I have no idea if I am.... but I need to get this out there.

[roundandroundagain]

Right I want you lot to give it to me straight please (nervous)

I will try and keep this brief.

Living with DP who has been separated from his wife for 3 years. I met him after he had been separated for 1 year.

I am divorced with kids. He has a child with his ex, he sees his child every week and in holidays.

His ex is really dragging her feet on the divorce not replying to sol's letters etc, he is getting nowhere on divorce months can go by without a response being sent by her sol. she refuses to go to mediation.

She has made it clear she does not like me or my children being in DP's life and DP's child even repeats things she calls me in front of me and my children (different and very upsetting issue).

When I met DP I knew he paid her a lot of his salary. Their child is of school age and she does not want to work. He pays her mortgage plus 3 times as much as the CSA recommend for CM. This is really putting us under huge financial pressure.

It is starting to get to me now. I work part time and I am also retraining. I have one school age DC and a preschooler and I work damn hard to fit everything in as well as study. (my ex pays me minimum CSA)

She is asking for more money all the time and I am starting to get very bitter about it. We are on value food and things are very tight (counting every penny actually) and when I see that she is still not satisfied it starts to really get to me. I feel as though she is bleeding us dry. Sol bills are mounting up. DP is in personal debt as he was subsidising her beyond his means before we met.

I don't really know what I want you guys to say really but I just needed to get this out there. I guess I want to know if I should just shut up and carry on scrimping and swallow the fact that she gets enough from him so she does not have to work or should I say something to him? I really don't know

Legal aid - that's what's funding ex solicitor

Right sorry - l stand corrected. l just got the impression that you were quietly simmering but didnt feel able to say anything.

Well what does he say when you point out that him being a bottomless pit of money for his exw because he is paying so much more than he has to/should do (whatever!) and then more again whenever she asks is causing you great resentment as you took into your 'Happy Shopper' ready meals yet again !!

He needs to start saying the magic word to her imo but as others have said he probably doesnt want to rock the boat re access. But he shouldnt be letting her do this and should start calling her bluff. l agree maybe change his solicitor for a more ballsy one too.

pedigree you mean dp? sorry I am feeling a bit wrung out so a little slow off the mark

He prioritises the ex because he doesn't want to loose face on the eyes of his child. I dont think he needs to love her to do that.

oh sorry legal aid

I don't think he loves her, but I think my resentment is starting to grow and grow.

Yes, it is your DP. There should be enough money to cover her basic expenses, and leave enough for her to save to pay solicitors' fees, if she is getting too much maintenance.

She may also be expecting for your partner to be asked to pay for her legal fees but, if your partner is telling you the truth, and he is paying so much, it is EXTREMELY unlikely the court will ask him to pay her legal fees as well. That is, if she has the guts to not to agree to do it if wife asks at court for it.

Sorry, that should have read if your DP has the guts not to agree to it.

I would be cutting her payments unless she agrees to divorce within a certain time frame. That's fair on evryone.
I would be cutting her payments going forward full stop, giving her 6 months from now to sort her self out.

Were all grown ups and she can and will find a way to support herself. Shes mad if she thinks that he can keep her as a sahm.

Its modern times sadly. If he is paying the mortgage fully until dc are of age then that is very very good of him. She can earn enough to live, lots do without the mortgage being paid.

I think that you need to be firm with him, your a partnership right?

Its very very hard OP. The man wants to do the right thing by still providing but he is of course looking after two people as if they were still together.

When my boyfriend started divorce proceedings his now ex wife only used to work 11 hours a week, he and his solicitors advised her "strongly" that she needed to up her hours.

It's hard but at the end of the day he really does have to harden up a bit if he wants a second family.

I doubt she will be getting any money in legal aid, things are changing a lot in court nowadays.

feeling very upset by it all now. Getting it out in the open has really focused it for me. I had thought that I might have got things into perspective once I had written it down but all that has happened is that I am even more upset (bugger)

those of you who touched on the fact that he is worried that if he rocks the boat he might anger her and this might frustrate contact with the child in some way are 100% on the money. She holds access like the sword of damocles over DP and it has taken him this long to get her to agree for him to see their child regularly

he thinks she has him over a barrel.

Thing is, while his is still married to this woman and the financial settlement isn't sorted, then the mortgage is his responsibilty. He can't just stop paying it. Also, if he just stops all money to force her to cooporate with a divorce she doesn't want, that will be seen as financial abuse.

The wife either doesn't want a divorce or can clearly see it's in her best interests to delay it as much as possible. How much longer could she drag it out if she tried, 2 years? How old would her child be then? By which point, what would your DP do in order to get a divorce confirmed? Sign everything over to her? Agree spousal maintenance as well as child maintenance?

Again, you should let him sort his life out, he's still married to someone else, not being married is the bare minimum you should be looking for in a new partner who you are bringing into your DCs' lives.

No wonder your DP's ex doesn't want you in their lives. You are a threat to their financial arrangements. It sounds as if he is being more than generous over his responsibilities. It's a sad fact but there is no amicable in dealing with situations like this when one person is being totally unreasonable and selfish and wants everything their own way.

The more I read this thread the more I felt total sympathy for your difficult position and had to rewrite my whole post. Please don't be upset. Hope things work out.

I had to give Dh a stark choice - sort it out or leave - as I was effectively using my maintenance to prop up his exw.

If he'd had been single he'd not have had the money to give her once he found a permanent home.

She did block contact - but then kids shouldn't be a blackmail tool.

They are both liable for that Mortgage and maybe the house will have to be sold - none of that is your problem - why should your dc be penalised because she doesn't want to work.

"Thing is, while his is still married to this woman and the financial settlement isn't sorted, then the mortgage is his responsibilty. He can't just stop paying it. Also, if he just stops all money to force her to cooporate with a divorce she doesn't want, that will be seen as financial abuse."

That's not true, the mortgage is responsibility of both of them, not his only. If anything, more of hers, as she is living in the house.

thank you all for being so kind with all of your advice. I am listening to it all

In his situation he can?t really win. If he pays her less he will be the ?bad guy? with her, her family, his child (if she is the type to talk to child about it), probably MN if she posted on here (which she might). If he keeps paying then he is bad guy with you as you are struggling and it doesn?t seem fair.

But its not fair, its messy and tricky when you split up and lose primary care of kids ? your worth to your ?old world? become measured almost solely on the value of your financial contribution. And yes you now have 2 households to support. But nobody cares except those in your ?new world?.

Until the divorce and contact is sorted out he is choosing not to be the bad guy with her and kids (and maybe courts) he probably feels its safest option. He probably thinks you are committed to him regardless of £££ and are taking a long term view on this.

If you leave him he will be worse off as will have to pay all that and then all household bills himself. You will be better off £££ but worse off emotionally. His child, who knows probably a mixture of the two.

I think you need to accept it, support him as needed and DETACH from the divorce and the ex wife anst. This is all par for the course with many people. It will settle down and, provided you have detached, it will settle down sooner rather than later. As for the negative comments about you just be cool, try to ignore, be nice and accepting and kind to his child at all times, they will come around eventually.

Dont ever expect his exwife to see your point of view, why would she see your point of view? She sees only hers, you see yours, your husband sees his. That?s the way people are.

Deep breath, stay calm, be nice in your thoughts about her, try to calm him down when he talks about her, make him see her point of view not because you want him to pay her more (of course not) but because it takes at least 2 people to have a fight, the calmer and more reasonable he is, the more likely she is to calm down and less likely she is to try to hurt him through this process.

Encourage your DP to ask her to seek mediation on the financials. Court is adversarial. Dont suggest CSA unless you want to throw petrol on the situation, they are a bunch of f**kers and anyone who invites them into their lives through choice needs their heads checked.

Forget the whole work/SAHM thing ? you are a single parent, why would you consider not working? You know how life can change in a heartbeat. She is not the reason you are working, you are working to create opportunities for your family long term. She may well reach the same conclusions as you in future and so the same.

I was you OP - it's the devil and the deep blue sea.

In the end Dh got divorced against sols advice - before financials were sorted because it was taking so long (his ex was hoping his mother would die so she could have inheritance - she wanted him agree to give her £150k - almost 100% so she could be mortgage free MIL is still alive and well 10 years down the road).

Financials were sorted post divorce. But it was 2 years before he took that decision.

We were getting debt riddled (both of us) - because Hebrew handing over more Than 60% of his salary and also pocket money mobile phones car lease.

He was living off me and I just had enough one day.

I really feel for both of you round it sounds like the ex wife holds all of the cards here.

Can he not get his solicitor to draft a letter to her, basically saying that he is giving her 4 weeks (or an appropriate amount of time) to sign divorce papers or do whatever it is she is thinking of doing, and then he will be going to the CSA? It would then obviously be in her best interest to stop dragging her feet. Also, if he's happy to pay the amount that he is paying then that can be part of the settlement of course - but getting into shitloads of debt because she won't play ball on the divorce is not going to be good for anyone.

And while I agree he has a responsibility to his ex wife and child, does she not have a responsibility to him, to ensure that he (regardless of any partner he has taken on) has a reasonable standard of living?

?And while I agree he has a responsibility to his ex wife and child, does she not have a responsibility to him, to ensure that he (regardless of any partner he has taken on) has a reasonable standard of living??

No. She doesn?t. Its very dangerous to create this expectation. Of course she doesn?t. Nobody will think that although CSA etc takes it into account that non resident parent has to live and contribute to new household, by and large resident parents think that they don?t get enough from CSA calculations.

Listen ? its not fair when people split up. To anyone, least of all the kids.

But, its the way it is!

In future when contact etc is settled OP?s DP may be able to afford to be bolder. Or he might just agree to cut short the torture and agree a quick divorce now on less than favourable financial terms and work out maintenance later.
But now I can understand why he is playing it cautious and ?overpaying?.

And OP has to accept it and learn to DETACH and try to calm the situation down to move it onto the next phase as quickly as possible. Seriously, it will be life enhancing.

Mediation for contact and maintenance can be miraculous too. Much harder to ignore another person?s point of view with a skilled and trained child focussed mediator facilitating between parties for a win/win outcome.

And, if you cant handle the heat of being with a man separated from kids (and, at times, it can feel like a LOT of heat, I know) then get out of the kitchen.

Ps: I agree its not fair in many ways. But your DP will have to take big risk to change it at this stage and not sure it will be worth those risks. The big risk being contact and relationship with child of course.

She isn't going to want to give up any financial support easily and so your DP is in a hard place and has some tough choices to make. She also has all the control in the situation and she isn't going to want to give that up either.

She is going to make him and you and your children pay financially and emotionally for the wrongs she feels she's suffered (real or imagined) and it might not get better even when she meets a new man herself.

The only way to survive it as a couple is to be able to be absolutely honest with each other about what you think is the best way forward and what you both feel at each stage and accept it a s probelm you both have to solve.
Does DP know you feel this way?

I suspect all of this is less about you supporting him or him dealing with this alone and more about you both supporting each other in deadling with it.

Regardless of the divorce and the money, she seems the sort of character that will come back with new problems for you to resolve so the practice will be good.

Last post on this (and OP hope you ?hear? that I do have empathy)
?the cards? ex wife is holding comes down to one thing ? the child. DP loves said child and is scared of losing them ? hence the overpayments as some kind of ?insurance policy?
Its all so fraught in these situation. OP its interesting you make the comment in OP that your ex pays ?minimum CSA? ? a negative connotation within the chosen language that your ex, paying what he is legally obliged too is somehow less than fair, he is scraping through in his duties ? you are hard done by (I know you don?t say this, its just the choice of language). But you also slam your current DP for overpaying his ex. This is because you see both situations from your own point of view. You can?t help it everyone does it we are all human this is what we are programmed to do. But from point of view of your DP it really is ?damned if you do, damned if you don?t? ? he cant win.
How much does anyone really care about their ex?s new household? Why would they? I often notice its very common post separation that each party decides it is their household that is the most important one in child?s life, ie, the the other one is mad/bad/insignificant ? just a place where your kids have to spend time until they see you next. The fact is, for the kids, both households are different and equally important but parents usually don?t see this, especially in the early days. Not a point about you OP just an observation (and I have lived it too!).
Its very dangerous to compare what you think you know about this woman?s lifestyle & choices and your own lifestyle & choices because you will always be wrong about each other. You have no real visibility over each other?s lives. When she and your DP split their lives separated and, while separated couples love to make assumptions about each other, from that point on, they really don?t know anymore. Which is why you should stop comparing re SAH/ working etc. Its a waste of energy and will eat you up.
But the one thing that will make life good for you in your life with your DP is DETACHING from the conflict and trying to have some serenity about it. I promise you, the benefits will be instantaneous. Voice of some experience!