Can My Ex and I Agree Not to Pay Child Support?

Who Does the Child-Support Belong To?

While you may think that the child support belongs to your ex, it actually belongs to your child. Although your ex may have the authority to spend the child support on anything they believe will benefit the child’s best interests, the point of child support really is to elevate the child’s lifestyle via financial contributions from both parents. Because of this, most places do not allow parents to waive child support as a bargaining tool. For example, you probably can’t tell your ex, “I won’t ask for child support if you let me have an extra 25% of the equity in the house.” In most locations, if it has been determined that you’ll owe child support, you will not be able to barter your way out of paying child support.

When You Weren’t Married

If you and your ex were married, and child-support was ordered by the court, there’s no getting out of that, especially if it’s automatically taken from your paycheck. However, if you and your spouse were never married, and there was never a custody arrangement nor child support order put in place, there is nothing that legally obligates either party to pay child support. Some parents do use this to their advantage. For example, they want full custody, and their ex refuses to pay child support and has no interest in being involved in the child’s life. In these scenarios, many parents do go without child support to ensure that their ex doesn’t have any rights to the children. While this may sound like an ideal arrangement, it is an unusual one. Most people want to be at least minimally involved in their child’s life, even if they have to pay child support to ensure that they are involved.

Child Support and Full Custody

A lot of parents want full custody and child support. In many cases, when they say, “full-custody” they mean that they want to have the children 24/7 and their ex doesn’t have any access to the children whatsoever. Scenarios such as the aforementioned occur at a nearly non-existent rate. In most cases, if a parent is capable of being a parent, they will have the opportunity to be involved to some degree. Most states will have a minimum or base parent-time schedule for the non-custodial parent. If you do not want to be involved with your child’s life, you can choose not to show up for your parent time—though you can also be forced to take the child during your parent time since it custody orders are court orders. However, if a parent doesn’t want to be involved, the other parent is generally all too happy to take all the custody for themselves. Even if you have elected not to be involved, you will likely still have to pay child support, especially if you’ve been ordered to pay child support.

Voluntarily Terminating Your Rights

If your ex has a spouse, or other person, who’d like to adopt your child in your stead, you may be able to voluntarily terminate your rights in the event that the children’s step-parent is willing to adopt them. While this would terminate any child support obligation, this would also terminate any legal rights you had to the child. If there is no one who can or is willing to adopt your child in your stead, it would be very unusual for a judge to terminate your parental rights just because you do not want to be involved with your child’s life. In most cases, judges only terminate a parent’s rights in extraordinary circumstances because it’s typically in the child’s best interests to have two parents, benefit from the finances of each parent, and have a relationship with each parent. In at least some states, a factor in whether the court will terminate a parent’s rights is whether they are simply trying to avoid their financial obligation to the child.

Don’t Miss Out

While child support can be expensive and parenting can be hard, it’s important for parents to really consider what they’re doing when they’re considering remaining uninvolved in their child’s life. Although now may not be a good time to have a child, your child will only be young once and if you miss out on these early years, there will be no getting them back. Your behavior now may impact your child’s desire to have a relationship with you when the child is older or when the child is an adult. You may wind up hearing your child refer to you as, “my mom’s ex-boyfriend” instead of, “my dad.” You may change your mind and realize that you do want to be a mom to these kids after all, only to find that they don’t really have any memories of you. Missing out on your child’s life may be a source of deep regret. Proceed cautiously if you are considering remaining uninvolved in your child’s life.