O,,,kay

[jynx_tsilevon]

I woke up this morning with a 2 and a half page email from my dad to my mom, step dad, sister, and me. It explained how everything in the next year is getting paid for at this wonderfully awkward 75/25 split. My dad is the 75. My mom is the 25.

Which is weird because three months ago he told me that I was paying the rest of my college.

Okay.

Then I also found 1500 dollars in my college bank account...labeled as Child Support. Apparently that's how much I'm worth if I lived with my mom over the summer.

That worries me more.

Lol that's probably just going to sit there as anything that comes from my dad comes with a wonderful shit ton of strings on it.

So, while I sit here and wait for something to blow up, have a mild panic attack, and not change any of my plans until everything is set in stone. And even then I may just...flee.

I don't like to be a pessimist, but I can see this ending horribly.

The good thing is, if this all blows up, at least I'll be ready this time.

Comments

[novel_machinist]

If the money is in the joint account, I'd just let it sit there till you can get around to dealing with it. It's not something that needs handled ASAP.

My advice is as follows, and can go two ways:

1a) Find out exactly how long your dad owes child support, if he is responsible for 75% of your college debt or parts of your college debt then you need to keep track of those debts and invoice him 75% and your mother 25% (I can help you do that)

2a) If he is court ordered to pay 75% of your college tuition then that money is yours to pay tuition with. You'll just have to make yourself very familiar with the terms of the divorce.

3a) It would be best for you to open communication with your parents because you're obviously the only adult. Set up some sort of schedule where you say "According to the divorce decree, I'm going to invoice you both accordingly and will keep track of expenses for you".

I would pay for school myself and then bill them at the end of each semester. That way if they want to be children you're still getting your education paid for.

It's sad, because they've already established that they're not going to be adults about anything, really. It's not up to you to mandate what your parents did, or haven't done in the past. All you can do is control how you act going forward. You haven't done anything wrong if this comes "back to bite you in the ass" then it's just going to be some squawking.

This brings me to plan b

1b) Email your parents and say that you are fed up with being in their tug of war game and you, frankly, do not care about their money. Tell them that you don't intend to touch the joint account for anything and that you'll just take out loans to finish school. When they can act like adults, maybe the three of you can talk.

2b) Take out loans and just ignore that joint account.

THE GOOD NEWS is that it's in a joint account, so he can't claim that you're hiding it from him or that you took anything, he has easy access to that account and it's very easy to prove that you haven't touched it.

I'm really sorry that they've failed on such an epic level of adulthood.

[whitemage]

I second Drak's advice, both paths. I know it's a pain and extra work, but if you could sit down with one of their lawyers and get to know the terms of the divorce for yourself, it will make it easier on you to navigate the madness both of them are throwing at you.

If worse comes to worse, though, you wouldn't be the first young adult who cuts ties with their folks because their parents can't grow the hell up. You can support yourself somehow: I know that about you.

And I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. You have all my sympathy they can't be proper parents to you.