While we're on the subject of child maintenance. How many would admit to living with a DP who doesn't pay it?

[WorraLiberty]

I'm just curious that's all.

It's quite common to read that a lot of MNetters don't receive any maintenance for their kids.

Yet it's also quite common to read that MNetters DPs do pay maintenance for their kids.

So AIBU to wonder why there is such a discrepancy? Or is there something I've (quite possibly!) overlooked?

Is there a chance that some men are claiming they do pay their exes when they actually don't...and that their new DPs are non the wiser?

Maybe generally speaking, the type of person who cares enough about parenting to join and post on mumsnet isn't the same type of person who has a DP who doesn't care enough to pay maintenance.

Exactly squoosh, neither parent putting the child's welfare first

My DP pays his ex monthly and has never missed a payment.

My ex has not paid a single penny since we separated 3years ago and gsgave up his job when I threatened him with CSA, his lovely new size 8 girlfriend is fully aware that he doesn't pay anything and seems happy with this.

What does her size have to do with her being happy with him not supporting his kids?

Excellent question worralibertyy. I couldn't contemplate a relationship with a man who didn't pay maintenance.

A man who paid it but grudged it would turn me off too.

and I do wonder what my x told people. as he drove girls around in his new cars.

Squoosh, so long as the NRP is paying what they should be paying then I don't see a problem with the NRP refusing to pay more if the RP is trying to create hell for no real reason at all. Threatening to reduce contact in order to get more money is below the belt.

Sometimes NRP have other children to think of, they can't always justify paying more than the minimum.

captain I was responding to another poster who said they wouldn't blame a nrp for not paying any maintenance if they were being refused access to their child.

I just don't have time for people using maintenance or access as sticks to beat their ex with. Get over it and separate the bad feeling you have towards your ex from your parental responsibilities.

It's quite telling that it often involves later partners having to believe some crappy excuse.

When in reality the only valid excuse would be "I was honest,complied with information requests and got a nil assessment"

It also makes me cross when people complain about low amounts (when assessment is honest rather than based on fraudulent nonsense) if the ex is on jsa so gets the £7/£5 then they are not none payers.

My mother's vile husband never paid maintenance for his children when he left his wife & they have now cut him out of their lives completely.

One of many red flags my mum should have heeded - he is a financial & emotionally abusive sack of shit.

ps, and in agreement with the first few posters, yes, everybody would have believed my x paid maintenance, and in fact, his father wrote me a horrible letter. It was obvious his own parents believed he was paying maintenance.

My XP is long gone. I've no contact information for him or his family and no way of getting in touch. He left us to start a new life (his words via the police as I had him listed as. Missing person). I've never seen a penny from him and, quite honestly never really tried. The CSA are not desperately helpful in such circumstances.

I sometimes wonder if subsequent partners even know he has a son.

Why should the rp have the power to stop contact on nothing more than a selfish whim?

why should the NRP have the power to stop maintenance on nothing more than a selfish whim?

Squoosh I'm with you on that one. We have never said we wouldn't pay maintenance, and I would probably leave DH if wanted to do that.

I feel bad sometimes but we have 2 young children and we saved up in order for me to go on longer maternity leave. We used it all on legal fees.

Everytime I hear one of her sob stories I fall for it, for it turn out to be a lie and I hate it that DH is right when he says she's not really.

It's people like her who give decent RPS a bad name.

I would never stop access because my ex refused to pay maintenance, that would be stooping to his level. My dc arnt pay per view

my x announced to anybody who'd listen that I wouldn't let him see the children. And then he never came.

My dad said my mum stopped contact to despite him. I remember sitting on the doorstep of my house waiting for him to pick us up. He never came.

The only time my mum did refuse contact was when my dad! who hadn't seen us for months, wanted me to be a bridesmaid at his wedding.
Only because his side of the family were coming from another country. It was all for appearances and to avoid the questions.

fedupbutfine and Worra, when I said he could see I was spending money on our DD, I meant in direct opposite of his first ex.

The child was always in ill fitting clothes. She never had tidy shoes. She never got a decent hair cut. This is in spite of her being a sales manager and her DP being an electrician. They had money. They had decent clothes. They had money from my then H. They just chose not to spend it on my DStD.

We did not have anywhere near as much money as they did. So, he bought clothes for her, fed her often, as she was with us often but something had to give, which meant giving his ex money.

My own DD did get bought clothes by me. My Ex knew that. That is why he happily handed over all that I asked, the agreed monthly amount plus half of all extras.

I don't think that RPs need to prove to NRPs that they are spending money on the DC to get maintainence, but sometimes it is just clear they are not. What should happen then?

My point being is that a nrp could be paying all they are bound to pay yet the rp still cuts contact. Maybe the only leverage they have is the maintenance. I can certainly empathise with that. It would take a good nrp a lot of soul searching to resort to that. But that situation doesn't get discussed much on mn, that of rps cutting contact for no good reason and there seems to be no redress in the law. In fact sometimes it's recommended on mn in order to get the exp to toe the line.

Are you saying she was actually neglecting the children?

Why didn't you report it.

Or was it just a matter of different standards?

dontput

We have this thing called court. That's the way you deal with contact refusals.

And I have never seen cutting contact advised on here as a way to get someone to toe the line I've only ever seen it when domestic abuse and child protection problems are an issue

My dad used to grill my DSis and I about whether our mum was working, whether we'd been on holidays, whether we had any expensive toys, what pets we had, whether she still smoked etc. It was really stressful, it wasn't just them being friendly and interested either, it was my dad trying to work out whether my mum was spending it "appropriately"

FFS, if you're feeding and clothing and housing the kids, the NRP should consider the maintenance going towards that. I don't get why it's such a contest for some men. It's just insulting. Especially when they put their two children through private school but my mum couldn't afford to buy me the state school branded jumper! I had hand knitted cardigans!

Needsasockamnesty, I don't see why people shouldn't complain about low amounts. The resident parent incurs the bulk of the financial sacrifice for raising a child(ren) and is told (and made feel) that she is lucky and shouldn't complain! that , hmm, 10% of the financial sacrifice is covered by the child's own father. If mothers complain it's because there's still a misogynist way of thinking that mothers should just suck up that reality, bear 90% of the sacrifice of raising a child. To seek to equalise that sacrifice, exactly 50:50, that is seen as grasping.