To think moving in with DP is at the detriment of my children?

[DairyleaFlunker]

The £900 per month thread made me think about my situation.

My DP of 2 years wants to move in after Christmas. He earns £38k. I work part time as I have a 2, 3 and 6 year old and earn little. I receive some housing benefit, tax credits etc and without the tax credits to help towards childcare my job isn't worthwhile. I am studying for a degree and my job is experience for my career. At the moment I work 3 days in school hours so get to do all drop offs and collections and eldest ds gets to do extra curricular activities. When DP moves in I will be working for no money as will receive no tax credits towards childcare. I can either continue doing that or get a full-time job (which DP expects me to do immediately after my degree is finished in April) - in which case my outgoings will increase massively due to childcare and I will barely see my children, extra curricular activities will have to stop etc. They like him but I feel they will really resent the change in their lifestyle bought about by him moving in. My eldest hates the after school club and the youngest two would struggle with going to nursery more. I made it clear from the beginning of our relationship that I believe children should have a primary carer around the majority of the time until at least 7/8 - we discussed this in relationship to potentially having children of our own. However now he has different expectations and I feel him moving in will be at the detriment to my children. AIBU?

I don't foresee this working out well. Let's say you walk in to a full-time job, that is relevant to your degree in April, and things are fine financially.

So you'll be a harried single parent of three, working full-time, and he'll turn up each weekend for sex and home cooking to play happy families, right? He'll come from a week of being a bachelor in hotels, to family life, and he will be utterly unable to sympathise with your week. A situation like that would test the sensitivity and forgiveness of saints. Your guy does not sound saintly: he seems like a more than averagely judgmental human being.
Given his past comments, I wouldn't be surprised if he started having a go about you not having done enough housework during your week.

You meanwhile, will know that you are in your time-poor situation as a direct result of following his instructions and that you are subsidising him. You will come to resent him.

When does he actually see his children?

For a weekend once per month at his mums who lives near them.

Red locks - I have told him the realities but he underestimates the cost of childcare and the cost of living. He's lived as he is for three years so is out of touch. All he pays for is his debts out of his salary, he hasn't paid to run a household since separating from his wife.

Another one saying don't!

You'll lose and he'll gain, leave things how they are ... You can see why he's keen but there's nothing in this for you and your kids at all.

I think he needs to live in a flat on his own to appreciate exactly what he's asking of you before he has anywhere near the right to comment on what you should do with your life, how much you should earn, and how much you should spend.

If you have told him the realities he is actively choosing to ignore this information.

If you tell someone what things cost based on your experience then the normal reaction is to think that that's how much things cost. You don't have to experience it for yourself!

Why did his relationship with his children's mother break down?

His contact is court ordered so he can't spend more time with his own children than he already does.

And you should ask yourself why...

As well as why he has debts.

Why hasn't he got a place of his own so his kids can visit the more usual every other weekend?

So, is he happy only seeing them one weekend a month? If so, you should not have children with this man, quite apart from the fact you have diametrically opposed ideas on parenting.

Or is it that his ex-wife would rather bring them up all on her own than trust him with them? I know people like to talk about manipulative ex-wives and contact, but it's always seemed to me that in reality, single parents are desperate for a break and for their ex to pull their finger out and contribute. Blocking contact originates in a personal conviction that the other parent isn't adequate. This conviction may or may not be fair.

Not always true, sure, but far more common than "bitch just does it because she wants to hurt me".

I notice you said he's only paying "debts" out of his salary. What about maintainance?

"but he underestimates the cost of childcare and the cost of living"

It's an interesting thing, that. In a totally different situation, my DH has done similar - when we moved out to Australia, I kept my house in the UK (DH is Aussie) and rent it out. It brings in a reasonable amount, but all DH could see is how much rent I was getting for it, and he then projected from that amount that I would be able to pay for my own flights back to the UK from that money.
It somehow failed to occur to him that, out of that rental income, I would still be paying my mortgage, life insurance/endowment policy, house insurance, management fees, maintenance (and a few other things like a pension fund). In fact, I barely make any money a month at all, and if there is a big cost on the house, then I lose money. BUT he didn't "see" any of that - just the amount coming in and he assumed I would have that as cash in the bank.

A friend of mine's exP has a court order that only allows him to see his two DC for one weekend a month. Frankly, it was not a pretty situation that led to this and while my friend's exP complains to others that the mother of his DC is cruel and wants to keep him from his DC, the reality is that he is a dangerous and inadequate man who the courts thought fit to keep at bay.

And why isn't your DP contributing to the household of his exW?

It really sounds as if he is a man with little sense of financial or other responsibilities towards his partner and any children of the family..

Good grief.

He has run up debts. He has no assets. He lives in hotels, served by maids to keep his room clean, and waiters to serve his food. Towels appear magically at some point in the day.

Does he bring laundry to your place when he pops by for sex? Or does he bring it to his mum? Or maybe he uses the hotels laundry service to save the wimminfolk in his life some extra duties?

He wants to move in with you, as otherwise you are not showing commitment.

He will contribute to bills. But, you need to find any old full time job that pays at least £1000 per month (I take it after tax naturally) asap, not even take your time build your career or find your dream job.
Your child care fees with increase due to working full time, at the same time as your tax credits (and child benefit?) goes down because he moves in?

Tell me again, how is he thinking about your welfare in all this?

And for goodness sake, dont marry this man, and dont get pregnant!!!!

Exactly how would it benefit you that he moved in?

Cuddles/someone to talk to in the evenings (no, he works away)
Help with running the house (unlikely, at the weekends)
Help with rent (?!)

???

I'd be putting together a 'bill' showing him what his portion of rent, council tax, utilities, food, insurance etc would amount to. Then add in all the benefits you'd lose by his being there. That adds up to the minimum he needs to pay.

Most of all though, I'm just really concerned at his attitude towards you - he knows what is good for you better than you do - and your self-doubt so willingness to bend to that, or feel you're being unfair, or need to justify yourself, for not doing so.

Please stand your own ground and let him find a way to come to you.

All this "ooh he just doesn't see how much things cost" bollocks.

Love, show him. Sit down with an excel spreadsheet. Show him what you currently pay for everything. Show him how much of it he will be responsible for when he moves in with you. It is impossible to argue with black and white figure in front of your eyes.

On £38k he will have a handsome salary. From that salary he currently pays very little out on living costs. He has ENORMOUS amounts of disposable income (and also enormous amounts of debt ). He won't have that same money when you live together, because quite rightly you'll be sharing costs.

If you want to stay with him lay some conditions out of your own: You won't even consider discussing it again until he is debt free and has remained so for 12 months. By this point the employment aspect will be moot because you'll be doing what you want work-wise, but just in case, make clear that your employment choices will not be dictated by him. If you are to live together as a family you behave as a family and that includes splitting all costs for the family in the way you both decide works best. And such splitting of costs will include his child maintenance payments, plus all childcare costs for the family he is asking to move in with.

You also need to have a discussion on how you would raise the children together, how you would discipline the children together, how you would save for children's future's together, how you would plan your lives around your employment (would he expect his career to come before yours, for example? What if one of you wants to change career/go back to uni/go part time?), what your priorities in life in general are. I don't see that you've done any of that. Well, I see that they've sort of come up, and they show you have wildly different priorities, and yet for some reason you're both ignoring this.

Don't tie yourself down to someone who wants to change you while not changing anything themselves.

In the meantime, start charging him for food and other expenses, if he wants to stay at yours and eat there, doing laundry as well?

I.e. expect him to bring in a weekly shopping occasionally. Say, once a month? Work out what you think is fair.

Bonsoir yep

I don't believe the courts are perfect. Far from it. They're staffed by human beings after all. But court errors through the eras aren't entirely random, and this divorce is only three years old, and the UK started moving towards a presumption of shared care unless evidence indicated otherwise ages ago.

The fact that the woman convinced a (hopefully!) objective and experienced family court judge that only one weekend a month was in the children's best interest, and after three years she still won't allow more contact, should be treated as circumstantial evidence.
You can't and shouldn't convict people solely on it, either literally or metaphorically, but it does colour in the picture that you drew, Dairylea when you told us what he's been asking you to do. No, not asking. Telling.

Is your youngest child his?

Is your youngest child his?

has never had to compromise because of children right...

So his wife did do all the nights, childcare, school runs, cooking, cleaning, sick etc Which he will expect you to do without compromising his life if you have kids. Oh as well as the full time job he expects you to have. No wonder he is happy to have them!

You really would be stupid to do this.

For 3 years he has had room service except perhaps for a bit at w/es with you. Yes, he's out of touch. I think your safest course, the one most likely to produce a happy outcome, is for him to move into a rented flat after Xmas, and to look after himself and his children once a month. Then he will gain i sght into how much things cost, how much time things take, how to do housework regularly and so on.

Once he's looked after himself for a while - personally I'd say a couple of years, but you'll know better than I - then he may become a useful addition to your family.

Also, after another few years, you will be in a better position career wise too, and won't need to be told by him to work ft/pt, or any of the other things he's assuming you'll do after graduation.

So you'll be a harried single parent of three

And he wants MORE DC too - don't forget. They've already got five between them and he's expecting her to work FT and produce more DC and look after them all Mon-Fri. OP, please listen to all the advice here. You sound very realistic, but torn because presumably you love this person, but really, YOU WILL GAIN NOTHING FROM HIM MOVING IN. Quite the opposite - you and your DC have a lot to lose. That, for me, would be enough to just say no.