Child Benefit Rival Claim Ex Partner Earning Loads!!!!! part 2

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5506932-ex-disputing-cms-and-making-rival-child-benefit-claim-in-5050-care?page=5&reply=151244972

Him chasing the maintenance was entirely predictable. You kept pushing and he pushed back.

how much do you owe?
Can you negotiate back to direct pay rather than collect and pay?

So what if he initially said he opened the case to protect himself? He has clearly changed his mind due to your continued unreasonable behaviour which caused the situation to escalate.

You yourself admitted early on that when you were 50:50 he was still paying maintenance. Your jealousy and greed led you to blur the truth to CMS in an attempt to claim money you were not entitled to.

your behaviour has created an unecessary shitstorm / distress for all involved and wasted a lot of peoples time. Sounds like he has probably been put to the trouble of incurring legal fees and now the kids reside with him. Even if it was him that instigated legal proceedings, it would have been triggered as a response to your behaviour.

In his shoes I’d also be going after you for what the CHILDREN are entitled to regardless as a higher earner because:

1. of the aggravation and stress caused by your greed. You’re a monumental cheeky individual frankly (assuming this is real at this point because I’m struggling to believe anyone is this dense);
2. so that the money could be put aside for the KIDS to use at a later date.

OP, you need to let go of whatever has gone on in the past. You feel wronged about how he has been able to build his career, but that isn't going to help you get what you want in the future. You have to let it go.

I assume the goal is to try to get back to regular contact with your children.

Pay the maintenance, teenage children fully understand about money, and it will not help your relationship if you have to be forced to pay your share of their costs.

Once you're paying regularly, and the heat has been removed from this situation, reach out to your ex and ask him to facilitate regular contact.

From my situation, I didn't receive a penny in maintenance for years, worked full time, was always shattered, but have 2 daughters who want nothing to do with the father who refused to pay and made everything about money. 19 & 23 they are now, and I honestly believe they'll never speak to him again. It's not good for children to be estranged from a parent, no one wins. Don't be that parent. Let it go, it's really not worth it.

He’s asking for the CMS since the children have been in his care, as he is more than entitled, and of course I should be providing for my children. He’d originally said he was only opening the case to protect himself and didn’t want the money, so I didn’t pay anything. Then, you won't believe the greedy rampage I went on trying to get money I wasn't even entitled too, on top of the hundreds he was so generously giving me voluntarily. They’ve now said, is it any fucking surprise after my audacity and relentless attempts of greed against him that he naturally wants all the arrears spanning months and to pay from now on. It’s still going through court because he wants the money he paid to be repaid, and he's going to win that too because he was letting me have a small fortune out of nothing but goodwill but a we haven’t had the court date with the judge yet. I tell anyone what a victim I am, and as a result my children won't even speak to me and have gone to live with their father.

There. Fixed it for you.

Plus all you kept reverting to and getting stuck on throughout was how you were the primary parent because you did ‘more admin’. You know this is fairly normal in relationships, right - and that maintenance and child benefit it not a payment to you for doing more admin! It’s for the actual costs involved in raising the child.

I think you need some therapy to work through your resentment from earlier in your marriage. Whilst it may be justified, it’s unrelated to finance arrangements for now and the future. You’ve let the two collide and paid the price.

I don’t want to keep sticking the boot in OP, but you had multiple opportunities to avoid this situation. In July, he made a claim against you, after rightfully getting one of the child benefit payments assigned to him, and your response was that he should either give you the child benefit back or pay you the money that you ‘lost’. At this point, you were made aware that you may have to pay him back the maintenance he gave you, to which you stuck your head in the sand, argued the toss about why he should be allowed to claim anything, tried blaming the CMS for ‘misleading’ you (and expected them to pay him back out of some mythical compensation pot), and ignored many posters, with lived experience, who told you you’d probably have to give the money back. That was over half a year ago, you’ve had ample time to get your head around this and done the right thing. Instead you’ve dug your heels in, had a pity party and still refuse to listen to anybody.

What do you actually think you are going to active? Not just with these posts, but generally. With your children.

If the judge turns around and agrees with him (which is not an unlikely scenario), will you accept that then?

You could have avoided this even as recently as this past summer, correct? Didn't he email you and offer to drop his claim if you dropped yours? Myriad people told you to do that, and you didn't.

At this point, you are where you are. If you hope to salvage the relationship with your children, you need to start acting right. And that starts with paying the support you now owe.

He has probably been given legal advice to make sure his getting everything he can legally to help with his case.

But you should be paying op. Children are not free to raise. He could have a million pounds and as the mother you should still be supporting your own children. All you show them now is you wanted dad’s money but now the shoe is on the other foot you won’t pay a penny for them.

He’s asking for the CMS since the children have been in his care. He’d originally said he was only opening the case to protect himself and didn’t want the money, so I didn’t pay anything. They’ve now said he wants all the arrears spanning months and to pay from now on. It’s still going through court because he wants the money he paid to be repaid, but a we haven’t had the court date with the judge yet.

You've been putting the money aside though, right?

Like the numerous people advised you to...

Or is this another example where you didn't actually listen to anyone giving you actual good advice?

I think you need to clarify what this is about. Is this him claiming CMS from you since the children are in his care?

Or him asking for the repayment of the CMS payments he was forced to made due to your fraudulent claim?

I have read your threads but not commented as plenty of people have shared opinions.

You do seem sad and hurt that your relationship with your children has broken down. Do you have a plan on how you might reconcile with them? To me it feels like you need to rebuild from the ground up and that needs a good plan of action and intent.

you can’t be serious OP after hundreds of people wrote to you. I understand you’re bitter and resentful that your ex left you carry the brunt when the kids were young and was really hard; you had to sacrifice your career and so much more. Now that the kids are way more self sufficient he swoops in and becomes a star parent. I get that. Still doesn’t mean you can expect him to pay you NOW for your past sacrifices on top of what he paid you then just because he CAN.
you put your resentment above your kids and now you’re paying the price. Is it fair- it’s not. But that’s life and you have to decide what’s more important for you- relationship with your kids? Or being eaten up by the resentment and making even more of a mess?

OP. Why why WHY can’t you see that maintenance costs are about what is needed to support the DC NOW AND IN THE FUTURE…it’s NOT recompense for historical parenting injustices over the year.

i can see why you feel bitter and resentful but you’ve been failing/refusing to decouple the two issues.

It’s a difficult read because so many of the things you’ve accused your ex doing with regards money…you are also doing.

No they don't need Ring doorbell evidence - how do you think they managed before?

I would really give this up - you lost the gamble. Just be happy with whst you get.

I can well believe it’s real, unfortunately.

It’s astonishing how many people are willing to go against all advice, even advice from their solicitor, and utterly fuck themselves (and their children) over because their cousin’s friend’s brother’s bricklayer assured them that their ex would have to give them X, Y, and/or Z. Then, when it inevitably blows up in their face, they proceed to screech in much the same way as OP is doing now. It’s always everyone else’s fault, of course. Never their own.

I'm genuinely hoping now it's a troll. A good troll that's had us all reeled in.

Because those poor kids have no chance of rebuilding their relationship with their mother if she still cannot see that this is all her doing.

My ex already took me to family court last year and because the children were living with him and have no relationship with me currently, the judge ordered that they live with him but have contact with me. This hasn’t made any difference, I haven’t heard from them and didn’t even get a thanks for the Christmas presents I bought them. The courts are useless and aren’t going to help me, nobody listened to the fact I’ve been alienated at all or that this is all money driven from him not wanting to pay maintenance.

You have to be a troll. I feel so sorry for your children if you're not.

The re-writing of history in your posts is unreal.

It's all money driven for sure, but by you. He was paying you maintenance, despite the fact you were 50/50. You were claiming both CB's despite the fact they could have been split. You were getting £375 that you weren't entitled to, but out of goodness he was allowing you to have.

You caused this. And you've no chance of rebuilding anything with your children until you realise this and start acknowledging it.

Your greed when you heard of his payrise has cost everything.

OP - you need to start by thinking/saying “oh shit, I’ve screwed up. I’m so sorry”
Until you take responsibility for this mess, you won’t be able to start building any bridges. If only you would just say “all my fault, I made a huge mistake, I’m sorry”, you have no conversation starter with either your Ex or or children. It’s your only way forward.

He was paying maintenance. You went for more, and you did lie to CMS. You posted here about how you shared care etc but you told CMS that you did it all.

We all told you exactly what would happen. You didn’t believe us. When he went for child benefit, we told you exactly what would happen but you wouldn’t listen. Everything happened exactly the way every poster said it would. But you didn’t listen, and you still don’t listen.

You went after money you weren’t entitled to, by lying or omitting the truth. You have never once taken responsibility for that or apologised to him.

He is now entitled to maintenance from you. He isn’t going after anything. He is entitled to it. You’re the one who went after money you didn’t deserve and weren’t entitled to.

It sounds like he told the kids the truth. And they’ve made a decision based on your awful behaviour.

Stop lying, to yourself and to everyone else. The only way you might get your kids back is to fully admit how wrong you were right at the start, and to fully admit how wrong you were when you fought the child benefit claim and for not paying the maintenance your ex is now due from you.

If you want your kids back then you need to take full responsibility for your behaviour. This isn’t CMS fault; you lied to them too.

Do you have learning difficulties?

It's the only thing left to explain your "understanding" of your actions.

This is absolute nuts. Anyone can see the pattern here. OP only replies to people she thinks agree with her and might sympathise with her but ignores everyone else that has been correct all along. I’m seriously starting to wonder about her sanity now. This bloody mindedness in the concrete face of all the evidence that everyone else was right and that she herself is the problem is utterly astounding. It’s just not normal.

Just skimming back a bit and I had forgotten about this great bit of the thread where OP said she wasn't planning to lie but if SOMEHOW they were given conflicting information would that work in her favour.

Oh. My. God. 😳

Remind us, who was it that got greedy and only put a claim in because they found out he was earning more and wanted his money for themselves?