I'm going through a divorce now in new york,, we have been married for 10 years and have 2 young kids. I went on disability 5 years into marriage and my wife is a school teacher..... court has been a nightmare , my wife's has a paid lawyer and mine is court appointed, and refuses to answer any questions I have.. I will try and ask this as least complicated as possible, I make $15,000 a year , my soon to be ex makes $70,000. Since my wife has kids 51% of the time she takes the $600 a month that my disability gives for my 2 kids, our attorneys want to settle this outside of court and my lawyer is telling me that the $600 A month my wife gets from my ssd. for the kids, doesn't count for anything and that my wife can still come after me for child support so he told me not to take the spousal support (that I should of been getting since the divorce process started 2 years ago...) so one of the many questions I am asking is can she come after me for child support since I'm on disability and only make 1200 a month and after rent leaves me with $75 to live for the month, I can't even take my kids to the movies, , and the $600 A month from my ssd she gets for the kids disappears in every aspect during court according to my useless lawyer, besides not making any sense , how can my wife get $7200 A year from my ssd and not add that to her total income she receives a year in order to figure out all the expenses towards the kids,,, I realize this is a confusing question I really hope you understand what I'm trying to ask,, I really need to know why the 7200 she gets from my ssd doesn't have to be documented and why that money is not figured into the total of what she earned everybody including my lawyer is acting like that money doesn't exist and that I'm in fact not contributing 1 penny towards the kids.. ,,,

Hi,

I'm sorry, but I'm not a lawyer and I have no knowledge of the divorce laws in New York or elsewhere.

Regarding the $600 child's benefits to which you refer, those benefits are for your children and are to be used for their support and maintenance, or saved for their future needs. The representative payee handling benefits on behalf of minor children is appointed by Social Security, and they normally entrust a parent with custody in that role. However, I have no idea whether or not those benefits could be substituted for child support as part of your divorce settlement.

Best, Jerry