The Orthodontist War Heats Up
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We take a pause in the Psycho-SIL criminal series for more pressing matters. Also, because we still are waiting on several other reports. I’ve previously written about this situation being all about the money - at least the power it has to make one’s life very, very difficult. She tends to wield this power with impunity.
She applied more pressure on 8/14/09:
LM,
I’m making an appt today for S1 to get his first round of spacers. I will then submit the bill to DR for your half. You’re too much.
~PEW
This is a big problem. Whether anyone who frequents this blog chooses to believe it or not, I don’t have half of the $5,000 fee at the moment and S1’s teeth and palate will survive until I can get a job. People have survived since the dawn of time with crooked teeth. I want S1 to get his braces. He will get them when we get the financial situation righted.
If PEW is permitted to forge ahead unchallenged in this regard, it will only set us back further in a situation where we can ill-afford to be. Therefore, I felt compelled to reply, respectfully, and factually…
PEW,
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am unable to agree with moving forward so soon on S1’s braces. You cannot make such decisions unilaterally as per the court order.
Sincerely,
LM
That was all I intended to say. This isn’t emergency medical treatment. It WILL get done. It does NOT need to get done “right now.” There are more important things at stake here, not that PEW can think beyond how much more quickly she can make life tougher on everyone. It’s not like dental care for the children was a priority for her before (see: Pearly Whites). Notice a pattern here? When I am under financial strain - she will go to great lengths to find ways to put additional pressure on me. The last dentistry issue arose during my layoff in 2007. I’m guessing you’re not shocked.
LM,
What?!?!? This is a medical necessity…have you looked at your son’s teeth. He is going to get abcesses in there. Where does the court order say that I do not have to get our children medical attention when it is needed?
~PEW
Here’s a mother who couldn’t be bothered to take the kids to the orthodontist, instead calling me at the very last minute on the day of their appointment with a bullshit excuse. She wasn’t at the appointment. She hasn’t even spoken with the orthodontist (at the time the email exchange took place), and like I’ve mentioned before - she has S1 perilously close to death as a result of my predicament. She does this with no basis to make the assumptions she has in the above email showing how terrified she is.
At the time of the appointment, the orthodontist expressed the following information:
- The sooner it is done, the better for S1.
- He can get braces at any time.
- It wasn’t needed IMMEDIATELY, but if we wanted him to get used to them by the time school starts, we should move sooner rather than later. It’s especially good at this age up to and including early teen years due to the softness of the palate and the ease of getting the teeth, palate, and jaw to move.
Keep in mind, that even the dentist made NO MENTION of the perilous fears about S1’s single crooked molar. It is substantially out of place. It wasn’t until I brought up the tooth that the dentist (one SHE chose) even thought to consider referring us to an orthodontist.
LM,
and by the way the circumstances are within your control….get a job. Just because you refuse to get a job doesn’t mean the kids have to suffer.
~PEW
See: Rolleyes eyestrain. Unmerciful, cold-hearted, uncaring, CLICHE-SPEWING black-heart. Nevermind how the children are suffering while she takes $400/month from our household while she continues with her cycle of terror. She’s incapable of thinking of the children when there is an opportunity to ramp-up the drama.
LM,
I can’t believe you are going to risk losing legal custody over what amounts to be $2500 spread out over two years. Are you serious? I’m ok with this because you have left a 5 year paper trail of how you put your financial gain in front of the children….this is great especially on the heals of your child support fiasco….perfect timing LM.
~PEW
Cue the custody and support threats. So very predictable.
The reason this is a problem is because no matter what we agree to “off the books” or what the Orthodontist promises, etc. If PEW incurs any expenses, all she has to do is turn it into to CSE and it gets the ball rolling. Ultimately, that means more court, more legal fees, more waste, more abuse-by-legal-system.
If I thought for one second she would agree to take the 1st-half of the payments and relegate me to the last half of the payments - that could work. As much I wish I had a job already, that would buy me another half-year (minimum) to get the job and take care of business. However, after all of this - would you trust the PEW under just such an arrangement, knowing all she would have to do is turn the receipts in to CSE and all bets are off?
August 21st, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Been reading for awhile and getting a lot of help with our PEW, but wanted to chime in now to say that it wasn’t all that long ago (~10 years, I guess) that I had to get a palate spacer. For the reasons your orthodontist listed, it had to happen before I was 15. FIFTEEN (not 10 or 12…I can’t remember how old S1 is). Due to financial constraints, I didn’t get the spacer until then, when I was 15. And honestly, there’s no “adjusting to the braces” that needs to happen before school. Everyone gets braces; it’s a rite of passage.
August 21st, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I know this. S1 is currently 10. I don’t think that the Ortho was unnecessarily pushing for S1 to have them for any medical reason when he said to “get used to them before school” - but more mentally. If he goes into school having them in place and not a sudden change “mid-season” - the transition with friends/classmates goes a little more smoothly.
I buy into that logic and, if I had the money, I would get it done.
The reality is - he absolutely doesn’t NEED for it to happen right away. He simply doesn’t.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Uh, does S1 have all his adult teeth? My DD is 10, and has a HUGE overbite. I took her for an ortho eval, and they said that we could do braces now, but would end up having them longer or twice once her adult teeth came in. It was suggested to wait until all adult teeth are in, probably about 12-13. DS is 11, and just lost his last baby tooth. His adult teeth aren’t all in yet, so I figure at least another 6-12 months until he is ready (past 12). Why any court would agree that braces for a 10 year old are medically necessary is beyond me, but I know how that goes. My suggestion would be to get a statement from the ortho stating that braces are not necessary right now, but suggest an age of when they should be started. I can’t imagine any ortho insisting braces start at 10.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Actually, I never got braces till I was 15. I think kids are getting them way to early. Most of those kids have to get a second set… and, like you say, it’s not life or death. Let her add you to the doc’s account…You can go in and say you didn’t authorize it and she will be solely responsible.
Ya, court docs overrule her decisions…
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:29 am
WOW!!! Pew is a total bitch. The “you refuse to get a job” line was probably borrowed from my PEW
My child had to wait until 11 until 2 cuspids grew in. His front teeth are so big they had to pull the two teeth next to them out. If we would have waited 6 months for the state to approve the braces, they would have been paid for. Since my pew couldn’t wait (and we were still married) I am now paying for braces.
Good luck dealing with her.
August 22nd, 2009 at 3:17 am
I’ve known adults with braces because their family could not afford it when they were children. It’s nice to have straight teeth, but end of the day it is a cosmetic procedure. Several local orthodontists have closed up their practices because in the recession people are either delaying braces or choosing not to get them at all. Unlike local family practices that have gone unaffected because people do need to see doctors at times, the orthodontist is a medical neccessity for a very small number of people. Frankly even then, there’s always the solution of simply pulling the teeth. Not ideal, but again, there are families for whom braces are simply never going to fit into the budget.
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:39 am
What is going to happen, ultimately? Will she take you to court because you two can’t agree on this issue? At some point, would the judge that keeps seeing you two realize that there is no way you can make joint decisions for the kids? This is like a train wreck…
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:19 am
Katiedid said:
“What is going to happen, ultimately? Will she take you to court because you two can’t agree on this issue? At some point, would the judge that keeps seeing you two realize that there is no way you can make joint decisions for the kids? This is like a train wreck…”
Ultimately, what will happen is exactly what Mister-M already predicted: PEW will take S1 to the ortho, she can legally obligate Mister-M to pay, and CSE will agree with PEW and enforce it. And I guarantee that the judge already knows that PEW and Mister-M cannot make joint decisions. That is completely unimportant. Mister-M has a penis, therefore, he is a money machine for his state. The “best interests of the children” have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Attorneys (and judges are all attorneys) can spot a Borderline from miles away. They are probably better at spotting them than psychologists. Think about it: the lower life forms are always better at identifying their meal source.
Okay, and that last paragraph was harsh, and I must say that I actually work with a number of attorneys who really do advocate for the children and not the state… but I also hear the way attorneys talk when they are only around other attorneys, and then they freely admit that they know how to spot a Borderline, and they freely confess that when they do, they recognize a nice fat paycheck coming their way.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:37 am
Wow she really is as nuts as you say. What child has to have braces right away, plus age 10 seems young. Sorry you are put in such an impossible situation. Our PEG is the same way, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I am curious to see where this goes.
Good luck on the job search I really hope something comes up for you, I cannot imagine the stress level you are feeling right now. That has to be terrible.
August 22nd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
“and they freely confess that when they do, they recognize a nice fat paycheck coming their way.”
That is absolutely what is happening in the court systems… attorneys and judges… good ole boys, playing off each other…
grrrrrrr!
I don’t use an attorney, yet my ex does and it is always about ME reimbursing for his attorney fees. Well, if he didn’t use an attorney the fights wouldn’t continue like they do (they are so minute anyway, yet his attorney create a mtn. out of a molehill!)
I will be interested in seeing how this goes. I know that my ex would take me to court if I made a unilateral decision like that.
August 22nd, 2009 at 3:00 pm
The sad thing, and I was thinking of this, is that either way you are screwed.
If you don’t pay the bills created by the unilateral decision, you are screwed. Thousands there.
If you try to fight the fact that it’s a unilateral decision and you shouldn’t be held responsible–again, thousands. So what do you do?
The options look bleak. So sorry Mr. M.
August 22nd, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I have options. When I don’t have options, you can bet I’ll be here to let you know that I didn’t know what I thought I did.
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:03 am
Lawyers are never advocates for children, they are advocates for their adult clients. No doubt many of them direct their clients in ways that will produce the most billable hours. Some simply preform the roll of the hired gun. Bottom line: an adversial judical system with protections to weight the trial in favor of the accused is a great system of CRIMINAL justice. However, none of the found fathers could ever have envisioned a time when this system would be used to control the private lives of citizens. Simply put: the legal system is NOT the place to deal with these issues. In fact, the government should not be involved with these issues.
August 26th, 2009 at 12:01 am
This is so damned sad Mister-M. My gut just wrenches for what you guys are going through. Financial strain is the most difficult thing to deal with in relationships; especially when all of the children are going to hurt for it. I surely hope you can find ease soon regarding a job. This way, the psychotic X, can dig into things that will not take as great a toll on you….like all the other stupid shit she pulls that you can laugh about.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I have a Mister-M situation, and he got screwed with a ruling by our judicial system last month over an ortho. bill from 2001. He did not know his child was getting or thinking of getting braces until 3 weeks after the fact also at age 10. My Mister-M also got screwed with paying half of the ortho bill to which also had numerous missed appts. charges, late payment charges, the bills were never ever submitted to him, the payments by PEW were made by credit card, which PEW turned around and filed for bankruptcy on this credit card 2 yrs. later, which was discharged,so she did not pay anyhow, and my poor Mister-M was ordered to pay PEW $700+ towards that ortho bill! Good Luck to you Mister-M, I really feel for you, best advice maybe when you do find employment, work out a payment plan with the ortho, they are very lenient.
I felt like telling the judge on the way out of the courtroom “If you would of told me I was going to get screwed when I got here, at least I would of pulled down my pants and enjoyed it” but he was so ignorant, he probably would of found me in contempt.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
WOW! Is your x-wifes Name Robin? Geez it sounds like my husbands x-crazy wife money sucking floozy. I know that is not very nice, but its true. She sits at home all day, collecting disability (for what the heck I have no idea, she is fine), and she just took us to court for an extra $400 a month, and now she wants us to pay for half of the braces. I am furious! She is also married to someone who makes a decent pay check. What a greedy person! I sure hope your situation gets better, because I feel for you!
July 26th, 2010 at 3:02 am
[...] Have your own psycho ex? Get a FREE Report on “Why Co-Parenting Doesn’t Work”, or learn how to win child custody with a custody coach.You’ll recall that there has been much discussion about high-conflict ex-spouses using “braces” (orthodontia, of all things) as a tool to put additional financial pressure on the struggling normal ex-spouse. Well, it’s time to bring you up to speed on S1’s braces issue - we’re under way! I haven’t done an update since last August when I posted: The Orthodontist War Heats Up. [...]