To accept this huge amount of money??

[RaspberrySheep]

I have been a long time lurker but could really do with the opinions of the MN Jury. Please help!!

Just after my dad died suddenly in 2001, I discovered I was pregnant. It was unexpected to say the least, but my partner was excited about it and we decided that we would have the baby. My partner became increasingly distant and when I was four and a half months pregnant he gave me the ?it?s the baby or me ultimatum.? He told me that he could not face up to being a father and he left. He encouraged me to have a late termination, but I didn?t want this, not only because I was still grieving for my dad but because I had fallen in love with my baby.

He made it clear to me that he did not want to have anything to do with the baby but I always hoped that he would change his mind. My little boy is now 8 and has changed my life for the better. It has not been straightforward as my DS has Dyspraxia but as with all mums, I am his biggest fan!

I have always worked fulltime to support DS, however in 2003, I was made redundant and was unemployed for three months. During this time I needed to claim benefits and the Benefits Agency subsequently contacted the CSA to chase DS?s father for some kind of support for DS. (His father had not paid anything towards his upkeep until then).

My DS was awarded £184 a month and has received this amount every month from his father ever since.

I recently contacted the CSA and discovered that DS?s father had declared to them that he was earning £15k a year. He holds a senior position at a company and has always earned more than £40k per annum. The CSA offered to review the payment and have now come up with a new award of £500 per month.

My problem with this is ? do I accept the money? DS?s father is very affluent and has been able to ?move on? with his life after leaving us. He has married and has a great job. However my life / career came to a standstill when DS was born. DS has everything he needs, but he has never been on holiday and I could not afford to buy a car or any other ?luxuries? for him. When DS?s father found out about the huge increase in award, he was furious and has now contacted me to ask me to consider setting up an arrangement with him directly, so that the CSA are not involved at all.

My friend (who is keeping an eye on this thread) nearly choked on her sandwich when I suggested that this is what I may do. She?s right, he is totally unreliable, he has never shown an interest in DS, never sent him a Birthday or Christmas card, once (the only time) when DS contacted him, he hung up. Not forgetting that he has been paying well under what he should have been for the past 5 years. However, I just can not get out of my head the guilt of taking so much money from him, when he made it clear at the start that DS was not welcome in his life and I decided to go it alone. I wish I could tell him where to put the money, but the truth is that I need it to be able to pay the bills.

What do you think??

Take the money and stay with the CSA.

If the man can't even acknowledge the boy he fathered he can at least take financial responsibility.

It's not even your place to feel guilty. The money is due to your son for his upbringing.

Please TAKE the money. Under no circumstances
should you have a private agreement.

Don't feel guilty about the sum of money. The CSA says you are entitled to 15% of xp's take home pay. That leaves him with 85% all to himself!! He will be fine, think about yourself and ds!

Raspberrys friend - if you are listening, make her do whatever she needs to do to accept that money now!!

Op, you say that you couldn't live with yourself for putting someone through that, but what about what they have put your child through? Your child that has to grow up knowing that his daddy didn't want him? What about the fact that you and he have had to struggle on benefits at the taxpayers expense just because your ex didn't want to face his responsibility?

They will not lose their home anyway, they might, at worst, decide to downsize, but more likely they will just have to not go out for an expensive dinner every month, or they will have to give up something equally as trivial. The new wife should be ashamed of herself, I honestly don't know how any woman can have any respect for a man that abandons his own child.

This is not your money to refuse anyway, it's your son's. And it's not you who's deciding the amount, it's the CSA. Because he CAN afford it!

Exactly!

In my friend's case, she did re-marry, but Chris's father still had to pay child support for his child.

She saved it for him to pay college fees.

Oddly enough, after she refused to have an abortion, Chris's bioligical father, a stunningly handsome man who's son is a ringer for him, sent her a framed photo of himself standing under a tree, dressed in a tuxedo, taken when he was serving in someone's wedding, to give to Chris.

She did.

But he refused to have anything to do with Chris, who still refers to him as 'H', my sperm donor dad :o.

You should take the money for reasons outlined above. There is only one possible reason which would make this morally wrong and that is if you engineered a contraception failure. You didn't, so you shouldn't feel a shred of guilt in accepting the money.

Furthermore, him requesting a termination after the event is totally irrelevant. He had no right to expect you to do this.

So he lied to the CSA, told them he was earning a third of what he actually does, and has been saving himself £316 a month since he started paying?

Work that out over 8 years and then see if you feel quite so charitable towards him.

Definitely take the money and please don't even consider a private arrangement :)

How guilty does he feel about the fact that his son has been on holiday or been able to afford a car?

You should certainly be feeling less guilty than that about taking the money to which your son is legally entitled .

It's your son's money. Not yours, not your ex's, not his wife's.

Parents have a moral and social duty to provide for their children, planned or unplanned.

You've done your bit, now it's time for him to step up. He's lied to you, ignored and shortchanged his child. What a despicable human. Ignore the guilt and recognise he is manipulating you.

Oh and keep it above board and go through CSA. They are setting the figure here, not you.

Can I put my 2p in?

TAKE THE MONEY!!!

And only do it through official channels with the CSA. Like others have said, if you don't feel comfortable with taking so much, put what you don't feel you need to make ends meet into a savings account for your ds.

1. it acts like a cushion if your ds's father is made redundant / gets a lesser paid job and ends up paying you less
2. you can use it to pay for the luxuries that you might struggle with (school trips / days out in the school holidays / whatever).

Pleas please take the money - you are looking after a child on your own and the absent parent has some responsibility for that child whether they like it or not.

Take the money for your son, it may encourage the father to get more involved in his son's life.

The money will improve your son's quality of life so I think it would be wrong of you to reject it.

Your son needs the money, you need the money, he's got off lightly not being done for fraud and having huge back payments.

I would be wary of doing private arrangement. If you advise the CSA that you will collect payment direct (not through them) they have no power to collect any arrears that may accrue. That is what happened to me as I foolishly thought my ex would honour the amount stipulated by the CSA.

If you have proof that is declared income is inconsistent with his lifestyle you can apply to the CSA for a Variation Order. They will then consider whether there is enough evidence to investigate - will involve tax authorities as well.

My ex declared an income which meant a CSA payment of £74 per month. He paid £50 but never the increased amount. I left it a few years and then asked for a reassessment (I think he thought I wouldn't). By then he had filed a less fraudulent tax return (self employed) and he had to pay me over £3000 in arrears plus nearly £320 a month. I have no problem taking the money as it is a drop in the ocean compared to my monthly expenditure for ds.

Paying money has never made ex interested in ds - he calls him the 'non-aborted foetus' .

He calls him the 'non aborted foetus'!?!

I bet you're glad that charmer is now your ex.

Take the money
Take the money
Take the money

Seriously, take the money.

Your son has done without - does his biological dad feel guilty about that?

YOU have had to have the entire burden of looking out for your son's needs his whole life - does hs biological dad feel guilty about that??

If you don't want to benefit, thats fine, but let your son benefit.

Put some aside for his future, let him do an activity that you previously wouldn't have been able to afford.

TAKE THE MONEY!!!!

And callisto, the biological dad DID agree to the baby. Then changed his mind. Nice.

non aborted foetus what a wanker.

"he is telling me that they may lose their home if they can not afford to keep up the CSA payments."

No. If he loses his job or for some other reason cannot afford the payments, he will go to the CSA and the payments will be adjusted down.

Don't let him make you feel guilty. The CSA judge what is reasonable. That is their job. They have said £500 is reasonable given what he earns and his other commitments. No reason to dispute that.

What's the problem here? Except for your taste in men, which has hopefully improved over the years! We don't even have to consider the ethics here of a couple where the man had no intention of having a child, as you say he was pleased at first. He can't change the rules at 4 months. What if he'd stayed pleased until the child was 1 and then changed his mind, where you meant to put him in a home? What a tosser. You still seem to be quite influenced by him, or I can't see why you would want your son to have less than he is entitled to.

And as for him "losing his home" {snort!!!}

He's had YEARS of 2 incomes to build a nice nest, and provide for his future. If £500 out of 2 people's collective incomes makes such a big difference that they lose their home, then they are living waaay beyond their means. Not your problem.

At least it made me realise that no contact is probably a good thing! Does make me sad though as ds is the only child we know who has no contact.

take the money. he lied, he got himself into this trouble, it's really not your problem.

Look at it this way OP. If you lived together and he said he was only willing to put six thousand pounds a year into the household and he was going to keep every remaining penny you'd be furious and rightly.

Yet you are bringing up HIS son with NO practical support and the CSA are saying that you can only have six thousand and you're questioning whether your son has a right to it. Answer is of course he should have it.

Accept it with both hands. He'll have to sort out his own finances and that's nothing to do with you

In simple terms in order to give your son a better life you have to care more about him than this tosser of an ex.

Definitely take the money. Absolutely do not feel guilty about it.

"He made it plain that he didn't want the baby from the start." ??? What? Well, he should have done something to prevent one being conceived then.