Me or xp?

[Offred]

"I don't suppose you can shed any light as to why our daughter just told me I need to pay 'mummy her money'?"

The text I received last night, as yet not replied to.

The response I would like to send but am probably not going to:

"because the csa have been calling a lot to try and sort this stuff out even while we are on holiday and i've been really stressed out about the whole thing which has been going on weekly since march. You should know by now that I am not a "pretending everything is rosy" parent and I am not going to tell the children lies to cover for you. So no I'm not slagging you off but equally I'm not going to keep it a secret when I'm pissed off with you and you are doing something shit (anymore than I would if it was DH pissing me off). I also think the fact you are actively avoiding contributing anything is something really they should be aware of. I found out today the csa did write to you in 2007 and that last time they asked for a card payment for august you said you'd pay £20 ffs then didn't even pay that, that you have asked to set up the first dd payment for a Saturday so they have to take a card payment for september and that you have moved jobs without telling them meaning you'll have to be reassessed which will place further delays when the arrears are now almost £2000 and you have made zero contribution to them. The children live here and have been asking me why they are calling and who they are and are cross about it as am I. Don't you actually think that really they should be cross about it? It is their money! I have explained to you all along that I didn't like asking because I thought you seeing the kids was more important. You had over a year of giving me excuses before we had to go to the csa which would always have been more stress and money that i was asking privately from you. I've tried so hard to accommodate you at our expense and i feel like you have been feeding me excuse after excuse mixed with lie after lie. I've tried to be considerate until the point where we are getting debt in order to cover our expenses as a family with virtually zero contribution from you for 6 years and you just are completely self concerned sitting about playing bloody video games and drinking in the pub. At least you've managed to keep a job. Shame you haven't actually managed to contribute any real time or money or actual care, fun daddy only has so much mileage and you often can't even manage that. The children need a financial contribution, they need more than an hour a week contact, they need you to step up and put them first in your life not way down below alcohol and a job you don't even give a shit about, most especially you need to stop taking them to the pub for that hour a week you see them."

We've never been reliant on it before but tbh there isn't anything else we can do because of tax changes which happened after I started a degree and inflation/lack off wage increases. We also unexpectedly had twins and are consistently paying way too much tax because of HMRC being shit and shortly will possibly lose some/CHB. There's just no other way otherwise I wouldn't have asked. We already have secondhand clothes and free holiday accommodation, can't afford children's parties etc. he has more after tax in his household than we do for him and his gf and we have 6 people.

Ya both being unreasonable. You shouldn't bring your children into this.

Id have just answered the knobhead with "well it's true isn't it?"

However, as others have said I would never have involved the kids in the first place. The money might be for them but how you go about getting out their dad isn't their problem. They shouldnt have to worry about that stuff.

My mum told me and my sister all about what an uncaring, non paying wanker our dad was when we were little. That, along with other things my dad did, affected the relationship I have with him hugely. Up until about 5 years ago I wouldn't have pissed on him if he'd been on fire. The only reason I've mellowed out is having my own children.

Sorry, I don't know if you read the clarification where I said she answered the phone to the csa and then asked me about it. I didn't tell her to ask him.

I did read that yeah but it does sound like you tell them stuff too. My mum didn't tell us to ask our dad for the money. She did tell us when we were short of cash though that we wouldn't be if only our useless father would cough up some cash for us. Understandably we took that to mean it was all our dad's fault we were skint all the time and the reason our mum was always cross and upset was his fault.

No that's not what's happening. This is the first thing they have known about it in the whole six years it has been going on. I don't tell them we are short of cash because their dad doesn't pay ever. She asked who was calling, why they/I wanted daddy to pay and it was just unfortunate that the phone call happened right before the contact. I've always taken an approach of being honest when they ask but not volunteering bad info about him. Surprised it has taken this long for them to notice the phone calls but the don't normally call the home phone.