My experience is that the courts will go back to the filing date and you can only hope he has a soul somewhere that will come out. Honestly every atty advices do not pay anything until court now that will screw him in the long run and it makes things horribly hard on you of course. What I would do is call about services such as SNAP benefits, ANYTHING that can help you now relieve the pressure of what you are going through. I don't know if you belong to a church, they are so willing to help people in need. One thing I'm going to highly suggest is that when you get that award you INSIST it is garnished from his check that way there are no issues in collection and ask that the back support start coming out now. I would also ask during that time about taxes, in terms of making sure that the tax money is required to be sent to YOUR atty that way you can take the back out of his 1/2 because chances are the judge will award joint filing on taxes regardless how long he's been out of the house. One can only hope. I'm sooo sorry you are dealing with this and going through all this crap it sucks bad. I call it starving the parenting partner out. Mine didn't take the kids at all during that time and I have sole custody so I understand how hard it all is. DOCUMENT how hard this has been for you and what your expenses are and how much you need the financial stuff. At some point you can get away from needing the money for now .. you need it and you are entitled to it and what he's doing is big time BS. Hugs