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No proper child maintenance for 10 years

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Moomoo06 · 24/02/2017 16:56

My dd is 10 and a half and me and her dad split when she was just 4 months old. I have never had any regular child maintenance payments from him, he has been in and out of work, college, self employed etc all her life. When the CSA was still running, for a short while many years back I received £5 a week through them which was taken from his jobseekers allowance when he signed on, but even then I would only receive 1 or 2 payments then they would stop as he would get some work, then by the time they looked into what he was earning and tried to sort out payments, he would be out of work again and back on jobseekers. It would then take a couple of months for them to set up and start taking the £5 payments again off him which by then again I'd get 1 or 2 payments n he would sign off again. He was at college on a night course for a while and the CSA told me he was exempt from paying me anything whilst in education even though I knew he was doing odd jobs cash in hand and sometimes making quite a bit of money. I think its really unfair as when I was at college for a year then uni for three years doing a degree full time, I wasn't exempt from paying for anything for dd, she still required food, clothes etc! I've not had a penny from him now for dd for years, I know he works sometimes but all he does is give her a tenner pocket money now and then when she goes to sleep at his (he still lives with his parents and she only sleeps there 1-2nights a month) Im just really annoyed that I've sometimes had to put myself in debt (catalogues, credit cards etc) to buy her things she needs like a coat or school shoes. I am working but by the time I pay bills and buy food etc I'm left with little to nothing. I hardly have a social life as can't afford to go out with friends often (not that I'm complaining about that because I'd much rather spend time with dd and spend the spare money I do have doing something with her) but he seems to have a pretty good social life. Whenever I've brought it up in the past hes just said I'm not working at the moment, and tbh after 10 years of excuses I'm sick of asking him now, I mean how can you not have a proper job for 10/11 years? If that was me I'd take any job going! Just wondering if anyone is in /has been in the same situation and what would you advise I do? These 10 years have flew by and before I know it dd will be 18 and he won't be required to pay maintenance, and it makes me so angry to think that he'll probably just get away with not paying anything all her childhood! Plus I can never prove he works because most of the work he does is probably cash in hand.

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