Child Support Case

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Introduction: Down The Hole
Let start by explaining what brought me to this fatal negotiation. The path to negotiations started after my second day back home from my deployment in Iraq. On a Saturday morning in November of 2010, I got visited by the angel of not so good news who officially serves me with a notification that my formal wife wanted an increase in child support for the only son we had together. The funny thing about it is that in 18 months, in July 2012, he was going to turn eighteen. Because for many reasons, I did not agree with the increase she was asking for and we enter into a negotiation battle.
Why more? & Why not?
The first question that came to my head was - what is the reason she was asking for more, why now? The reason for my question was the fact that I had never fails to pay the child support, I was always looking forward to having him with me, and my formal was a professional quality control manager for a big chain of supermarkets in Texas. I will say she probably was making more than I was (close to the six figures), plus $960.00 of child support for one kid; and for this reason I could not say she was short of money or that my son was starving. My son was also going to Public H.S., so no mayor extra education expense there. I did ask why she wanted more, and her only explanation was that my son required more school cloths and he is spending more on extracurricular activities. Of course I ask my son, and the only extra school activity he was doing was the school theater club and going out to the movies once a while with his friends. Especially, because his mom’s house was kind far away from town and she really did not the time to drive him around. Again, I could not understand the fact that s...

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.... We should have gone with a professional negotiator or mediator, after my second failure and try to resolve the issue before going in front of the Judge. I knew the possibility of the Judge sending us mediation, if we have not done it before going in front of him. This would have save time and maybe there was a better change for an agreement, before competiveness grew after seeing the judge. I fail to have counter- tactics during the mediation process, so end up paying the $1600. Another mayor failure was to be able to understand my formal wife goals and potential alternative, by finding the real reason for her wanting an increase. My proposal and action was based on assumptions and not facts (“Know the other party” (Garrett 159))

Works Cited

Garrett, G. A. (2013, March 4). Chapter 9 The Award Phase. World Class Contracting, 5th Edition. CCH INCORPORATED

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