My ex isn't following the divorce decree. What can I do?
A decree is a court order, and courts enforce their own orders, but only when someone asks. Nothing happens automatically. No one at the courthouse is checking whether your ex made the transfer, signed the deed, or returned the children on time. The case is closed until you reopen it.
That is the single most useful thing to understand here, because most people wait a long time expecting a system that is not watching.
What enforcement is called
The vocabulary gap is wide in this area, and it costs people time when they search.
You would say your ex won't do something, or refuses to. Courts call the remedy a motion to enforce or a petition for contempt. Same event, different words. If you have been searching for help using the first set and finding nothing useful, that is why.
Contempt generally means asking the court to find that your ex knowingly violated a clear order. It usually requires that the order was specific, that they knew about it, and that they could have complied and chose not to. That last element matters: courts distinguish between won't and can't. Someone who lost their job and stopped paying is in a different position than someone who simply decided not to.
Before you file anything
Read the exact wording of the order. Enforcement turns on precision. "Shall transfer the vehicle title by June 1" is enforceable. "The parties will cooperate regarding the vehicle" mostly is not. This is why aspirational language in a decree causes so much trouble later.
Assemble the record. Dates, amounts, what was supposed to happen and what did. Screenshots, bank records, messages. A clean, factual timeline is worth more than a long account of how it felt, and keeping a record covers how to build one that holds up.
Ask in writing, once. A dated message asking them to comply does two things: it sometimes works, and it demonstrates you tried, which judges notice.
What a court can do
Order compliance, with a deadline. Enter a money judgment for what is owed. Order wage garnishment for unpaid support. Award you the attorney fees you spent bringing the motion, where your state allows it, which is more common in enforcement than elsewhere because you should not have to pay to get what was already ordered. And in serious, repeated cases, impose sanctions.
What a court will not usually do is rewrite the parenting plan as a punishment. Changing custody or the schedule is a separate request with its own standard, even after repeated violations, so ask for enforcement and for a change as two different things rather than expecting one to deliver the other.
Where support and parenting time collide
One rule worth knowing before you act on instinct: support and parenting time are separate obligations. Withholding the children because support is unpaid, or stopping payment because you are being denied time, is usually a violation in itself. Both are enforceable, and both are enforced separately. Why they are independent covers it.
When enforcement is the wrong tool
If circumstances have genuinely changed, whether a lost job, a move, or children whose needs are different, the answer may be modification rather than enforcement. Those are different requests with different standards, and asking for the wrong one wastes time.
File the moment circumstances change, not when you can afford a lawyer. Support that has already come due generally cannot be reduced later: federal law requires every state to treat each missed installment as a judgment not subject to retroactive modification, and a modification typically reaches back only to the date you asked. Waiting six months to file does not save six months of payments; it creates them.
And if the problem is that your decree never clearly said what was supposed to happen, you may need clarification instead. That is a frustrating answer, and it is why the drafting stage deserves more attention than it usually gets.
Do not wait years
Obligations get harder to enforce as they age. Records go missing, memories fade, assets move, and long delay invites an argument that you did not really mind. Some claims have limits on how long you have. If something in your decree has not happened, it is worth raising now.
What contempt requires, which remedies are available, whether fees can be shifted, and how long you have to bring a claim all vary by state. If something significant in your decree has gone unperformed, that is worth a licensed family-law attorney where your case was decided.