Single Parent

Greetings,

I have a quick question without going into all the details. My Taiwanese wife and I recently divorced after 10 years of marriage. I returned to the states in 2011 to help with family issues for 1 year. During that time she asked for a divorce. With out details I assumed it was a distance issue and worked and saved to return to Taiwan. After returning I discovered the reason for the divorce request. As they say “When the cats away the mice will play”

After a few months trying to be understanding and work through it I gave up and agreed to the divorce. I have custody of our two kids and she has no obligation emotionally or financially to the kids or family. Which made it easy to get the divorce done. However, financially I am at ends. School, cram school, food and necessities are required. I am financially capable with these but it is very tight.

Even being polite and ask for some assistance is met with disdain. " You wanted the kids you have to pay" " Dont ask me for money".Blah, Blah, Blah…

My question is this…Now that the divorce is final is there any recourse to implement a child support claim against her? Without jeopardizing the current agreement? The kids dont ask about her, they dont miss her. Heck we lived in the US for more than a year and the only mention of their mother was when I brought up her birthday or mothers day. We have been well established as a family without her. But their are expenses and I feel it wrong for her to get off scott free with no worries. Living with her mother, paying not bills. etc. etc. While we have to scratch to get by.

I home this post does not go with out any comments. I would appreciate any advice whether 1st or 2nd hand experience.

You can try asking the legal forum for better answers.

What I think - and I have no idea how true this is, as I don’t remember where I heard it - is that how the law stands is that you can sue her and have a child support order awarded against her, but even with that they can’t make her pay. As a single parent family you should be able to receive some assistance from the govt though, so you might want to go and talk to your local household registration office and see what they say. There are programmes and stuff around to help out disadvantaged families, and single-parent is one of the qualifiers; you might be over the income threshold, though.

Also talk to the immigration office and get them to put you in touch with the foreign spouse support services. Yes, it’s mostly women from SE Asia, but there are a lot of services that you can take advantage of, too.

You need to talk to a lawyer. You can try laf.org.tw/en/ but you may make too much money to be eligible. Otherwise you will pay something like NT$5-10,000 to have a consultation to find ot what you can do.

I believe that child support (fuyangfei) isa legal duty of both parents, but you will need to check your divorce agreement to see if you agreed to pay all child support in exchange for custody.

If not, she has a legal duty to pay and you can sue her to make her pay. It appears to me from looking at cases that the Taiwan courts usually award between NT$8,000-NT$15,000 per month in child support depending on the circumstances of the non-paying ex-spouse.

Enforcement can be really difficult if your ex-wife has irregular work, is paid under the table, or changes jobs a lot. But if she has a steady office job or, better yet, a government job such as a teacher, you can get a lien on her wages.

Again, you really need a lawyer to help you evaluate what your rights are and whether there is a cost-effective way to pursue them.

I wonder if it would be effective to put pressure on her parents, who may buy into the familial obligation angle and thereby put pressure on her. Just a thought.