Hi All,
Hoping to canvass opinion here on whether or not I'm heading down the right road.
Comnunication is not great between my ex and I. We have periods of getting on fine, then for a myriad of reasons, it becomes bad again...and not just a brief falling out, but spectacularly bad. We rarely have shouting matches..his preferred method is to wait til he gets home and then send lengthy from his and his wife detailing all my failings as a parent...and without fail, there will be a reference in it somewhere to how I am paid above and beyond what they have to. This comment will be made in spite of the fact that I have never once raised the issue of money with him.
It never fails to amaze me, given that the maintanence aspect is one thing we have never disagreed about and yet it is routinely thrown into an email in relation to a completely different discussion. Its patently obvious he resents the money, yet he says he takes his financial contribution to his dd 'very seriously'. Exp pays regular maintanence for DD, we have an informal arrangement, and has never missed a payment etc - it just never comes up between us verbally. He pays a set amount, and this hasnt changed in the 5 years since we split. In fact it went down last year by £100 per month after the birth of his new baby. This was suggested by me as I thought it would be the fair thing to do. To be honest, I am always trying to find ways to improve things between us and thought this might be one of the ways to do. As with most things though, he took the reduction, but reminded me it wasn't a 'favour' to him, but something he was thinking about anyway, now that our dd's childcare costs had gone down. (!)
He is notoriously tight, when we were together money was an actual obsession for him, so its clear to me that while he pays the maintanence, it is a source of discontentment between him and his wife. It makes me feel like a money grabbibg shit bag when he throws these comments into the emails or texts - and yet he will not say one word to my face about it. Its so bizzare. I don't think he is trying to scare me about withdrawing or reducing it, because I have a decent job...and in all honesty, if I relied on it, we would have starved by now!
I have never once in all the years approached him for extra money or asked him to pick up any costs for dd outside of his payment
So, my thoughts are.....I have no control over his routine put downs about my parenting, but I am now thinking that I can formalise maintanence so he can shut the fuck up about paying me 'over and above' what he has to. I may well get less by going down the CSA route, but I don't care. He does a 30 mile round trip to collect dd, and she sleeps there twice a week, plus he has a new family, so I'm well aware this will all be taken into account when assessing his contribution. He is self employed and would probably cook the hell out of his books anyway.
As an aside,my own DP wants me to refuse maintanence from him altogether, because he believes that the amount is pathetic and hates the way he batters me over the head with it every time he gets the chance. I will of course not do this as it will play into his hands, but I'm thinking that formalsing our arrangement will remove at least one more thing he can control me with.