AIBU to keep maintenance for my DC and not put it in my "stepfamily" pot?

[iloveberries]

Ex left 4 yrs ago and has paid maintenance regularly and on time. I have always saved the maintenance as I work and don't need it to cover DC living expenses. My plan is to give to DC when older for deposit on house / uni / car unless I need it to support DC (eg. Redundancy / illness or similar)

Been with DP 2 yrs and are currently buying a house together. We will both be putting our earnings into "our" pot. However I feel that I should continue to save the maintenance for my DC into his account for the future but DP thinks it should come into "our" pot as we are sharing all our other income.

I have 1 DC and he has 2. They live with their mum and he pays maintenance accordingly. We know she doesn't need it for their living expenses but obviously don't know whether she saves that for them.

We will have bedrooms for all children in our new house and have his children here a lot so we will both contribute to upkeep for his 2 and my 1.

We never argue about money but this maintenance has become an issue. AIBU to want to keep saving it for my DC?

Nope, I still think what I thought initially. If you are buying a home together and setting up joint finances, you need to put all available money into the family pot. If you want to keep certain money separate, you should really continue with a 50/50 arrangement. The obvious problem is that you can't, because he is soon to be 'paying' for most things because you are on mat leave. Also in the future you have no idea what will happen and you will undoubtedly expect him, if necessary, to support your son from his own pocket along with his own children and your joint child.

Iloveberries

House - your DP might come to resent that agreement in time because it's not a sliding scale. You have put more into the deposit, but going fwd you are paying in 50/50. You are gaining a bit of his share of that because you 'own' more than 50%. So say your deposit is 60/40 hrs losing 20% of the mortgage he's paying

Secondly, whilst I understand the 'right to reside' clause, it does mean the DC wouldn't inherit until the other parent died. My friend was royally fucked over by her step mum on this as she downgraded the house a few times and thus my friend ended up with half a share of pretty much nothing, not the HUGE house that was there when her father died and her SM kicked her out as soon as her Dad died. Of course she didn't actually get the money for over 20 years either, so lost her Dad but his inheritance didn't really help her in life as he would have wished it to.

he knows what his ex earns and knows what her mortgage is so its easy to work out that (like myself) she doesn't need the maintenance for day to day living expenses

Yeah, I regularly share my wage slips, bank statements, supermarket receipts, utility costs, APR on my credit cards, details of loans taken out etc etc with my ex

I have a son, a stepson and a baby on the way. My son is with us 75% of the time. Stepson every weekend and holidays. I dont take maintenance from my son's dad because I am a higher earner, i don't need it and his dad buys him what he needs for his house and will contribute 50/50 to larger bills so an easy arrangement. My partner does not pay maintenance as due to complicated residency issues we are technically resident parents and the stepson rarely sees his mum. We pay for everything for him though. If I did receive maintenance and it wasn't essential living money, I would probably save a part of it for my son and spend part of it just on general living. I save for my son when I can, I will save for the new baby when I can, I do not save for my partners son. That is my partner's responsibility, if he want's a savings pot for his son then he will look after it, similarly me for mine. We have a bills account that we each contribute half the bills and the rest of our money is separate, it means we are both financially independent and spend our money as we choose to. I have a lot more disposable income so pay for a lot more treats, that's fine by me. But I wouldn't allow anyone to tell me what I could and couldn't save and who for.

For what it's worth, I don't think he's trying to pull a fast one or 'do better' out of this. I think it's very very complicated and he's trying to be fair to everyone. Especially ALL of the children.

Trouble is it's not straight forward.

I think he's actually seeing this from a very lovely PoV of you being together forever, one big happy family. Whereas I think we all know it doesn't always end up like that and don't want to see you & DS miss out if you do split up. It would be foolish not to think like this, married or not.

I also agree that whilst it might sound like a nice idea to cut down your hours to be at home with the new baby & the 3 big ones, I wouldn't. It's too risky nits too risky for any woman really, but in a blended family it's really, really risky & I wouldn't bet my children's security & future on a relationship working out

I think I'd be saying to the guy that he's choosing to spend his kids' potential savings on a car. He's happy with you having an old banger but wants some of the money you saved by doing that. No way.

Surely quite a chunk of your savings for DS were saved even before you got together with DP?

Also, I would be enraged if I was you. Your cheap packed lunches, extra work and frugality are being penalised?

You should pay 100% of DS and 50% of baby. He should pay 200% of his DC and 50% of baby. Anything from other parents / maintenance should only form part of the "pot" for bills etc if you need it because you can't pay in because of redundancy or something.

Why not lock up your DS's money in some sort of ISA. That way you can get it for emergencies but it doesn't look quite so temptingly available to DO.

What will happen when your at work part time.
Will he be paying most for your son?

If she cuts her pay, long term earning potential, future pension, and likely longterm financial prospects to cover him while he works his odd hours, then I think she will be more than paying for her son herself.

Oswin

One parent supporting another through maternity leave is not one person "paying for everything" as one parent has to be at home to look after the child providing the equivalent of financial support or the child wouldn't survive. Maternity leave is a different matter.

OP why don't you share parental leave between you? You are the higher earner so it doesn't make sense to compromise your career for the sake of his, then you could continue with your 50/50ish arrangement.

Re the house arrangement - it sounds as though the OP has consulted a solicitor about it, so my thoughts on this are hopefully superfluous! But my point was partly that, as a lawyer, I see amicable arrangements fall apart in the event of bankruptcy / divorce etc. It's not impossible that he could claim for a larger proportion of the house on the basis of the amount he has contributed to the mortgage. So it is not necessarily a watertight understanding - but it sounds like the OP is aware of this and has protected herself legally with a proper agreement etc.

It is a really difficult situation and nobody seems to be at fault, but I agree with all the other posters who are advising that a reasonable amount of separate finances seems appropriate protection for the OP at the moment. This difficulty is finding a compromise between the OP retaining her independence and pre-relationship assets and savings, while her DP is about to contribute more financially on a day to day basis. Marriage would obviously be likely to change everything yet again.

Good luck finding a resolution!

Sorry everyone, wrong thread. I pressed back as my reply wouldnt post & it posted the reply to the other thread on your thread. I have reported it asking it to be removed.

I'm being dispassionate here but I think some element of your son's maintenance should go into the joint pot. Maybe one fifth less a further element representing the time he spends at his dad's. Maybe factor in the appropriate shares for the other children (getting very complicated now. ..) It is meant to be his father's contribution to a share of his living expenses.
What's left is fair enough to ring fence for him as savings. The other children might but have the same but it's for you and your partner to find another solution to that.

I am with you OP.

You obviously earn a good salary. All those saying you shouldn't save the maintenance, I don't get it.

If you earn a good salary let's say just for example it's £100K. Clearly, you probably don't NEED £500 per month from you ex to be able to house and clothe and feed your child. You can presumably manage that all on your own.

If you only earn £12k per year, then obviously you will NEED that £500 from your ex to house, clothe and feed him.

I assume you earn somewhere in the middle of this but can still from your salary support you and your son comfortably ie you don't need his £500 to pay the electricity bill.

So you pay 50/50 into the pot. His kids amount to 8/14 days, yours 9/14 so very similar in terms of adult /child ratio. Seems fair to me.

The maintenance means that your contribution is increased therefore you are subsidising his kids. why is that OK with people?

When you are on Mat leave if you can't manage 50% of the household bills then effectively you cannot support your DS and need to add in the maintenance in order to provide the lacking financial support.

Don't see why your DP thinks the money should go into the pot?

DS loses out on his savings pot and "our" baby gets saved for once. In contradiction as a family we are paying out twice for his kids, once in maintenance and once in savings.

I totally agree with you.

This prick is trying to have this both ways - his kids' money is out of bounds, but your kid's money is for him to spend on his children.

This is correct too. His kid's maintenance goes out 100% and your son's is split.

OP does not have to save for her SC, it's up to their parents to do that.

Very true.

The ways men find to exploit women are incredible.

^^^ This.

I think DP is just concerned that his kids might lose out as their mum isnt a saver.

So he wants to use you who is a saver to benefit his DC which actually disadvantages your DC.

I don't understand why it's the OPs job to save money for her partners kids.

Neither do I.

Would you save money anyway, if you put the maintenance money in the "family" pot? If you would be saving it anyway, for your child, then it's unreasonable to ask you to put it in the family pot.

Your maintenance should only go towards the child it's paid for, anyway. Your DP supports his children, not you. If you and DP had a child together, you would not expect anyone else to support that child monetarily

He's den a good one on you!

Do all the housework? Check
Do all the childcare? Check
Work ft and share earnings? Check
Hand over your ds money? Check

You're a cash cow for him.

I don't think he is trying to pull a fast one on me. I just think he sees our family as the 6 of us and wants everything to be equal for the 4 children. He's thinking of what looks fair to them later in life and his version of fair is us providing exactly equally for them. He's said he feels bad for his kids in many ways as he thinks I am a much better mum than his ex and whilst I think this is sad for them (and I agree) it's really not my problem. I can do as well as I can for them when they're with me but he chose to have two kids with his ex and that's a choice he has to live with.

My point is that it WILL NEVER be equal as there are other parents and grandparents involved.

i don't want my son to miss out because I chose a man with 2 kids.

He tells me we can't include his maintenance he pays to ex as legally it's not his and legally he has to pay it and has no control over it. Whereas he thinks because the money from Ex comes to me we can choose how it's spent.

I'm from a blended family - my biological parents split up when I was very young, both remarried and I have siblings on both sides. If my mum presented me with a pot a savings which was in any way bigger than one she had for my (half) sister I would be absolutely devastated. Because we were an actual family when I was growing up - me, mum, stepdad and sister. All equal and all part of one family. Having a bigger pot would really demonstrate that she didn't see us that way.

jessica do you have step siblings too?

ilove - please don't put the maintenance into a shared pot.

You're able to support yourself and save at the moment. By moving in with someone, you should see living expenses go down as you're sharing living costs with someone. Therefore you should actually be in a position to save more money (or spend more money if you were the type of person who was a spender rather than a saver). Not be in a position where you actually have less money to save for your son! Your son is not costing you any more in living expenses by you moving in with someone.

And equally your DP is actually in a position of halving his living expenses too, so your son is not costing him. In fact you are subsidising his DC by the fact that out of 5 people, you contribute half (2.5 people) instead of 2/5 for 2 people. Your DP is contributing half (2.5 people) rather than for 3/5 for 3 people. With your new baby this arrangement seems OK. Even though I think your DP has an advantage here - you do more of the housework and he has someone to help with his DC.

The only way to even consider putting your son's maintenance money into the family pot is if the maintenance your DP pays for his DC goes into the family pot. A share is taken out for his DC (given to their mum) and s are is taken out for your DC (which you choose to save).

I am a single parent of DC. In no way would I want my DC to be disadvantaged because I choose to move in with a boyfriend. It is enough that I'd be expecting my DC to share their homes and lives with people that they have had no say in choosing. It's illogical that you can save an amount for your DC now but wouldn't be able to save to the same extent when you move in with a boyfriend

I would also want to keep the maintenace ring-fenced for future protection in case of illness, redundancy, etc as you have mentioned. I would not be asking my ex to set up a savings account, where I couldn;t use it if circumstances changed.

People talking about blended families etc on here - DC will not always be treated the same, they have different parents with different earning abilities, different saving/spending personalities. You can't make all things equal when there is such a wide mix of parents, new partners, step children, new babies involved. You can make how you treat them day to day (holidays, presents, love, attention) equal, which you are doing.

He tells me we can't include his maintenance he pays to ex as legally it's not his and legally he has to pay it and has no control over it. Whereas he thinks because the money from Ex comes to me we can choose how it's spent.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the "fast one".

If the money he pays to his ex is not legally his, then the money your ex pays for his son is not legally yours.

See the switcheroo - becomes it comes to you (singular), you (plural).get to conveniently decide to spend it on his children.

So they get all the money from his maintenance, and half the money from your son's?

When someone's arguments always coincidentally end up favouring them and theirs, chances are a fast one is being played.

He can't have it both ways. Either maintenance is in the pot or it is out.

Don't let sentimental bullshit blind you to what he is trying to do here.

Also - explain the housework situation.

How does it make sense that you do all of it?

No, berries, just (half) siblings. And I absolutely hate putting it that way because in my mind they are just siblings.

I did point out to my (half) brother recently that I would never expect my dad and step mum's money to be split equally when they die. He was devastated. Made me promise to never say that to step mum because she'd be really hurt - she considers us her children too.

I was spectacularly lucky with step parents though - they both treated me exactly the same as their own children.