Topic : 02/23 Exes From Hell

Insurance proceeds go to the named beneficiary.  If this dad was one of the named beneficiaries (for example, if it was left to your son's parents jointly) he is entitled to collect regardless of how unfair it might seem.  If he isn't named, he is out of luck. 

I am an estate lawyer (in Canada) and I have found over and over that  people don't think to change their policies after they divorce-especially work or banking group policies.  They often say they thought the divorce lawyer looked after it .  The only person who can change the beneficiary is the insured. 

It only takes a minute and look into it to save your loved ones getting burned. 

Just to share my Son's story,  He has a three year old daughter with his ex.  He has never missed a child support payment, he has never missed a "visitation" with his daughter.  He begs for additional time to be with his daughter.  His ex does everything in her power to allienate his daughter from him.  It's one of those situations that she doesn't want him but she doesn't want anyone else to have him either. She tell her daughter that her Dad is mean and doesn't love her.  He wants to attend Doctor's appt, dental appt.'s anything he can to be involved with his daughter. He almost needs to be a private investigator to find out anything about his own daugher. Even  though he has a Court Order stating that he has "joint physical custody" and is to be informed. She has remarried which we thought would be a Good Things, but no  that didn't help the situation any now she seems to have gotten worse.  She has learn that my son is engage to be married himself and oh how it hit the fan.  She doesn't want his fiance to even be around "HER" daughter, even though  "her" daughter loves is fiance very much.  It is a  very sad situation.  I am so glad that you are doing a show re: this subject.  I hope you will cover this side of the table as well as Dead Beat Dads.   Thank you for letting me post.   

I so feel for you and your son.    Please remember the daughter will grow up and figure things out.   I have a suggestion for you to consider.   Tell your son to keep record of all conversations and money transactions,  and what he has done to try to be a real father.    A diary.   The girl will figure this out in the end and come back to her father.   In the meantime it is heartbreaking and wicked.    The mother will pay the price in the end when the daughter figures out mom tried to keep her daddy from her.   As the gramma you could write a diary too so that it will not just be the mom's word against your son's.    Do not get obsessed with it.    Just write notes on what is going on and your feelings.    Sorry to bring up the subject of you dying, but if you are deceased your son will have your diary to back up his facts when the little girl comes looking for the truth. 

he was denied disability and is in the appeals process, which to me is ridiculous.  He filed the claim out of spite after he quit his job, about a week later.  In michigan they do not withold money out of an SSI check anyway so I probably wont see a cent, and I am not sure if that is state or fed law.  I tried to prove it with concrete evidence, but there was none.  All I have are written documents of him filing a disgruntled complaint with the court and my police report is dated a few days later, plus I know he was spiteful enough to act like that.  I am in a motions process and I since I do not have proof he did what he did, my hands are tied and I hold my faith in the system which can work one way or the other.  Its one of those unfortunate situations and I have to take it and it makes me sooooooooo mad.  I would like to ___________.(read my mind because its too mean to say outloud) >: 

I respect your views, but have you ever been in love?  been in a relationship?  been married?  have kids?  lived with no financial support?  It's just not that cut and dried when emotions and stress it high and you are not being heard. 

I totally agree that there had to have been more to him getting fired.  He wouldn't tell the truth if you beat it out of him because he's twisted it until he believes it himself.  Trust me, I know how Stacie feels. 

I also want you to know that Tracie is a wonderful, sweet, kind and loving person. She is the most kind hearted person that I have ever met. That is just one of the many reasons that I love her and wanted to marry her. We had a wonderful relationship for nearly three years and we still have some great times. Many of you have never had a relationship as good as ours and think that you have all the answers. Up until I got fired we had the best relationship of both of our lives. We both wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Tracie will admit to that also. We didn't have problems until after Tracie got cold feet and called off the wedding. I don't blame her as I did loose more than my job I lost respect for myself. Then Tracie lost respect for me. There are still so many good things about our relationship. We get along so well which you didn't see that on the show. The main thing that we do have is that we are not only lovers but best friends. It is hard to give up on that. Most of you think that we should just quit this relationship cold turkey. It is a lot easier said than done.  

We went on the show looking for help from Dr. Phil. I guess that we didn't get the advice that we wanted. I know that it wasn't what I wanted to hear. After the show Tracie and I continue to see each other. We still talk several times a day. We even had a wonderful Valentines Day diner and night together. Most of you will think that is crazy. I still want this relationship to work out. I still want to be Tracie's Mr. Right. Only time will tell. We are going to take it day by day and see what happens.