I don't know if i'm completely out of touch, or if DH's ex and kids are completely taking the piss, so a couple of honest views would be appreciated... Basically, DH's ex wife has always been a bit 'grabby'. For the two boys, she gets about £150 more than the csa recommend - in total, close to £1200 a month for the pair of them. The £150 is made up of extra for clothes and dinner money. The two boys are 14 and 16, and the eldest is all set to go on to do A levels in September. A few weeks ago, he started hinting about new stuff for school. He asked for a leather jacket, boots, tshirts and jeans...we agreed on the jacket (it's not a cheap one that he's picked!) and two pairs of jeans. Anyway, the ex sent DH a text a couple of days ago...she's putting £500 of her own money (she doesn't work, so basically DH's/our money that we give her for the boys) towards clothes, footwear and books and expects us to match it. We have two young children of our own and, well, we just can't afford it. We rent a five bed house so the boys can have their own rooms, even though they only visit for a weekend every three weeks and half of school holidays. Anyway, as expected, DH's ex has gone mental. How DH is a bad parent, that he doesn't care, how he has no idea how hard it is for her (she actually left him for another bloke after carrying on behind his back for nearly two years and took the kids 300 miles away [and does nothing to help with visits]) and how he's going to alienate his boys if he's not careful. DH is stressing about it all because he's worried that he won't see his sons because they'll turn against him. Me? I wanna punch the bitch in the throat. Are teenagers really this expensive? Is this a normal demand for a 16yr old kid? We also give them pocket money that goes straight into their bank accounts, which they do nothing for (they don't help out in the kitchen or walk the dogs when they come up to stay, for example) and he has no intention of using any of that for his new wardrobe or books. This isn't the first time that she's asked for more money, and we always pay half (at least) towards uniforms and footwear - we also buy them everyday clothes, usually a couple of tshirts or a hoodie when i'm buying clothes for our two (2 & 4, so grow out of things quickly!). Are we being unreasonable by telling the boys' mum that we can't afford it (we'd have to get stuff on a credit card) or is it normal to fork out this much money? My friends all tell me that we do more than enough already but, well, they're my mates so possibly a bit biased?
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zzzzz ·
08/07/2016 23:12
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