To Think The Ex Wife Is In The Wrong Here?

[midori1999]

DSD turned 18 a few months back. DSS is 14. DH has been paying over-the-odds maintenance since the split. DSD is not DH's birth child, but he has brought her up as his and treats her exactly the same as his DS, we both do. DSD does not know DH is not her birth father. (DH and I do nto agree with this, but that's another thread)

Anyway, DH had always assumed that maintenance for DSD would end once she was 18. It seems ex wife expected it to end when she finished full time education. Due to this discrepancy, DH and I decided we would reduce the maintenance paid to the ex wife and then give DSD an allowance, and leave the ex wife to take housekeeping from DSD if she wished.

DSD has two part time jobs and takes home approx. £75 per week from these. We agreed with DSD we'd give her £50 a month allowance. We did tell DSD upon agreeing the allowance that her Mum might decide to take the whole £50 in maintenance and that she should respect and adhere to her Mum's decision.

So, DSD recently complained to DH that her Mum wanted £75 a month from her. Tonight, the ex on the phone has told DH that DSD is 'in debt' now as she refuses to pay the maintanance and she wanted DH to agree there and then to stop giving the money to DSD and give it to ex wife each month instead. I don't think DH should do this, especially without speaking to DSD first. The ex also said that DSD had applied for an overdraft and been refused. (probably just as well)

The ex never allows DH any part in decisions made in their children's lives, but always comes to him if there is some problem. She has a very poor relationship with her daughter and I feel DSD's current behaviour (as well as some past behaviour) is a symptom of that. I also feel that DSD has few adults she can trust in her life and DH and I have worked hard to show DSD we think of her as an adult now and make her feel like she can talk to us. I think it would be wrong to now take the allowance from DSD.

Who is in BU here and what would be the best way to deal with this situation?

The CSA suggest 15% of earnings for one child, 20% for two. DH's ex wife still gets more than 15% of DH's earnings, ( in fact, when they first split up she was getting 40% of his earnings and he gave her their house and paid for double glazing and new heating to be put in etc) so she is still getting generous maintenance, plus extra money for trips etc. Surely that pays towards the mortgage, bills etc? We have simply decided to change the amount we give the ex wife and then give some money directly to DSD so she had a bit more money for herself.

atswintwolengths, I have no problem with DH having responsibility for his DDC. They are wonderful and I love them dearly. I appreciate this is even more of a difficult issue with regard to DH not being her bio Dad, but he certainly doesn't think he has 'been good' by treating DSD as his own daughter, to him she is to all intents and purposes his daughter, but that doesn't change the fact he didn't have to do so. Dh and his ex had arranged to discuss with DSD about her bio Dad after her GCSE's, but the ex wife then changed her mind about this and doesn't want DSD to ever find out. DH and I both feel this is a bad idea and DSD will eventually find out in some dreadful way.

These threads make me so fucking
Like us ex wifes/mothers "fritter" away maintenance on "little things" for ourselves!!
Especially from a mother, you know how much it costs to house/heat/light/heat/feed/cloth/entertain/educate etc etc , a child. I am sure £50/month goes a long way. I am sure the exW has now stopped housing/feeding/clothing DSD ??

To all that are saying yabu - did you miss the part where the OP explained that her dh is not actually dsd's biological father?
He has never been obliged to pay anything, and it is to his credit that through this disagreement he has refrained from pointing this out to his ex.

While your dsd is still living with her mother then you should continue to pay the maintenance to the ex. There are still living costs to be covered.

if the dexw relies on the maintenance to pay for bills rent mortgage etc and it has been stopped then giving it to dsd as pocket money may not best help her

perhaps better that your partner speak about it with his dexw

this is almost always a mealy mouthed way to control an ex partner
doing it for the good of the dsd my arse...sorry but i don't buy it
if that were the case then the decision would have been made sensibly with the dexw

trying to make it sound better with the idea that your partner never had to pay for your dsd is just a smokescreen
he is the only father she ever knew
how callous to suggest he shouldn't have to pay for her now and as though it is a massive deal that he does give her 50 per month

you have placed her and her mother in a terrible position but i guess that is what you wanted
this will cause endless narking and resentment as you are trying to say
"see darling we want to give you 50 but your grasping feckless mother insists that you hand it over"

boak

It sounds to me that as she is still living at home in full time education, then you should continue to pay maintenance to her mother who is bearing the cost of financially running the household (and I don't see why you have reduced the amount either- the cost of keeping a roof over her head hasn't gone down).

If and when she goes to university, you make a private arrangement then with the daughter.

Oh, and he is her father in any sense of the word that is reasonable. To reduce his financial responsibility for her on the grounds of a biological technicality is weaselly and unkind.

What about kids who stay with their mums until they are in their 20s though?
I think after school education finishes then adults should be managing their own money.
I moved out age 18 to go to uni, but if I'd stayed at home I'd like to think I'd have developed the same ability to manage money as I did through leaving home.
Having all money go through mummy so young adults never learn to budget seems daft to me.
Kids of divorced parents need to learn to manage money just like kids of non divorced parents, and kids who stay at home through university could do with being given an "allowance" and then charged for board and meals and given sight of household bills so they get the same education in running a home that kids who live in student digs get.

I agree with Rannaldini. Besides, if she is still in education she is not in a position to pay housekeeping as a f/t employed young person would be. Essentially she is still a child in this respect, in need of food, heating, furniture, bedlinen, gas, electricity and so on... and someone has to pay for those things.

If your DH has done so all this girl's life and has so far been complicit in convincing her that he is her father, he should remain jointly responsible for providing for her. Why on earth should this fall on the shoulders of the mother alone just because his daughter has now turned 18?

It sounds to me as if there are other issues here and that you don't like your husband's ex-wife very much.

2rebecca, if the dsd was at uni I'd agree with you but she is still doing a-levels.

I am not talking about that hypothetical situation though. The daughter is doing her A levels, and it is usual practice to continue to support them, whether they have had their eighteenth birthday or not.

Maybe I am being extremely think here, but...

-yes, DH has reduced the maintenance paid to his ex wife

-however, he still pays over the 15% the CSA require for one child, plus extra for sachool trips, extras for the DSC etc (currently paying half of £1200 for DSS for a school trip and recently paid double that for a trip for DSS and several hundred in the summer for a scout camp, plus spending money) I suspect this would in fact, amount to well over the 20% of his earnings the CSA would have him pay for two children anyway

-on top of the maintenance he pays he now gives DSD £50 a month allowance.

_the ex wife does not need the money (or if she does she should stop telling DH about the £20,000 new kitchen she has, the new top fo the range video camera etc) yet has been charging DSD over and above what DH has been giving her.

-the ex wife was charging DSS 'rent' prior to DH changing the arrangement anyway.

Rather than, as some are suggesting, this is a way of DH controlling his ex wife, I suspect it is a way for her to control him. By making things difficult for DSD she knows that DH will eventually do whatever it takes to make DSD's life easiest. He has always put his children first, including spending last Christmas seeing them there, because that is the only way he can see them at Christmas, their Mother will never let DH have them for Christmas or New Year and puts a huge guilt trip on the DSC so they don't want to come here.

Val, you are right, I don't like her very much. She is clearly very troubled and unhappy and makes her children suffer because of that as she obviously feels the need to be in control. I tried to 'befriend' her (not really that I expected to be friends, but have a polite, civil relationship with her for the sake of the DSC. Maybe I was a little naive, but I have a great relationship with my ex husband and so does my DH and it makes things so much easier with the DC) when DH and I first had the DSD to stay, but she made it clear she wanted no contact with me. Any feelings I have towards her and borne out of the way she treats her DC. However, my feelings towards her are completely aside to this matter.

the kid is 18 - no money to anyone.

Of course, she's 18, doing her A levels, her mother should just kick her out on the street so she can pay her own way, lovely!

That's not the view the CSA take, Custy. Or the government- isn't child benefit payable until 19 if the young person is in full-time education?

bitoffun, if the CSA were involved, the maintenance would probably be lower overall, they certainly wouldn't expect DH to pay for all the extra stuff. I suspect this is why the ex hasn't been to them...

I think until she has left school, your DH should continue with the arrangements he had before she turned 18. And I'm not sure about the whole not his birth child thing. Does he feel differently to her than he does to his birth children? Because I don;t understand why, if he sees her as his child, the fact that he isn't her birth father "makes it even more difficult". Financially at least. The deceit, I agree, is actually pretty disastrous.

The fact he isn't her birth father makes the change in maintenance even more difficult (I posted in response to what a previous poster had said) because if she does find out then it's possible she might feel her Dad thinks less of her because of this. Tbh, the birth father thing isn't really even relevant, except for the fact that legally DH wouldn't have ever had to pay maintenance, he certainly doesn't feel any different towards DSD than he does to his son.

Tbh, I feel pretty shit about it all now. Neither DH nor myself wanted DSD to be in an awkward position at all. His ex wife kept on about how she was taking housekeeping money from DSD to help her learn to budget, we didn't feel it was right for her to take money from DSD and felt that by giving DSD the momney she'd be better off, when in actual fact, DSD is now worse off and in a difficult position with her Mum.

I think maybe DH needs to speak to DSD when her Mum isn't there to make sure of what DSD wants and then discuss with his ex wife. It makes me really sad though, because DSD is treated like a child at home and both DH and I felt this was a chance for her to have some independance. Her Mum has even persuaded her to apply for all the nearest universities to home, as opposed to the ones DSD felt were her best options.

Is he still paying his ex maintenance as well as giving Dsd money?

I think that a man who has supported a DC financially throughout her childhood, whether or not he is that DC's biological father, has a responsibility not to stop supporting her as a child for as long as she is at school. It is the end of school, not the child's 18th birthday, that marks the end point here. The OP's OH is mistaken in that.

Whether or not the OP's OH wants to support his stepdaughter through university is a quite separate issue.