Well quite frankly, why did you let it get behind $16k before you did anything? That was one of your major issues. How much did you actually pay? Or did you pay nothing and just determine you weren't going to pay? Did you tell your ex you wouldn't pay her anything?
Shortly after my divorce in 2001, I became ill and was placed on long-term disability for three years. During this period, my 401k was used to pay my spousal and child support. According to the Probation Department, the 401k payments should have been paid directly to Probation instead of being sent directly to my ex-wife. Probation blamed the judge for not following proper procedures. For years, my ex-wife received large sums of money from my retirement plan but only reported some of the funds to Probation. The under-reporting of funds created an arrearage which worked in her favor each time I went back to court. I recently received an audit and can now prove that over $40,000 was not reported to Probation. In 2007, I had requested a full accounting but the court denied my request.
In regards to the 16k, from 2006 to 2012, my ex-wife received 65% of my pay because of the arrearages. However, because the 65% did not cover my total obligation, I was going deeper into debt with each paycheck.