Long story short. Have 2 DC’s 6 and 7. Broke up over 2 years ago due to years of emotional and financial abuse.
since then it has been thing after thing, inconsistent visits, lies, nasty behaviour, concerns with the state of his house and parenting and even a social services call from a more recent ex of his on him.
So, he has refused to pay any kind of child maintenance for the children and would refuse to even go halves on school shoes etc since the moment we broke up. I finally made a referral through cms after a year which led to wracking up debts when he had the option to pay of 2k. Since that point I changed over to the system where he has to pay straight out of his wages, which ontop of backdated pay is £300 and some change per month and he is working a slightly over minimum wage job.
contact has tapered down to a visit here and there of a couple of hours, due to his financial situation and ‘depression’ which I was pleased with as I did not feel that they were safe the entire weekend as it was unclean and the kids had told me that he would sleep until we’ll after midday and I have never declined visitation even though the kids find it actually rather distressing as he is all woe is me when he drops them off and especially for my eldest who is extremely emotional finds it difficult.
so he is now pleading poverty with me saying he doesn’t have enough money to live on, he can pay rent but cannot pay for anything else and is going through legal things to do with me???? whereas I am quite comfortable.. I work full time and the money that I recieve goes on days out and savings and recently he had gone on SSP due to his mental health and I notified him he had to let CMS know so that they could alter it and he just hasn’t so the full amount is still coming out. I have spent years being abused by this man but I still feel guilty that I am reaping the benefits whilst he is not AIBU?