Contempt hearing for Ex

[Momof3]

I live in Maryland and about 2 years ago my husband and I got divorced. I wrote the divorce agreement up myself becausse my ex didn't want to go through lawyers. We have joint custody with me as the primary caregiver. The children go to school where I live and I have them at least 4 days out of the week. In the divorce he was to pay $130 per week for two children. Now he signed this as well as the judge but he was very inconsistent with his payments so I ended up going through DSS.
Since it was an order that the judge and both of us signed, they picked my case up immediately and sent him a letter stating that now he had to make the payments through them. At this time he was already 7 weeks behind but I chalked that up as a loss and started from when they took the case over.
The ex got the letter and told me he was going to file for a modification because he didn't make much money and also because he had them often. He has never filed for that modification and when he got over 30 days in arrears they sent him a notification of his contempt hearing which is coming up in a week or so. He has only been paying 2 payments per month for the last 5 months so he is considerably behind.
My question is this....What is going to happen in court and should I go? I am not sure if he has a lawyer( I don't think he does) but he hasn't been paying anymore support knowing he has this hearing and I am just wondering what he is thinking. Is the judge just gonna want to know why he hasn't been paying and tell him to pay up?? I just don't want to be caught off guard.
Any advice would be very helpful. Thanks

 

[Grandma B]

Bravo for Maryland!!

It should work this way everywhere. Most CP's have a problem getting the State to help collect support, even when NCP's owe many thousands of dollars.

As a minimum, the Judge should again order him to pay the support as agreed (or even increase it, depending on how long ago it was set), plus an additional amount per week/month to catch up the arrearage. There's even the possibility of his being incarcerated for failing to pay.

The fact that he's not even paying since receiving notice of the contempt hearing won't help his case either.

Good luck!