I'm posting this in 'relationships' rather than 'divorce and separation', where most of the posts seem to be about newly divorcing people. I've been divorced for almost 20 years, my ex left me when our DCs were very small for another woman that he's still with, she has 2 grownup DCs of her own. Contact has always been regular, although I would say I'm the one who has been the 'backbone' - he took holiday with GF whenever he wanted without checking whether I could have the DCs over the time he was away, and on more than one occasion when they were young I had to cobble together childcare/change my plans because I'd made plans for when I thought they'd be with him, etc. I'm lucky enough to earn enough to be financially independent but it's been hard work and I've remained single - probably because working and raising the children took all my time and energy. Ex has always tended to be more lavish with spending on the DCs - they know that if dad takes them shopping he'll buy whatever they want (eg buying expensive clothes that only just fitted when they were growing fast, so they lasted no time at all), whereas I'll look for value for money, do they really need X, they'll have to justify it more etc - there's definitely a flavour of 'if we want something we'll go shopping with dad & he'll buy it for us'. Along the way I've had to be quite tough with him sometimes when he's splashed out on something and then asked me afterwards if I'll pay half - essentially I say no, I'll only share cost of things you discuss with me first, and he then accuses me of being stingy, so I dislike having conversations with him about it. As they get older the purchases get bigger, and I'm struggling a bit with the whole 'attitude to money' business. The oldest two have both made comments about me limiting the amount I spend on them for presents eg at Christmas time (I look at ensuring they all have about the same value of gifts, carefully chosen, whereas he just gets them what they want regardless of cost). Eldest DC is very much a 'daddy's girl' and quite materialistic, I'm sure she feels I don't love her as much as he does, because I don't bankroll her as much. I feel it's important that they learn the value of money - which they won't from him as he just buys them stuff. I realised recently that it does hurt a bit that they have no concept of how hard it's been for me all these years, being deserted when they were little, being on my own, organising my life around the needs of the DCs in a way he never did - friends always said that 'they would understand when they were older' and all I see now is 'lovely generous dad, mean mum'. I look into the future and see this continuing, with wedding costs etc, and just feel really fed up. Any wise words please?
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Relationships
Different attitudes to money and DCs in long-divorced parents
7 replies
Walkacrossthesand · 19/01/2013 22:09
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