I sued my father for child support as an adult.

The emotional and economic exhaustion required of father paying child support (as this is the case 97% of the time ) or for the debtor mother, what is fair is often the reason which explains why the alimony requests currently being processed , why a readjustment is not requested or why it is not insisted. And insisting comes at a very high cost in the relationships that unite them. As if requiring a minimum of participation in the care of the common child was an advantage.

In Chile, 130,000 boys, girls and adolescents have been economically abandoned by their fathers. This is demonstrated by the most recent figures from the National Register of Alimony Debtors in Chile. Paula interviewed three young people who, at the start of their university life, getting by without tuition fees and on a tight budget, dared to sue their parents to be able to pay for their studies.

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“The same year I entered university to study law, My mother, who worked as a secondary school teacher, lost her job. At that time, as the social register did not reach the sufficient percentage because my mother’s salary, who earned decently, was still included, I was not entitled to the free allowance. Economically, the situation for both of us was very difficult because we couldn’t afford it.

My parents separated when I was 3 years old. At that time, an amount was agreed for the pension that should be paid to me month by month, but soon my father started a new family and he didn’t care. regarding money because “another baby was on the way.” This was very difficult for my mother, who had recently separated from an 8-year marriage and started being a single mother. Fortunately, they quickly settled the support in court and every time he didn’t pay or fell behind, she was going to close the case so that an overnight arrest warrant could be issued for him. With this, he paid quickly, until he got used to paying on time. However, even though he paid, he decided to wipe himself off the face of the earth for me. He ignored his paternity.

When I started law school, I learned about pensions and realized that the amount of money my father had to give me depended on each person’s needs and that it was not enough for us. And that’s it The pension was fixed from the age of 4 and was only readjusted with changes in the CPI, but not with the emergence of new needs, such as going to university.

With this background, I took him to court to readjust the amount of the pension. There, I discovered that this man is a health director in a municipality and that he earns around 3 million pesos per month. When I found out, I felt terrible. The gratuitous absence of a father is very strong in itself, but discovering that he enjoys a very peaceful economic life, which allows him to ensure economic comfort and to take care of other children and not me , was horrible. I fell into a really nasty depression after finishing the process because it was so exhausting. To him, I was some kind of monster who wanted to torment him to ruin their lives.

Although it was difficult, it helped me a lot to do it myself. It was like closing a cycle. I always felt like a passive subject of the situation. I was abandoned and this hurt is something I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. Throughout my childhood, I experienced this hurt with wanting too much to have my father near me, not understanding why he wasn’t there and feeling that I was somehow responsible for this. Fortunately, I was able to see it from afar and for what it is; a man who decided to leave because he is selfish and it has nothing to do with me. Thanks to this, I was able to stop missing him and see him with more distance. Seeing his decrepitude and witnessing how he victimized himself made me feel much freer, even happy not to have him with me. I was no longer a passive subject in the abandonment situation, but rather clearer that now we no longer have a relationship because of what he did and because I don’t want anything with him anymore.

“Even though my parents separated many years ago, while I was in school, My father always had the idea that all expenses were shared with my mother, if any. Unfortunately, that changed when I entered college. It was quite a drama because, under pressure from them to study immediately after leaving school, I decided to opt for gastronomy and this idea did not appeal to them at all. So much so that I thought they wouldn’t pay my monthly tuition fees. Finally, they accepted and I studied the first semester calmly.

However, The second semester came and my father told me that I had to start working while studying. There, he offered me to go clean the offices of his new company in exchange for paying for my diploma. At that time I refused because I didn’t think one thing had to do with another. Sure, I could work as a housekeeper, but the right thing to do was to pay myself independently, like any other job. Upon hearing my response, he treated me extremely poorly, telling me that I was interested and that, for this reason, he would not continue to pay the monthly payment. In fact, he didn’t pay, and as the next month was about to arrive, I asked him if he would continue to do so. He refused very firmly. All I had to do was follow the legal route.

When I took the steps to begin mediation, a notification arrived. With this simple warning, he became so angry that he turned his entire family against me, saying that I only wanted money, just like my mother. that I had sued him some time before for my little brother’s pension. Already in mediation, he spoke ill of my mother and even asked me to return the birthday gifts he had given me a month before, namely a trip and tickets to a concert at which we were going to Santiago together.

As no agreement was reached during this mediation, I continued the process with a lawsuit that I initiated myself in order to be able to continue my studies. And without that money, even if I tried, I wouldn’t have been able to pay for my college education. On the one hand, My mother covered all of my brother’s expenses because what my father had paid him as pension over those years was hopefully enough for us to cover snacks. On the other hand, I was trying to generate income from other sources. I sold clothes on Facebook and covered transportation and some of the snacks at the University. This was our reality for a while. My mother, to avoid problems with my father, had not carried out the corresponding readjustment, which involved another process of mediation and all the emotional exhaustion that entailed.

A few weeks before the hearing, my father had already stopped talking to me. Since then, which was years ago, we haven’t spoken. He kept me away from the whole family under the pretext that I was interested in money and, even today, if he sees me in the street, he crosses so as not to greet me. This process was very powerful for me. Before mediation, my father and I had a good relationship. Having no contact with him overnight was brutal as I felt like I had lost him and his family, who also stopped speaking to me. He stopped being in my life and it’s something that continues to hurt me a lot even today. “Sometimes I feel guilty for studying for all that it entails.”

“My father never contributed to anything that concerned me. When I was 2, my parents separated, but it wasn’t until I was 8 that my mother took him to court for child support. He paid for a short time and then gave up. Not wanting to get upset, my mother didn’t insist on payments and that’s how we stayed, supporting ourselves with what she earned from her job. , until I was 22, when my mother and I saw a news report that said that even if you were of legal age, you could sue your father. or resume a trial. This is what I did and this led the judge to activate the payment of the pension until I turned 28, with annual adjustments in the amount of $80,000, for having practically never paid.

My father paid, not without problems: he first took me to mediation, he said that he was homeless, that he had no income and he even went to prison with night confinement not to pay, but finally he paid. It felt like I was finally getting justice. I felt like this was one last chance for him to pay me back, in the form of money, for everything he had never given me. I took it as a little revenge.

However, even though I did what was necessary to pay for my studies, Suing him broke the relationship I had with my grandparents, who became angry, as did my sisters (my father’s daughters). , that they stopped talking to me and that I never saw them again. Although they did not receive less money because my father paid me a pension, the feeling, from what they themselves told me, was that “he was taking advantage of me”. This used to make me even angrier, because my mother and I never acted with the idea of ​​“taking advantage” of anyone. In fact, we have always been two against the world. Now I feel like this is a story that gets repeated a lot, that a bad father’s parents will always put him first even if he’s a bad person, simply because he’s their son.

The last time I heard from him was when I met him at a former job where he managed a store. He apologized for the way he had been with me. It didn’t change anything in our relationship, because I didn’t really feel anything when he told me. I don’t have any major feelings towards him or maybe I’m mad at him because of what he continues to do to my grandparents, who are already old and he knows they will never leave him calm down, whatever he does.”