Originally Posted by
Ione 
It seems to me that judges can pretty much do whatever they want, until they get slapped down for it by a higher court.
That being the case, I would do whatever it took to actually be married before setting foot in that judges courtroom again. The financial hit you might take this year if you have to get married before 1/1/11 will probably be less than the cost of appealing a bad (for Owen) judgement. Especially since much of that $$ you can someday recoup indirectly from your ex because he will owe you a lot more... even if it means getting aggressive about his paying you what he owes.
Ask your lawyer to be "unavailable" when scheduling the hearing until after 1/1. Between the holidays and the court's schedule, you might be able to get away with just delaying on scheduling until after the fatal date of 1/1/11.
Great idea. We will do what it takes to delay being in court. I don't know how it will work, but it can't hurt to try! We might have some leeway with the delaying because we live out of state so it will be a burden to just randomly go up there for court, ya know? I have a feeling ex is going to insist on it being in court before our next visitation date (December 10/11/12). So if I can hold him off for 4 weeks then even if he files after that visitation date it probably won't end up in court before the new year (we can stall/delay until then).
In the mean time, has Owen started kindergarden (or even pre-K) yet? Because it seems (from what I gather from various moms I know with kids with autism here and in other states) that many school districts offer the appropriate therapies for free to school-aged kids. Does your local school have a social worker on staff? You could set up an appointment with them to discuss what the school system can offer.
He's in 1st grade so he's been in this school for preschool, Kindergarten and now 1st grade. He has been receiving therapy though the school district since he started preschool and it's helping a lot. But they do not offer all the therapy he needs (such as feeding). So ds still needs to receive some outside of the school. Before he started the school he was in 5 hours a week of outside therapy (at $140-190/hour, depending on which therapy it was). Then he went down to 3 hours a week outside the school. Now he's down to 1 hour a week for the moment. His therapist wants to bump him back up to 2 hours a week but we're having trouble fitting it into her schedule. During summer breaks he bumps back up to 3 hours a week of outside therapy.
Another thing to check. Does your STBDH (soon-to-be-DH)'s insurance through work have open enrollment (i.e. enrollment any time of the year)? Or are there specific times of the year for enrolling? If it's the latter, you might be able to make a case with Medicaid to maintain O's coverage through them after you get married until the next enrollment date.
They do not have open enrollment. They have once a year enrollment and then you can do another enrollment if you have a "life changing event" (such as getting married). I've talked to the Medicaid office and they don't give a darn. They say that once we're married dp's income counts and ds gets kicked off Medicaid immediately.
As for tax returns, did you calculate the financial hit based on 'married filing jointly' or 'married filing separately'? If you only calculated it with the first, re-run the numbers with the second. It might not be as bad of a hit that way.
Both ways. Either way we do it, we take a big hit.
In regard to the grants, not much you can do, I suspect.
Nope. The only way I can get the grants it to file single. The only way I can file single is if I'm not married on December 31st.
All that said, I do have one question: on the $10K you say your family will lose, is that $10K you need to re-pay? Or $10K you just won't get? If it's the latter, it still sucks but isn't quite as bad as the former.
Thankfully it's the latter. It's not money we would have to repay, but we will be in big trouble financially without it. We count on that money to keep us afloat while I'm in school. Without it I don't know what we'll do. I'll have to find a full time job, which will create all sorts of headaches with what to do with ds after school (he can't go in the after school program at his school because the supervision sucks and with his autism he's a runner/wanderer so he'll escape in no time). Most daycares won't take him because of his behavior issues. Obviously if it comes down to it then we'll do whatever is necessary.
Good luck.
and don't even think about what it would mean to you financially to get married this year. why on earth would you? there would have to be a court order not for you to get married but barring you from living with dp, and then that would have to be enforced, and how on earth would anyone even know at this point? and if it came down to it and you really had to either live separately or get married - uh, wouldn't you save your $10k and have him sleep on a buddy's couch for a few weeks? i'm sorry this even came up, your lawyer shouldn't have bothered mentioning to you, imo.
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