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

All of the advice told her not to do it!!

I have had a few friends who's teens have gone to live with the other parent. After years of only seeing them every other weekend.
It does seem like something a lot like to do. Not always in a negative way. More in a get to know the other parents more.
They also often end up moving back eventually.
It does sound like you got a lot of bad advice.

Well now you have proven to yourself that you are not due cms and now you are not even 50/50 carer, in fact he has the kids 100% of the time so how much maintenance are you planning to offer him on top of the cb? As that according to you is the right thing to do. He is entitled to it after all.

Have you seen the Decision Makers' Guide?

"05047 In many cases, the need for this action will not arise, as most parents will accept the CMS
presumption that the person receiving CHB for the child is the person with primary responsibility for day
to day care.
05048 When deciding whether a person provides day to day care, DMs should consider the following

1. who does the child spend most of their time with when they are not at school, nursery or childcare
2. who pays for most of the child’s clothes and meals
3. who arranges and pays for any childcare costs
4. who is the usual contact for the child`s school and, or child-minder
5. whose GP and dentist is the child registered with and who arranges appointments and accompanies the child
6. who has the greatest involvement with the child`s recreational activities and is responsible for paying for them
7. who already receives any fnancial support for the child, such as benefts or local authority assistance."

I presume you feel that you ticked enough boxes?

It’s a massive shame it’s come to this. I have been split with my ex for 15yrs, and I never discussed things like maintenance / child support with my children. Despite their father paying none. Your ex should never have brought the children into this. In my experience the DC often end up coming back to their mother. Time will tell. In the meantime i’m sorry you’re in this boat.

It was greed, pure and simple. When it was 50:50 her ex was voluntarily paying her £300(?) a month plus she was getting 2x child benefit. Iirc she found out that he'd got a pay rise and decided that she deserved more.

In pursuit of that she put in a CMS based on dubious "facts" and which blind-sided her ex. That then destroyed what had been up until then a good and mutually beneficial cooperative co-parenting set up. He warned her that if she carried on being so self-centred and greedy he'd take the gloves off by stopping the voluntary payments, disputing the CMS claim and also applying for one of the CB payments.

Nevertheless OP was convinced she had right on her side and carried on. Unfortunately she didn't have the law on her side as one of the CB payments went to him which has scuppered her CMS claim. Plus he has, of course, stopped the voluntary payments and is now free to pursue OP for the other CB payments plus CMS.

@Shefliesonherownwings Greed.

Will you be paying him maintenance now?

I am really struggling to understand the basis of your claim for maintenance. You initially said you had the children 50/50 but you were the primary carer which in itself doesn’t make sense but never mind.

But that’s not the case, your ex has DC1 80% and DC2 58%. He is very clearly the primary carer and you should absolutely not be getting child benefit or maintenance. If anything, you should be paying him maintenance! I really don’t understand why you submitted a claim to CMS in the first place??

Did you ever stop to look at when this applies in reality though? As there will always be fluctuations about every day to day task for children and it's impossible to quantify so could never apply for 'standard' cases.
Exceptions would be situations such as when a child has a significant and enduring disability that means huge amounts of appointments, extra care and impact on ability to work.

No one in CMS was ever going to count up how many text messages and parent apps and letters you dealt with and award it proportionaly on that. The fact that you seem to 'count' it all it does sound like you see the care you give your children as transactional and something you resent, and if that's coming across on here you really need to think about what they might have picked up from you.

Their policies are quite clear. And they advise they consider CB. CB gives the person claiming it access to other benefits.

Once again...

You asked CMS if you had a claim based on the grounds you had 50:50 AND both CB amounts for the children. If you had both CBs AND we doing 50:50 thats you having more.

HOWEVER your ex, is entitled to put in a rival claim. The success of that means your circumstances changed. Thats not CMSs fault. They cant anticipate your circs might change.

And he now has more that 50:50. Hes the one entitled to support now.

We ALL understand how you FEEL but your feelings aren't FACTS. The facts are you got more than 50:50 when it was - he had the kids 50%, he paid £300pm, you got 2x CH payments.

Op I'm sorry it's come to this, but as others have said you need to take time to reflect.
Realistically your teenagers will have picked up on something and they're entitled to have some information, if it's factual and age appropriate in terms of their understanding, it's not alienation. It would be unfair for him to pretend everything was great when they're capable of picking up that it isn't.

When you refer to feeling owed and doing the grunt work, I think if it had been the type of situation where ex disappeared and never paid or took care of them people would be more sympathetic, but that's not the case. You had them more, he paid what was fair at the time, and paid extra when he was in a position to.

At this point you risk your kids thinking you are only interested in them for the money. Please focus on making sure they know that's not the case, put this to one side and spend time with them.

Well I obviously didn’t think my kids wouldn’t want to live with me anymore. I still believe the CMS need to update their policies about these 50/50 scenarios, why let me claim in the first place? Why tell me it’s not about overnights but who ‘does the most’? Why award me money then change their minds once child benefit was contested?

You still cannot take any responsibility for this.

You were told numerous times by numerous people - including myself who had worked for CMS - that you would fail and you ignored every person except those that encouraged you to go for it.

You should have looked into CMS legislation in close detail before rocking the boat with your very generous ex. That you did not know that CMS was fully dependent on CB was your fault. Entirely your fault.

Like a brick wall…

I doubt your children moved out solely over this to be honest. You’re calling your ex a narcissist but all I can see from these posts is a woman who only thinks about herself and everyone and everything should bend to whatever she wants.

Because CMS is a mess. You were warned not to take their word for it and plenty of people offered their own stories of where CMS had got it wrong because they don't know their own policies, and you were sent links and screenshots to prove their policy.

Why tell me it’s not about overnights but who ‘does the most’?

Is that, verbatim, what they said?

Because you have consistently chosen an interpretation of matters which is in your favour. That's a very human thing to do, of course, but it does make me wonder if CMS said something like "overnights are a key factor, but other things can come into it' which you interpreted as 'it's not about overnights'

CMS told me I had a valid claim as 50/50 isn’t just overnights it’s about who does the most which I genuinely think I did do.

Aaargh!!

But... he WAS (voluntarily) paying you something before you went to CMS and you were also getting the child benefit. You could have seen those two things as "compensation" for you doing more of the admin (which you probably did do, although your ex also seems to have done a significant proportion)

I actually don't disagree that the children didn't need to know about the ins and outs of your financial battles.

However, it's not narcissistic to tell the truth, even if it might have been a bit unnecessary. It's also extremely unlikely that your children went from having a close and loving relationship with you to moving in with their Dad purely because he told them about this.

The chances are that this is the last straw and they are sick and tired of your behaviour and your attitude towards their other parent. Stop calling their Dad a narcissist (even if he is, although all of his behaviour that you've described in this thread indicates a good Dad and ex partner who has done right by you and your kids, but refuses to be taken advantage of) and for the love of god, PLEASE stop thinking you deserve money from him as some sort of compensation for parenting your own kids IN THE PAST.

NO-ONE agrees with you. Not your kids, not your ex, not Mumsnet. Doesn't that tell you that you must have got it wrong and your thinking is distorted?

Your kids are not coming back whilst you still think you are right and their Dad is in the wrong. Even if he was wrong to tell them, you were more wrong to do it in the first place and whilst you are focusing on what he's done wrong you're not taking accountability for this situation, which is not only entirely of your own making but was accurately predicted and described to you before it happened. We were right then, and we're right now, when will you start listening?

Everyone told you this was the outcome. You ignored everyone saying that and acted like everyone was telling you to fill out the forms.

Look, I am a single parent and did all the ‘grunt work’, far far far more than you (because my ex did not change his mind about access halfway though the ‘grunt work’ plus he did not pay CMS to the level he should have) but I made my absolute peace with this because I would do anything for my children, anything.

I don’t resent anyone or anything - I did also sacrifice my career but I did so to be with my beautiful children so nothing was lost, I gained time with them which was priceless to me. I was working as a cleaner whilst on UC but I have nothing but fond memories of this time with them now they are older.

Your mindset is very negative and toxic and it is a big contributing factor to what’s happened now. I am sorry your kids have left you but I think now is the time to reflect properly.

I do not read your posts and believe for any moment that your resentment doesn’t affect your kids, I find it hard to believe you have completely hidden this from them and it’s all his fault. If they know you resent losing out on money and your career because you were stuck looking after them, how would this make them feel?

You constantly describe parenting your kids as ‘grunt work’ and have a big chip on your shoulder about it and believe you are owed money for it. There is no joy detected in your posts about parenting or your children at all. It’s all transactional. Ultimately this transactional viewpoint has cost you your children. Your ex has clearly been pushed to a point by you where enough is enough.

You mean he told them the truth?

So your grabby, entitled attitude has now pushed away your children. And rather than worry about this and try to improve the relationship you’re still here harping on about money and child benefit?!

are you for real?? What an appalling role model you are for your kids.