Child maintaince with a greedy ex

[EveOnline2016]

My brother has his daughter a lot.

This is how it breaks down. 1/2 the school holidays. EOW plus every Monday Tuesday and Thursday after school. Also 1/2 the cost of school uniform.

EOW is Friday after school till bedtime Sunday.

Still ex wants CMO payments.

While he has his daughter he feeds and clothes her and washes and irons the school uniform to send back.

My brother has now stopped the £100 per week maintence or he can't afford to have his dd.

Is this fair.

ArcheryAnnie I get so angry when people let what their arsehole X put them through, affect their kids. My son knows nothing of what his dad did to me, and neither he should.

Why don't you ask the CMS, their rules are quite clear. 2 nights EOW plus half the nights (or is it just days at the grandparents?) of the holidays can be inputted into the calculator, along with salary, and that will give the bear minimum

And if that's less than £100 a week, then what?

Posters like you who pretend that they do know have just filled an awful lot of the detail in with your imagination, and that's what you're arguing for

A lot of people are adding their own details here.

ayeokthen
Your dad sounds great. I have a good dad too. He was in the army so we travelled a lot, but unusually for my generation they never sent me to boarding school and they frequently sacrificed living together for my mother and I to stay to finish a crucial school year.

Remembering all that makes the Paris job just meh, really. My kids choosing to spend a lot of time with me when they're adults and no longer have to is how I'll know I've made good life choices. Other stuff - including career - is second to that. To me that's what parenting is about.

And if that's less than £100 a week, then what?

If the CMS decided that he is legally obligated to pay a minimum of less than £100, then he can pay less than £100, and the rest is between him and his conscience.
It certainly won't say he hasn't to pay £0 like his currently is though!

If it's less than £100 a week then he can pay whatever that is (plus the arrears, since he's stopped paying) and then sit their smugly in the knowledge that he's superdad by paying the minimum legal amount towards his daughter.

I'm sure that he, his sister, and you will have a lovely warm feeling inside about what a good guy he is...

This thread is nasty.

I agree, ayeokthen. It can be really difficult - treading that very careful line between "badmouthing the ex" and when the ex has let down DS, being sure to let DS know that it isn't acceptable behaviour from his dad and that it's OK for him to be disappointed by it, he needn't excuse it (not least because I don't want DS to grow up thinking that's what normal fatherhood is, and repeating it on his own kids, if he has any) - but the bottom line is always what's best for the kids.

Poor child, divorced parents, two homes, and now an interfering aunt.

Somerville your parents sound awesome too! Children know when they are valued, loved and given security and guidance. It stays with you. Years ago with XH I got into shitloads of debt with him spending the rent money (no idea for 7 months!) and my dad, bless him, bailed me out and paid it. The landlord wrote him a letter that said "Our children have no understanding of the sacrifices we make for them until they do the same for their own children. And so the world continues to turn." It stuck with me. When our kids are grown I don't want them thinking we grudged sacrifices, I want them to realise that we made sacrifices out of love for them and would do it all again.

ayeamarok

I'm sure that he, his sister, and you will have a lovely warm feeling inside about what a good guy he is

And so what should a NRP do to be a decent parent?

Do you really tjhink its OK for your bother to stop paying maintenence for his child because he has her every other weekend?

Becky if you are a single parent, and care passionately about the welfare of your child, then money does make a difference. That's why the whole concept of maintenance exists. Parenting is providing for your child both emotionally and physically. You can't force the emotional bit from an absent parent who doesn't want to give it, but at least you can try to make sure that they do provide, in part at least, physically.

ArcheryAnnie I completely agree. The times when XH has upset DS I've explained that it wasn't the right thing to do, and that I'm sorry he's been let down. (Unfortunately there are many occasions I've had to do this) When it's affected DS I always explain, and he says he knows what being a dad is because his stepdad and grandad show him how. He says that's the sort of dad he wants to be bless him.

cost of raising the child would be halved equally between both parents in that instance

Raising children 50/50 is only financially fair if both parents are on the same page.

I have 3 children and do 50/50. I pay for everything. Ex is self employed on shifts. I pay full time childcare to fit his shifts 'cos no childcare provision allows you to constantly shift which days you need them and which days you don't. He receives child benefit for 2 of the children - have tried more than once to overturn this but they come down on his side. I pay all bus fares, childcare, haircuts, uniforms, shoes, school dinners etc etc It is me who is called when children are sick and me who has to take time off or make alternative arrangements. Ex simply won't answer the phone to the schools. He never returns clothes - sends them back to me in car boot crap.

So we have 50/50 in name but reality is he feeds his kids half the week and that's it. His motive is to break me, he couldn't care less about the children.

Is this all about money? You sound like none of you really care about the welfare of this child, just the money

It's easy not to suggest money isn't everything when it's not you having to meet the costs of bringing up the children.

Easy to suggest money isn't everything

AIBU?
Yes
No I am not ...

We really should have an incon for that.

Everything you need to know has already been why you are BU..

ayeokthen
What a great thing that your father did. I think when we've grown up with that kind of male influence it's especially hard to understand the 'pay/do the minimum' type of selfish parenting.

And I'm glad your ex is an ex.

I'm widowed so I pay and do 100% of what my children need. I often wonder how fathers like the ones on here who want to do the least possible would cope if the mother of their children died. If £100 pounds a week plus having their child round for tea a few days a week and EOW is unachievable, what happens when they have them 100% of the time? Perhaps they rub their hands gleefully awaiting the child benefit and tax credits to begin rolling in. And then realise they've gone overdrawn and been earmarked for redundancy due to being off work all the previous week when their child was unwell...

I do think that NRP who tended to leave the day to day child routines to their partners do tend to be a bit rose tinted specs about their caring contribution.

I had a conversation with my then recently Xh about fifty fifty care. We lived about thirty miles apart at the time. He didn't want to move closer to reduce travelling , thought that when he had to travel for work (usually 4 or more weeks a year) or had a big project that involved all nighters at deadline (not uncommon) that it was reasonable that I'd be able to pick up the slack for him, despite part of his plan being that having shared care would enable me to work full time instead of part time.

I had to explain with specific examples why this was completely unworkable , he really couldn't see why a sixty mile school run was unreasonable for our son or why I couldn't drop work with no notice. He's not a stupid man he just only saw what he wanted to see and it was all from his viewpoint and ignoring anyone else's including his child's. It wasn't malicious just incredibly shortsighted. (I'd have loved fifty fifty had it been realistic but it wasn't because he wasn't prepared to compromise )

My parents cover child care and have said they will do this for brother.

So basically your brother wants to take his daughter off her mother and hand them over to his parents to look after so he can save a few quid a week. My ExH wanted to do the same. He was a cock too.

No court would allow that for starters, as I was advised by my solicitor. There would have to be serious issues to warrant a judge removing a child from one parent to hand over to another.

If it's less than £100 a week then he should pay at least that minimum amount. What he doesn't get to do is unilaterally decide he doesn't want to pay maintenance. Does he think that suddenly removing a whack of money from his child's main household won't have a detrimental effect on her? Really? Seems blooming unlikely to me.

If you split up and end up running two households you're going to be worse off, it stands to reason. But no man who just decides to stop paying maintenance is a good father.

Somerville I'm so grateful for my auld dad, he's bloody brilliant! I'm sorry that you're widowed, it must be really tough for you and your kids. Completely get your point though, having had a phenomenal dad, and now a phenomenal partner, I just can't see how a parent could want to do less than their very best for their kids? From the way you speak, your kids are very lucky to have you as their mum hopefully our kids will speak as fondly of us as we do of our parents.