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??

YABU.....

Only joking - just wanted to be the only YABU on the whole thread.

Of course take the money!!! It's a fair award, determined by the CSA after he'd previously lied to them, and he's behaved like a complete shit to you. Take what is rightfully owed to you for you and your son.

Good luck

Callisto, I can't believe your answer... Both parties were there when the baby was conceived; whether the man likes it or not, has had other children or not, this child is his and he is responsible for it. If you have sex, you have to accept that this might be the result. Am I alone in thinking that Callisto's comment about other 'wanted' children is insulting to the OP and her son. I say take the money.

Your No.1 priority is to provide for your son - not to feel sorry for this loser!

You KNOW that if someone else was posting this, you would be telling them to take the money without a second thought. The bottom line is that this guy chose to have sex, made a baby and now doesn't want to have anything to do with the poor boy.

Your son will not grow up feeling sorry for him - he will want answers as to why his father was such a s**t. Take what you are entitled to and if you don't want to use it yourself, put it in a bank account for your son.

Don't be a fool - you will regret it later

Oh, and DON'T do anything privately. You know he's unreliable

TAKE THE MONEY !!!!!

Do not feel sorry for your ex having to pay out .
IF HE HAD PAID THE CORRECT AMOUNT INSTEAD OF LYING TO THE CSA THAT HE ONLY EARNED £15K HE WOULDNT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT "LOSING HIS HOME".
(This is bull btw , so you feel sorry for him... ...your son`s right to have a comfortable home is your only concern here.

Stuff your ex ...(and his wife , shes complicent in his decit to the csa )in fact i would go so far to say that they were defrauding your child out of his entitled standard of living .Gits.

PS . EX was vile to you whilst you were pg.

no you are not alone janajos I only read the first and last pages of this thread and I was totally horrified by what she said. Why should any subsequent children deserve more than the first just because he decides which he wants and which he doesn't???? An insensitive, unhelpful comment (and that's the best I can think of to call it)

and do you really think a man who walked out on his pregnant girlfriend ignored his ds for 8 years (so far) lied to csa about how much he was earning so he didnt have to pay for ds then when he was found out tried to do some dodgy deal with you is really the best role model for your son?

he's been so flakey so far can you honestly hand on heart say if you let him pay less he would see his son? if he did how long would it be for? untill he got bored? untill a big challange came up in ds's life that he needed help with? untill he had another child with some one else?

your son deserves this money, he deserves holidays and trips out and a stress free mummy.

take the money and give your ds the life he deserves. dont think about his useless father anymore, he sure as hell isnt sparing a thought for you OR YOUR DS in all of this

Raspberrysheep
There are two isues here:

1. The fact that your ex does not know his son. This is not your fault, this is his, as others have said. He chose to walk away and have no contact whatsoever, with a son he KNEW was coming into this world. He chose to play happy families with another man's children whilst refusing to acknowledge his own. Again that is his fault. I know it is hard when your son asks, and I have no easy answers, as mine is a slightly different situation (sporadic contact dependant on my ex's personal life at the time and the amount of my nagging/requesting), but there are other single mums on here and I bet if you ask on the Lone Parents section, there will be many with answers you can give to your son.

2)The money. I am another single mum of a dyspraxic boy (8). An extra £500 a month would enable me to purchase simple equipment that he has used in his OT sessions but that is beyond my current budget e.g. theraputty, a peanut ball, a large spinning top he can sit in, a weighted blanket (I am not in a full time position and we get by month to month but with little spare, although I do have a car to run). I may also be able to pay for him to have some more OT sessions working on his sensory needs, now his 5 NHS allocated sessions have finished. I could take him to BIBIC and get advice from there as well. If he is subsequently diagnosed with other needs I could pay for things to support him with them as well. Ok this is what my dyspraxic son needs, yours is a different child and will have different needs, but it is an example of what you could spend the money on for your son, with no direct consequence for you, as a holiday would, if the problem is you feel you are being 'paid off'. I would also take him on holidays and so on, as the benefit for my son far outweighs the negatives of 'his' (you ex's) money paying for it.

Sorry, this has turned (yet again) into an essay

Take the money.

It belongs to your son.

Take the money. Take DS on holiday somewhere memorable.

Put at least half what you don't need in a child trust fund in your son's name so he has something from daddy when he grows up / so he is provided for if something happens to you / when he is older than 18. You can always make his godparents / you or whatever trustees.

The father has shown he lies and is not responsible or reliable. Tell him you will keep it official thank you- but that if he wants to do something for his son he should feel free.

I'd be worried about how your son will feel later in life if you DON'T take it. Think about what happens to his self-esteem later in life?

"Take the money.

It belongs to your son."

That's a very good point. In a way it is not for you to decide whether to take the money, as it is intended for your son, not you.

Imagine your son is 10 years older and finds out about the extra money that he could have (should have...) had. What are you going to say to him? "ExP made me feel bad"?

Go on... take it! (Actually this thread is now so long that you probably already have )

Take the money for your son. Children are expensive! Think of the school trips, the college fees, his first car, deposit for first flat, etc, etc, etc.

You are not in any way being vindictive or vengeful by taking the money - it is what is available and what the father can afford. As kitsmummy says, if it makes it easier, just use what you need to in order to have a more comfortable life and put any extra into an account for your son to access when he gets older.

I think you should take the 'moral' side out of this - his father can afford it and should be paying for his own child's care. And keep it through the CSA - there is no longer any personal relationship between yourself and this man so why revive one?

take the money it belongs to your son and you for keeping him...also contact the CSa and find out what they are going to do to rectify the fact you have got a lot less than you should have for the past 8 years and that you want it backpayed...he was defrauding the system to enable him to maintain his lifestyle regardless of the concequences to you and your child. a similar thing happened to my friend recently she has just been awarded lots of money in back pay due to her ex's bullshit miscalculation of earnings. she has set up accounts for her 2 children and put half the money in each.

Agree, the money belongs to your son. I don't see it as your decision to accept the money or not, you must take it.

Use the money to benefit your son, take him on holiday, buy a cheap car. Kids get more expensive as they get older, why shouldn't he have nice trainers, a laptop, ipod as he gets older. His friends will have this sort of stuff. Then it will be driving lessons and help while at uni! Put some in an acocunt for him as well if you can save some of it each month.

It's your son's money - you don't have the right to refuse it.

Also, speaking selfishly as a taxpayer it's money that I won't have to pay you in benefits should you require support - I don't begrudge benefits to you and your son if you don't have any other means of support, but I'm damned if I'll pay it when your bastard ex should be paying.

If you think it is too much then put it into your sons savings account for his future. Your ex deserves no sympathy, he left you high and dry to support your son alone, think he felt bad for all those years he was spending the money that your son was entitled to??? I doubt it! Even now, he hasn't got in touch for your son, he has got in touch cos it's going to hurt his bank balance and obviously wants to keep you sweet so is making an effort with your son when you said yourself he had previously hung up the phone on him.

Take the money.

Enjoy giving your son a few luxuries. Use some it for a babysitter every now and then so YOU get a little taste of freedom your ex has enjoyed.

Do not feel guilty. Nothing to be guilty for. A real man who provide properly for his child without being forced.

personally i would view it like this.

you were happy with what he was paying and he has not had a problem paying it.

if you accpeted the money he may become difficult and stop payments altogether.

you could however negotiate with him and end up with double what you normally recieved but still save him a lot of money compared to waht csa say.

you both win. he thinks he has been victorious against you yet you still get extra funds to treat DS.

because he will actually pay the amount you negotiate rather than the huge amount he has been ordered o pay

She wasn't happy with what he was paying her. So she rang the CSA up and found out he was lying about his income.

He never paid her a penny until she got the CSA involved in the first place.

He's a liar and a fraud. Why negotiate with someone who's a liar and a fraud and was perfectly happy abdicating his responsibility to the taxpayer?

I don't understand the quandry. Your EX has a legal responsibility to his son,regardless of whether or not he wanted the baby, has met him, etc. He set you up for life as a single mother. He therefore needs to give you some monetary support. Obviously the government has decided what that amount should be based on what he earns.

Take the money, less your usual amount and set up a savings or investment account for your DS. He deserves it. So do you.

oh i do understand that he should pay the full amount.

but if trying to force him to pay the new larger amount means that he will cause trouble and maybe not pay anything at all, surely a bird in the hand....

Gigantaur

He wont get a choice to cause trouble-he will be made to pay OP doesnt have to force anything.

He'll start thinking of excuses not to pay the negotiated amount and she'll have to fund chasing him rather than just leaving it to the CSA.

As Amberleaf says,he has no choice but to pay, the CSA have powers to take the money straight from his wages if he refuses to pay.

I think as well that getting the CSA involved is not necessary if both parents can come to an amicable agreement, but this man obviously can't be trusted not to shirk his responsibilities and duck and dive.

She wont Expat- csa will get a doe order and take it at source.