I guess whoever acts the first becomes the bad one while the other one gets to be the ones that got screwed?
Not necessarily. Obviously there are nasty folks on both sides. Probably, divorce is never fair to anyone...well that too is a generalization that isn't right either...put it this way, it is never fair to the KIDS, ever. Even if the most financially able parent, and I do know a couple of Mom's who have to contribute more to the financial well being of the kids because they make more money, pays the money the kids suffer emotionally because they never have both parents together, happy in the home. My daughter and husband do agree on discipline and that type of thing, they also confer and discuss very rationally matters which involve the kids, she just is the one who must come forth with the cash because if she waits for him, the kids suffer. Right now they are too young to know the truth, some day they will.
One thing here in this state, the parent paying the child support is generally responsible for this until the child is 23 or graduates from college, whichever comes first. Now years ago this was not the case, child support ran until the child was 18. My cousin divorced 20+ years ago, she had custody of their two children who were in elementary school at the time. Her ex had to pay child support (he was such a nice guy before they divorced that he actually left his son's 1st Communion Party because he had a date!...we found that out later though most of us suspected this was why he had to leave at the time) He DID always pay the support but most of the time never showed up to see the kids when he was supposed to. Anyway, when their oldest turned 18 he took her back to court to remove the child's name from the support order and have the amount reduced. He got a big surprise. The judge looked at the support amount ordered, probably 10 years before, and realized that she had never requested more and that it had never been adjusted since the first order, even for inflation, which was supposed to be automatic. So her ex "won"...the judge did remove the oldest child from the support order, but then did the adjusting for inflation and he ended up paying the same amount he had paid for the two plus $25 more a week for the remaining child for another 3 years!