of course my documents don’t exist any more! And the ex had told me, in early 2009, that he was “making piles of” my stuff to donate for the tax deduction. Of course my stuff isn’t there any more! He’s donated our child’s things, too: all the clothes, toys, cell phones, school supplies, etc, that I’d paid for and supplied to the ex for when our son was over there.
Now I’m stuck providing a list of things to the ex’s attorney (that is, giving him an itemized list of things to destroy) to pass along to the ex, in hopes that the ex will suddenly “find” my things and return them.
He escaped the contempt finding by claiming he’s been holding my things for years. Whaddaya wanna bet he escapes returning any of our things by claiming (again) that none of my things were ever over there?
*sigh*
But my sister is right. Nothing “real” changed today. The ex is continuing not to support his child, and to get away with it. That’s nothing new. And the ex is getting away with having destroyed my things. I was lucky to get out with as much as I did.
Now I need to start composing a Motion to Compel. The ex has done almost nothing he agreed to do in the divorce decree, and now, due to his own successful claim, he can no longer make excuses based on stuff from before that decree was entered.
Time to get to work. And, hey, I wasn’t heard for three and a half years when I had attorneys. Sure, I lost today, but I was finally heard! And it only took me four months.