I am sorry about how the system screwed you over. Don't think my DH has always been out of the clear - he had a 10-15,000 dollar arrearage from a combination of unemployment, some very bad decisions and his ex lying about cash payments she recieved. It took a really long time to pay that off. He's given her about 87,000 dollars total over the past 15 or so years.

But even though you were witholding CS payments to flush her out, that doesn't mean that you weren't putting the money away for later, does it? (That's assuming that you had it in the first place) Sort of like a "rent strike" - you still put the rent money away (like in an escrow account), but you don't give it to the landlord.

Divorce with children is never an easy thing. I'm always thanking whatever Powers That Be that I didn't breed with any of my ex-husbands, so when we split, we could split clean.

And I hope that if you are still experiencing issues with the provincial governments, that it gets all sorted out quickly and with minimum hassles.