AIBU to ask for for financial help with school uniform from exH?

[browniebear]

Ok we don't have the best relationship and at times things are very difficult.
He pays maintenance through the CSA and has done for about 3 months for our dc's.
Dd is 7 and this morning I rang to say we're going for new uniform next Friday and could he put towards or at least pay for some shoes?
To which his reply was 'is that not what I pay u every month for?'
I said fine if that's how u see it I'll manage somehow and put the phone down.
Is it normal to get extra help for expensive times of the year? I do pay for brownies/Ice skating/ swimming and never ask for anything
AIBU?

YANBU. My ex was the same. He never has the kids, never spends a penny on them and doesnt buy anything for them. He was at the time paying me maintenance via a private aggreement, even though he was in full time work he paid me £100 a month for 2 kids.

He was a nightmare, threatening to leave work if i went to the CSA, withholding payments if we fell out.

There was a school trip coming up and I wanted DS2 to go on it but I was really struggling to pay for it. I phoned the ex and asked him if he would go halves on it with me, he wanted all the letters from the school, he wanted to ring the school and talk to the teacher about the trip, he wanted a payment advice slip and proof of the trip.

All I wanted was £15 from him, but his demands were unreasonable. I didnt bother going anyfurther with it and my mum helped to pay it in the end.

But I went to the CSA after that, no more Mrs Nice Guy.

My xp pays through Csa and that is all i get.
Our DS goes on a residential trip in year 6 this oct....he refused to contribute so ii forked out £300 myself....

It would be interesting to know if posters saying YABU have ever been in this situation.

I asked XH to pay half towards dd's first school uniform, I got told to go fuck myself, that's what he pays maintenance for (at the time £10 a week for 2 dcs). Yet I see it as an expense over and above 'normal living expenses' as his maintenance didn't increase when she/they went to school but my out goings sure as hell did!

I think YANBU at all but obv you can't make him pay and sometimes it's not worth the effort!

(I've never asked XH for extra money since out of principle, thankfully I am now in a financial position not to need anything from him, the maintenance goes into accounts for the dcs when they grow up, I hope soon you may be able to say similar OP)

I think if you are struggling to pay for essentials then of course YANBU to ask for help. But like a lot of people said, I think if he pays CRB agreed maintenance he is not obliged to give you any more money. Must be really frustrating if you're finding it hard though.

No yanbu! I think they should at least contribute. My ex pays nothing and buys nothing and last time they saw him, i had to give him money for their food!
Last year ex mil bought them most of the uniform which i felt guilty about, been picking a few things up each week during the holidays.

IMO, they'd be paying a damn sight more towards the costs involved in raising their DC's if we were together.

CouthyMow you have hit the nail on the head, there. If my ExH had stayed, would he really only be contributing £35 a week to the total household expenses for bringing up two DCs?

I have never been in this situation but I think YANBU.

My friends exh came out of work and pays £2 a week for his DS. You can still find him smoking and drinking though. The CSA money is not a reflection on how much half of raising a child costs.

You probably won't get it out of him though. A lot of blokes turns into twunts after a split.

Yy

I think the real issue here is that the amount an absent parent legally has to pay by way of maintenance in no way reflects the real financial cost of raising a child.

Indeed, zookeeper. I always find it odd that the largely female RP population and of course the taxpayer pick up the tab for raising children on behalf of some relatively well paid men like my ExH.

I must be one of the luckier ones after reading this thread.

ExH pays regular monthly amount that we agreed on, and if ever I ask for a little extra one month eg - big school trip or August for uniform he happily coughs up. He regularly takes him clothes shopping and kits him out, and When DS had riding lessons a year ago was happy to pay for a few of those a month.

Now I'm wondering what sort of set up others have

CSA isn't suppose to be a reflection of how much half of raising a cold costs - 100% of cb, tc, etc go to the resident parent - they also contribute to the cost of raising a child.

Raising a child even!

Funny how the state pays so much.

YANBU to ask, but as others have said he's not obliged to help with extras

I have never asked my ex for help over and above the CSA rate, I know that the % system is often far from ideal but at the moment it's the system we've got and it seems to be fair in some circumstances (if the nrp is not going out of their way to dodge the system)

It also protects my mental health, I found that when I let go and didn't discuss anything financial with him things went much more smoothly. I know where I stand and he has no power over me

Govt have encouraged an over reliance on the state for many people couples and LP - when I was a LP rec no maint - there was no help and that wasn't that long ago (ex not tight there were reasons).

I don't known what the ans is I only have questions about the current system.

I think that I, my DCs and I would imagine the taxpayer would much prefer that my ExH paid his fair share to raise his own children, given that he could afford far more than he pays.

It infuriates me that currently the tax payer is picking up the tab for raising our child. Our son has TWO able-bodied parents. I can't work right now due to his SN, but his Dad can, but is allowed to waste his wages on nonsensical luxuries such as booze, foreign holidays & properties etc without any kind of sanction? My only consolation is that for years I did pay tax at 40%. It leaves a nasty taste in my mouth though, as I think it's ethically totally F%&%ked up. His father is essentially stealing from the nation, as I see it.

Ours is a depressingly common story and until the cultural climate changes, many more children will be going short for years to come, while their "parents" live it up. As long as it's seen as socially acceptable to abandon kids it'll continue to happen. The RP who doesn't feed their kids for a month faces a guaranteed custodial sentence when it comes to light, (and probably their photo plastered all over the press to boot). Frankly I don't see why NRP who refuse to contribute a dime shouldn't be treated the same way.

That cultural change needs to happen across both sexes though - I'm constantly suprised at the resentment of 2nd wives/girlfiends towards a penny being spent on the children of first marriages. Why would you even consider having a new baby with a guy that you know isn't willing or able to properly support the children he already has?

In a fair world - benefits would-be split - so decent NRPs would get the proportion equivalent to the time children spend with them - tossers would get nothing.

We got toally shafted by CSA - we had 1.4 of Dhs children - the 1 was permanent and full time - never with mum.

CSA assessed her as due to pay us - however she never paid and we never enforced collection of the money - these arrears built up for 4/5 years.

When the oldest finished 6th form and was no longe entitled to main - we got hit with a change of circumstance which means we are now paying a woman who is over £4k in CSA arrears to us. According to the CSA that's our tough luck for not enforcing collection.

Thats before you go into the months where they stopped my CB and my TC for my children - because a duplicate claim had been put in for eldest (she claimed she was living there). They did sort it out eventually but it took ages.

The current system is completely messed up.

I for one would like to see decent NRPs get a proportion of benefits equiv to the time the DCs live with them and government recognition that in split families - many children have a need for 2 homes.

An end to the situation where Non resident children have no room or space in the NRPs home because for housing purposes - they aren't classed as a member of the family.

It's about time the legal system caught up with modern reality.

YANBU. I have been going without regular meals for the past month to meet the cost of new school shoes and uniforms. Whilst their father and OW pool their resources to go on yet another holiday and whine about how evil I am

You can do it by yourself OP - asking these egotistical little arses for money gives them power by enabling them to say no.

mysterious lady if your dh's ex owes you money then I don't know why you are paying her; could you not agree not to enforce the arrears she owes in exchange for her instructing them not to pursue you?

I thought anyone had 6 years to enforce and collect a debt, but the CSA seems to have its own rules.

Which is why I take a voluntary pittance from my ExH because i'm too worried about going anywhere near the CSA and ending up with nothing for months on end (and losing the house).

My Ex would just love it if I lost the house - not because he wants the DCs to live with him, far from it - but because it would fit into his 'Script' of me being the crap parent, not him.

I do agree with bochead that the whole culture needs to change.

Legally he is right but not morally. We have always paid at least half if not the full amount for our stepson's uniform . We would not want his mother or our son to struggle.

YANBU, He should want to help out with his childrens expenses, not pay the minimum he can get away with.

According to the CSA - the fact that ex and dh were under a voluntary arrangement - where they issued assessment(s) but were never asked to collect.

That means that all arrears are discounted - according to them it is just our tough luck.

I don't agree with it - I'm not convinced it's legally correct but I cannot be bothered to argue with them - we have too much on our plates already.

It's only for another 2 years - we were giving some money directly to DSC - so that has had to stop, although we have just given £50 towards clothes for start of new school year - to DSC direct.

I don't know how DHs ex goes to sleep at night - there is a lot more going on than money but at least we can hold our heads up knowing that we have consistently done the right things.

I know why she has done this - she has a ridiculously expensive holiday coming up and my guess is she is struggling to find the mo eu to pay for it and we are easy targets - her timing was impeccable.

We have been through 7 shades of hell this year and are shortly to enter a new level - she knows this but has chosen to try to make things worse.

I will never be able to fathom the CSA - they don't dispute that she never paid, they don't dispute there were assessments, they are just saying it's all irrelevant.