To ask my DC stepmother to pay for their extra curricular activities?

[secretagent007]

Backstory:Ex-DP and I broke up 7 years ago, he left for another woman, we already had two DC - DD1 now 10 and DS now 8. After being splitting up I found out I was pregnant with DD2, but ex decided to stay with other woman and they were married 2 weeks before I gave birth. 6 weeks after I had DD2, OW discovers she is pregnant and gives birth to twin boys, so EX now has three DC who are 6 years old, as well as OW already having a DD who is only a month younger than my DD1.

Well that was an info spill; now onto the real issue:

My DC stepmother not only has a high paying job but when her first DH died he left her a very considerable amount of money and because of this, as far as I'm aware, her and EX keep separate finances, both contributing a percentage of their wage into a house hold account and then whatever is leftover is their own to spend on what they see fit (I know this seems like a ridiculous amount of information to know about EX finances but how I know will become apparent in a minute) Ex is a firefighter and earns a pretty average wage.

SM spoils her DC (Her and Ex have had a further three DD's), they have the best of everything - toys,clothes, electronics activities. Her eldest two DD's are both in competitive dance and own multiple ponies that they compete with , something my DD's would love to do but will never get the chance as I can't afford it.

My DC spend every fortnight, Friday evening through to Monday morning, at their fathers and most weekends follow are the same; SM and her daughters go off to a dance competition or horse show, while EX takes DTS to whatever activities they are doing that weekend, all fine and dandy, except neither me or ex can afford for them to do these activities, so my children just have to go and watch their brothers This is how they spend almost every weekend with their father!

Naturally this has caused more then a few fights between me and ex, as I think it's cruel to get my DC up every Saturday morning to go watch their siblings do all these fun activities knowing that they would never be able to do them. Ex has said he would pay half if I payed half, as this is what He and OW do,because it's not fair on his wife and other DC if he pays the full lot for our DC. He doesn't seem to understand that I earn a low wage and cannot afford to even pay half.

This is especially hard as the children are all such similar ages.

EX does take them all to soft play, wave pool and movies ect after, which is fully paid for out of his own pocket after ( I know, what a saint), but that doesn't make up for the fact his children have been forced to sit around all morning watching their brothers have fun.

It just seems my children will forever be getting the blunt end of the stick because their father and stepmother have decided to have separate finances.

So, would I be unreasonable to ask their step mother to either fund or give permission to EX to fund these activities? After all it is because of her financial situation that my children have to miss out, as she has made it clear to ex that she expects him to split everything evenly between all his children, and spend no more or no less on our children then he does on theirs, and she could afford it or would that just make me bitter, jealous cow? How should I go on from here?

Irish its the way her is treating her emotionally, bigging the other girl up ad ignoring his dd, making his dd feel inadequate. Not paying much attention ti her. Tat is not on, op said that she was in tears recently, this shoud not be happening.

I meant te way her father is treating his dd, making her feel inadequate, overtly preferring sm dd over his own dd. giving praise and nice comments to,sm dd not his own

Op said he appears to put step dd in dd place like a Cinderella affect. If te like trampolining than Mabey that is something op can research, I don't think lessons or clubs cost a lot

The 50% thing is seriously weird and very, very unfair.

By that logic a child is only as wealthy as their poorer parent.

A millionaire who had a child with someone on NMW would not be able to pay for their children to do activities they could easily afford many times over because the other parent couldn't pay "their" half.

In the household that this shitty excuse for a father maintains with his horrible bitch of a wife, the children do activities.

That should include his children from his first marriage.

And if his wife won't give them any of her precious money, then he should cover 100%.

I can't get over how truly fucking horrible some people are.

As far as this pair of cunts is concerned, the OP'd children are poor and their children are rich and neither of them sees their part in being the case as being anything to be ashamed of.

Secret do your children ever voice their concerns to their Father?
Not that the onus should be on them or anything - but as you describe in your update it is you who deals with the fall out.
Cinderella indeed :(

See I don't believe the 50% thing for a minute. Much more likely that the 'ours' children are funded from the family pot and any extras come from which ever of their parents have the money. The SMs DD would be funded by her alone and the OPs DC are then to be funded by their DF. It's a bizarre way to run a family but it is one that many second and third families embrace.

I do still think that the OP should consider finding cheap affordable activities for the children as well. Yes the father is very wrong in his behavious, and that needs to be addressed. However the OP doesn't appear to be doing all she could with regards to activities for the children either. The potential injustice and inequality they feel may even slightly be addressed if they feel they have interests & activities of their own at home. Yes the father needs to address this in his time, absolutely. But the OP has responsibility for her time as well.

piglet thanks for clarifying! It has to be said that if the OP has substantive proof that this is happening she should withdraw contact ASAP. If she only has her DDs version then she should push for answers because their is always a chance that her DD is confusing material possessions with love, as many children do. There's a possibility that the wee girl is looking at all her DSSisters possessions and doesn't understand that she only has them because her DF died. I'm sure the other little girl would trade all her ponies etc to have her Daddy back.

There is another thread on here where the stepmother is trying to find out what the EXW's financial situation is and the resounding noise in that thread is that it's none of her business.

With that in mind why would it be down to a stepmother to financially support chidren who are not her own? If she has ringfenced money for her children that's her business just as it would be yours if you had ringfenced money for your children and didn't want to share it with the stepmothers children.

Its not right that your children should be forced to support their siblings if they are not being allowed to take part in the same activities but you may as well ask your mother/aunt/sister/brother/anyone else you know to fund these activities if you are going to ask the stepmother. Its the sole responsibility of you and your EX.

Sorry - meant to say haven't read all 17 pages of thread!

I'd personally say, fine give me the money that you contribute towards the OW children and we will sort out activities based on that.

Right now your children are being treated less financially well than the OW's children, by their father.

This will hardly foster a loving relationship between the half siblings will it, the stark contrast between the rich and poor relations is hideous.

I dont even want to think what the future relationships will be like between the siblings and the between the children and their father and step mother.

It is cruel. The children may get the communal treats, however they are having their siblings wealth flaunted in their faces. That is a truly awful way to treat a child.

"I'd personally say, fine give me the money that you contribute towards the OW children and we will sort out activities based on that."

Yy, fuzzy is right. Do this.

Say if the deal is that he spends the same on all his children, he needs to let you know what that amount is so you can budget activities for them.

I understand she has said that he holds her in higher regard than op dd, praises her and gives her more attention than dd. I said tat op needs to talk with ex about this, the girl is an older child not young. If op did ask her ex there USA possibility that he will deny it. Just because she is a child we should not be quick to dismiss her tat is the worse thing you can do. There does seem to be a pattern here if him favouritising his children with sm over the ones with op. what's this rubbish that he allowed them to take part in trampolining class but dd1 could not as she was too old. So he does have control over the situation, so if he wanted all children could take part in these activities. Something is not right and op needs to have this out with him

"Right now your children are being treated less financially well than the OW's children, by their father"

You have no way of knowing that though fuzzy. If he's paying proportionately to the SM into household expenses, in addition to paying CM, then it probably doesn't leave him a lot spare. We don't actually know here what proportion of activity costs he bears relative to the SM. The OP says "EX takes DTS to whatever activities they are doing that weekend, all fine and dandy, except neither me or ex can afford for them to do these activities, so my children just have to go and watch their brothers". We don't know who is paying for the DT's activities on the Sat morning. It could well be that the SM is paying most or all of that.

My reply is based on the fact that OP has said that the ex pays half for the activities for his children with OW.

As for household expenses, the ex clearly does not contribute towards OP's children the same proportion he does with OW. The children arguably lose out on that too, he is not paying proportionately for their living expenses either.

Technically he could be. If he's paying 25% of his wage after CM to the household pot then he is paying the same to both households. As it is we have no idea how much he earns, pays or what anything costs. I feel real sympathy to the OP and her DC but there is a danger in knowing too much about your exs finances and filling in the blanks yourself, it could drive you round the twist.

You have no way of knowing what proportion he is contributing to either household because you know neither of the following peices of information:

• his salary (and therefore you don't know CM amount)
• OP salary and total household expenditure
• SM salary
• Ex & SM household expenditure

Given that SM salary is high and Ex & SM household expenditure will be very high, it's possible he is paying a lower % contribution to that household than to the OP household

Yes but all of those issues are for him to sort out in relation to his children with OP.

It's really not for the SM to sort out, or to intervene in his petty demand of OP for half the cost of activities while the children are having contact time with him!

If she has a 3 week old baby I rather doubt this is the best time to be involving her in any of this.

I suspect it's because by the time Ex has paid his % to joint household expenses, then CM to OP, he doesn't have that much money - and he can hardly ask the SM to subsidise his own children's activities as well if she is paying the greater proportion of household expenses as it is.

That's the problem.

So I would say "no more contact until Saturday lunchtime if the children are to be excluded from activities on grounds of cost".

Although I suspect he won't like that because fewer overnight contact stays might increase the amount of maintenance he has to pay to OP!

If the children have fewer than 52 night stays with their father, then it won't affect CSA.

The father has said he contributes towards half the cost of the activities, in this case accept the amount he pays towards activities for his other children and set up activities for your children based on that.

irishkitkat, the ex has six children living in his house he is not paying 25% of his salary to the OP based on that.

I just can't see past the fact that he spends his contact time by taking "your" DC to watch his "new" DC (apologies for referencing - couldn't think of a better way )

It costs nothing to go to a park, free museum, bike ride, library and very little to have a picnic in the car, go on a train journey somewhere, take a bus to a new town - and only a bit more to go to the cinema, go to soft play / adventure playground etc. Or - radical thought - stay home and rent some DVDs, have board games / jigsaws / computer games / make a den / paint / play etc.

I'm sure he tells a good story - poor me, no money, DW loaded, lots of children to attend to but honestly - there is no circumstance where this is the only option. Get a friend to drop the "new" DC at groups, pay a nanny to do so, drop DC off and take "your" DC to the park next door (with group leader's permission, obv) or his DW takes all their children while he has time with "yours". But to conclude that the only way to arrange things is for "your" DC to sit and bloody watch?!

He is an utter bastard for doing that to his children - he is doing all of them a disservice. "New" DC will grow up entitled, "your" DC will feel ostracised. HE is the focus, not the wife or finances imo.

"So I would say "no more contact until Saturday lunchtime if the children are to be excluded from activities on grounds of cost".

^ Or this

"or his DW takes all their children while he has time with "yours". "

But to be fair she does have a 3 week old baby. Not sure I could manage 6 other children with a 3 week old baby on my own. And for the last few months she has been heavily pregnant. I wonder how much of the issues DD1 has had are related to these recent occurences and the divide of time this has driven. It's not hugely unusual for older siblings to feel put out when a new (and much younger) baby arrives and the parents' time is spread thinly (I'm not excusing the unfair wathcing of DTs activities btw, just giving a different perspective of the root cause of DD1 issues potentially)

That's why I wrote 25% of his wage after Child Maintenance. He would get 25% reduction for the 6 DC in the household so he's paying 25% of 75%. For all we know he could be paying the exact same amount to his own household. But that's the thing, we don't know and the OP is taking the word of a man who has proven that he has neither scruples or morals.

OP, yanbu for feeling sore that your kids are missing out on these activities due to lack of funds. But I think yabu to approach their SM and ask her to fund the very same ones for your kids.

Not every SM ring-fences her money around herself and her own children, but some feel that separate finances are the right arrangement for their families. E.g., if she has her own child from a previous marriage, she might feel more secure in her new one by keeping separate finances - if your ex ever left her, he wouldn't be financially responsible for that child, only for the children that are biologically his own.

Your ex needs to sort out which of his kids gets what of the household finances with his own wife; that's their business. You and your ex should sort out whether your children should have to be dragged along to the twins' activities on contact days - especially if your kids are feeling a bit crap about the situation themselves. If your ex can't find a way to fund all of his children equally, then maybe someone else could take the DTs along to whatever it is they do, and your ex could spend that time just with your kids.