There's Always Another Shoe...

Every time Stella goes quiet (well, almost every time) it's because she either just got legally spanked or because she's plotting. Or, in the strange case of the period between this last Thanksgiving (2011) and St. Patrick's Day (2012) it's because she didn't have anything to fight about and was being given things like extra time with the kids.

Stella lost her job in early March of this year. She had 2 week's notice that it was coming. Her position was eliminated and it didn't seem like her workplace tried especially hard to find her a new spot, but they did give her severance. Guy started asking her about medical insurance for the kids, to which she always replied, "No, don't worry. I've got it. I love our children and their wellbeing (sic) is always my first priority!" Whatever. Spring break comes around and we know the kids' medical insurance through Stella's severance package from work was going to expire the day after Stella got the kids for her visitation. Guy asked her at the exchange if she'd gotten new medical insurance, and could he please have the cards? "Oh, don't worry. I put in with . It's all applied for and everything, I'm just waiting for them to call me back." So I turned to Guy and said, "So....the kids don't have medical insurance." He called out to Stella, "Well, I need the policy information. Please send that to me ASAP." "Right," she called back, "Will do." Then he turned to me, "Nope. Kids are uninsured. CRAP."

We got in the car and drove away, and while I was at the wheel Guy put down in writing his dismay, tactfully, at Stella leaving the kids uninsured. What ensued was the usual douchebaggery from her, including, "Stop harassing me, bully! UR just as much responsible for medical care as I am. Hey, dick, I lost my job and had bills to pay and rent, and you never look after the best interests of the kids...blah blah blah," text messages rife with spelling mistakes. Of course, she clarified in one of the bullshit texts she sent that it was the "damn voice texting" that was making the mistakes. Yup, she was voice-texting this shit while she was taking the kids from where we met up back to Phoenix. She was voice-texting WITHIN EARSHOT of the kids. Oh, and then in one of the texts stated that Marsha was reading the texts! With Stella's blessing, because the texts just popped up on Stella's phone and Marsha was using it to play a game....lovely. Parental Alienation plain and simple. So great.

This crap continued for Guy all week. He kept prodding for the medical insurance info., she kept dodging the question and calling him names or complaining that we didn't send the kids to her with nice enough clothing. Guy ended up just adding the kids to his ridiculously expensive and California-only insurance through work because that's all he could afford. After that, Stella went silent. She never goes silent. What was she up to, I wondered? Had to be something...

Well, while the kids were at Stella's for Spring Break 2012!, Guy got copies of Stella's paycheck stubs from her last job for all of the payments from November through the present, including her severance pay stub. Guy has a judgment against Stella from the custody case where she was found in contempt and ordered to pay almost all of our attorney's fees. Guy was having a collection firm in Phoenix garnish Stella's wages. Not sure she noticed...but it was happening. Turns out they didn't garnish her severance check and they were supposed to.

In the middle of one of Stella's text-message diatribes during the week in response to Guy's again prodding for the medical policy number, Guy told her that he knew she had the money to pay for medical insurance because he was staring at her severance check stub, and noticed that her severance check hadn't been properly garnished for the judgment, but she needn't worry because his lawyer was looking into that. She changed her tone, and her tune, very quickly. The verbal abuse stopped abruptly and his only reply was, "I did my due diligence. Got the kids insurance. I didn't know the waiting period for it to be active would take so long." Whatever again.

In all truthfulness, our collections attorney for this garnishment process has been extremely sloppy and uncommunicative. We never know what's going on. Guy tells them what he thinks is happening, and forwarded over all of Stella's pay stubs, but then he never hears back. When he got the severance check stub he sent that over with a message that basically said, "WTF? Wasn't this check supposed to have been garnished?" He ACTUALLY got a phone call reply with a definitive YES. And they ACTUALLY filed a motion with the court to recoup the money that should have been garnished on...the first day after we got the kids back, which was the first day that Stella shut her fat mouth. She's been extremely quiet ever since...

There's no such thing as true "civility" with a Psycho Ex. When they run out of things to fight about they calm down, but it's only because they're looking for something to fight about. Stella was too overcome with her glee at being given a HUGE chunk of money at once to remember that it was supposed to last her 2 months. Plus I did the math, and she was given a severance that was approximately equal in a net amount to what she earned in two months as a gross amount, and her net payment for severance didn't have ANYTHING taken out of it other than taxes - not medical insurance, not life insurance, not the judgment garnishment, not a thing. Had she paid the medical insurance privately with her severance pay, she would have approximately been left with a remaining amount equal to her net pay when she was working. Good grief. The stupidity is amazing. It shouldn't be at this point, but it is.