What is fair in this situation re child support?

[EElisavetaOfBelsornia]

DSis has asked for my advice. She works 2 days a week, BiL is FT but asked to reduce to 3 days so they will not need to use any childcare. BiL has a child from a previous relationship for whom he pays child support. DSis thinks he should pay about three fifths of what he currents pays, whatever the CB calculator works out as, because his income has reduced. BiL thinks it's unfair for the child and his mum to have less money because they are taking a lifestyle choice - he said he, DSis and their DCs would benefit but his DS and his mum would suffer. She asked me for advice. I am thinking of suggesting a half way position - the rate that 4 days would work out as if that makes sense. What do you think?

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

I've rtft and it's been a wild ride!

Op, I am inclined to agree with your bil. Purely on the basis that the child still needs what he needs and that costs. Your sister and her children will have additional benefits from having your bil around more. I think that's the only way of doing it so nobody is penalised.

It would, in my opinion, be very unfair to take a balanced decision for the family he lives with to ensure they benefit which only has negative implications for the child not living with them.

I know this isn't relevant to your sister's situation op, but I can't get my head around how in this country we allow some NRPs not to pay for their children's keep. If we failed to provide for our resident children we'd quite rightly be prosecuted for child neglect. I'm very interested to hear about how it works where lifeisunjust lives. What country is that? The point about not having more children than you can afford including those not living with you is important.

Op, there is the legal minimum which says your bil should pay £XX. And then there's the moral case for paying a more realistic cost. I would find the latter a more attractive quality in my husband.

Hope it works out for everyone :)

[JolseBaby]

I would agree that there are lots of useful opinions here, and no doubt it's given OP food for thought. But 243 messages later, it's probably mostly been said by now - and I don't think she can be blamed for not wanting to hang around and defend herself against some very unpleasant and warranted name-calling. It's a shame that threads so often go this way; there are a lot of people projecting their own issues, instead of thinking about the very real person on the other side of the keyboard.

[lifeisunjust]

And no my husband hasn't been able to circumvent any of the system here. Shared parenting isn't obligatory, just the starting point and the choice for most parents. It might surprise you but in fact very few parents, even the ones with crappy morals and OW/OH and who've run off seem to prefer the shared parenting option here with maintenance only when incomes are very unequal between parents to the system of losing contact with the children, paying as little maintenance as possible. The minority just care so little about their kids that they choose to walk away.... mine was one of them.

I don't know the full history of shared parenting here. I know it has only become the norm in the last 20 years and that the excellent child care options, the low percentage of SAHMs, almost unheard of teenage pregnancy and more equality in careers and salaries and also the respect for family life are significant in the success of this system. It doesn't work for everyone, but for most it does.

[lifeisunjust]

I've already explained, that the country is less than 400 miles long! And parents very rarely live 400 miles apart, the shared parenting brings them to move closer. Presumably the parents came together for a night at least? Then there are presumably ties between one of the 2 places the parents live in? For those parents who do chose subsequently to live so far apart 50/50 week on week off or 3.5 and 3.5 or 14 and 14 will not work, instead parents tend to do a holidays and weekends with one parent and weeks with the other. I have a friend whose ex partner chose to move away. Her child and she continue to live where in the place they previously lived together, the child spends about 40% of time with dad who has chosen to move away, pays maintenance to the mum at a reduced rate and they have similar income, otherwise would be no maintenance. Whilst it hasn't been easy having the father choosing of his free will to move away from the child, it does work reasonably well.

I have never said 100% of the country do shared parenting nor that the BIL and sister should move closer to the other child to do shared parenting. I have said that where I live, at least 90% of children of separated parents have a shared parenting agreement in place. I happen to be in the 10% who don't have shared parenting as husband decided again of his own free will to up and leave and never ever come back. I'm certainly not going to up sticks and move a large family to be near him as he spent months telling me I must do. The result is we're a minority where maintenance imposed upon the father across an international border took 3 years for the father to accept even was valid and is now finally paying - didn't want to accept as it was based on him not being able to deliberately reduce income to pay less and that maintenance is to age 24 not 18 if adult children are students. I count myself lucky he finally pays, though it is actually less than the minimum which a court would have imposed, I cut my losses and accepted something was better than never paying. Far too many parents in the UK, the majority of them women, have fathers who struggle to get any maintenance at all. It sounds like the BIL is one of the good ones who has a wife who has naturally put her own children first in her thoughts to the detriment of the welfare of her husband's other child.

The UK's system fails in many ways to put the needs of children first, encourages NRPs to aim to pay as little as possible, encourages NRPs to go off and create more children knowing the first set of children will have to put up with less, unless income goes up to be able to keep up the same maintenance levels, discourages strong bonds between both parents by there not being a starting point of shared parenting and the reality of mostly mums being left to bring up children alone. It is not something the UK should be proud of. And those remarks are said without prejudice and without disrespect to the family in the OP's original post.

[turnaroundbrighteyes]

Has your sis considered all the options?

Could her DP work 3 long days, equivalent of 4 days. Or could your sis?

Could she work a second job evenings or weekends? Or could he so with the loss of childcare cost there's no drop in income.

Would his brother be happy to put sis dp and all the kids up at least once a month so ss gets to see his dad for the 4 days he doesn't work?

What about when the younger children are at school? Will sis dp easily be able to increase his hours? Will sis?


A good friend of mine had 3 children, as sis's dp does, she then decided that she didn't want them in childcare, but couldn't afford to be a sahm and keep their current lifestyle so she chose to work evenings and rotad Saturday mornings. Didn't get to see as much of her DH for a few years, but it worked for them and suited their preference of having the children cared for by Mum or Dad.

[OccamsRazorSharpner]

OP there is a lot of useful opinion on here, just not what you were looking for it would seem. I feel sorry for your dn.

[EElisavetaOfBelsornia]

I'm still waiting to hear how a 400 mile distance between the parents would work in life's imaginary country.

I agree Jolse, not getting anything useful here.

[BikeGeek]

I'm not sure that sort of system could work in the UK currently. Many would be horrified by the idea of 50:50 shared care.

[JolseBaby]

I'd leave the thread now in your shoes. This one is just going to run and run, populated by posters who have only read the first page (if you're lucky) and who have jumped to conclusions because they haven't RTFT.

[EElisavetaOfBelsornia]

It would be nice, by the way, if posters could express their views about the question without using mysogynistic insults towards a close member of my family. That's nasty and upsetting, and loses you the moral high ground.

[EElisavetaOfBelsornia]

Except that life's ExH seems completely able to circumvent the fair system in this unspecified country.

[emilybrontescorset]

Again I agree 100% with lifeisunjust.
The whole system sounds much better than the one we have in the UK.

[emilybrontescorset]

If bil is a decent person he will continue to pay the agreed amount.
If your sis is a decent parent she will be ok with this.

Other scenarios mean they are bastards.


It is irrelevant as to how long bil and his ex were together. The fact is he fathered a child with her, he wepas consensual in that.

No body us suggesting your sister was the ow but she us sounding to be like a bitch.

[AKissACuddleAndACheekyFinger]

Your sister isn't a c+++ OP. It's entirely natural that she would prioritise her own child/ren as a first instinct. Your brother in law wants to treat all of his children fairly and that is, as I posted earlier, entirely to is credit. I'm a step mother as well as a mother and it's often assumed I had an affair with my husband. I didn't and I love my step children but they have to be treated equally even though it's not always my natural first thought to do so (ready to get flamed for that, but I always bring myself into check).

[NeedsAsockamnesty]

Ive been a stepmum op.

I would never suggest that the person I was married to reduced their agreed amount of CM unless they had a legitimate belief they could not afford to do otherwise and then only if it was over the legal minimum.

[lifeisunjust]

PS shared parenting means you actually live apart from your child half the time and live with them half the time, or whatever percentage, that you put the needs of the child first and the needs of the parent subsidiary. It doesn't mean the parents continue to live together! There are 2 households. And I still have not found any reference to a suggestion that the BIL has shared parenting with his child, in fact the BIL has come in for quite a bit of praise for him, on the basis of facts presented, indeed putting the child's needs as priority, so I do not know what the rant is about.

[lifeisunjust]

But the sister has shown herself to be uncaring by suggesting that the maintenance be reduced for the benefits of herself and other children, I don't think that can be argued with.

[lifeisunjust]

Who mentioned the sister as OW? I don't believe anyone did.
Who mentioned that the BIL should have shared parenting?

[EElisavetaOfBelsornia]

Jeez how much projecting is going on? My DSis is not and never was an OW. My BiL was never in a relationship with his son's mother. Shared parenting is not an option because they live apart. My BiL has a disability, his son's mother does not. He has never withdrawn or reduced payments. If posters can't see that other people's situations can be different from their own, that it's possible to be stepmum without being either an OW or an uncaring bastard, and that a non resident father might still be trying to do his best by his child, it would be really helpful to abstain from commenting.

[lifeisunjust]

Health implications?
Ok next time my husband with the FCO who is on his 37 hour week tells me "oh I am just going to reduce the pathetic £5 a day I pay for the kids I abandoned because I want a better life-work balance with the OW and her 3 kids by 2 other men" whilst I work 50 hours a week to make up the shortfall from the £5 per day which covers only about 30% of their daily basic needs for food and housing, yep I'll be steaming even more than I already have done.

What about the health implications f the mum bringing up the child? Or the health needs of the child now having to live on less money?

[BlackeyedSusan]

I think possibly half way house, because there are health implications for bil. after all there will be no maintenance or income if bil makes himself so ill that he can not work. depends on what the health implications are though. whatever it is a bit shit for bils ex.

if they can afford to keep it the same, all the better. it is a case of balancing the needs of both sets of children. must not make one significantly poorer than the other, taking into account that one child will also benefit from seeing dad more, and thus expect to do less paid for things as would happen in a family where both parents are still together.

[lifeisunjust]

Shared parenting also discourages OWs as they quickly realize in fact their new catches have responsibilities which will always be there and then suddenly their new catches don't seem so desirable, when every other week they have to share their new catches with the children.

Shared parenting means few parents will deliberately give up their jobs to avoid paying maintenance, because you know what, society expects them NOT to walk out on their children when they walk out on the (mainly) mums. They have to take on 50% of the parenting, unless there is a mutually arranged lesser amount, which might happen if one or the other moves further away (the situation of expected shared care again discourages it though).

Shared parenting creates a system where absent parents are rare, where parents who leave the (mainly) mums and children to fend for themselves are thought of as lower humans that they are, as immoral (mainly) men whose only concerns are themselves and (far too often) their replacement partners the OWs.

[emilybrontescorset]

Excellent points lifeisunjust.

My ex packed in his job and the ow ( who did not work when they met) has goneback to work ful time. My children receive nothing at all.

I personally agree with what you have written. If their father was made to pay maintenance at the rates he previously did, then I very much doubt he would have stopped working.

This was raised in court and the judge who dealt with my case was not impressed at all with my ex h. However as the law stands there is nothing the courts can do and my children have to suffer.

They do detest their fathers new wife, they see hear as responsible for their current situation as well as hI'm.

Dd1 asked why on earth this situation is legal. Nobody can justify it.


Lifeisunjust- the system of parents sharing responsibility sounds much better to me.

[wallywobbles]

So if your sister was the ex she'd really be ok with this would she. Yeah I thought not.

[EElisavetaOfBelsornia]

Where do you live, lifeisunjust?