Having been privy to several cases where the ex wife has been regularly hospitalised due to dv, and one where a child was raped by the father and those fathers STILL got supervised access to the children...IF he has genuinely been denied contact by court he must have done really appalling for that decision to have been made.
I suspect the reality is he's put absolutely zilch effort into staying in his sons life, there are numerous ways to do this, (the distance is NOT insurmountable, Blackpool is an extremely popular destination for scots weegies in particular often go there for long weekends, this weekend there will likely be a huge number of scots visitors there. I've a relative goes on weekend breaks there 4-6 times a year) it's 2019 ffs, I have an 18 yr old dd so 2 years older than the stepson. For the majority of her teenhood smart phones, SM, Skype etc have been very accessible and cheap to use absolutely NO excuse for NO contact with his son at all. He could even have applied to court for indirect contact to be arranged.
I suspect the op's extremely aggressive defensiveness is because she KNOWS this and is now having to face the fact that
she is with a man who has completely abandoned his child
begrudges financially supporting the child and has in all likelihood been forced to do so and is now having to stump up arrears
has lied to her about all of this (so what else is he lying about?)
Would in all likelihood do exactly the same to her and her child if they split!
But op's spiteful, prejudiced, ignorant comments about the ex wife and step son mean I have zero sympathy for any of this.
My ex has at times claimed to others and even tried to with dd that I prevented contact and "turned dd against" him - I have all the paperwork from the divorce and multiple court hearings which show all the evidence of him failing to turn up, cancelling last minute, being hours late, lying about me to others, lying to dd...
Dd also has her own knowledge of my (regrettably) making excuses for him, defending him, my fixing things when he cocked up (often at great expense to myself when his income has always been several multiples of mine), and as she grew older and I wasn't even involved in indirect contact his not calling her, not answering her calls, culminating in him BLOCKING her on every avenue available to her to contact him.
He's also blocked me on everything.
She has a disability and the last time she was in hospital I had to contact his elderly and frail parents to tell him, I received a short text in response letting me know he knew but he didn't even ask how dd was and blocked me again immediately after he sent it.
At one point he said to dd that he had evidence of my blocking contact, dd had him on speakerphone and looked to me for how to respond, I indicated to her she was free to ask him to provide her this evidence...he hung up!
"Simply put, when maintenance is reduced you are expecting your ex to make up the difference." Exactly! Also maintenance is generally woefully low calculated and bears little to no resemblance to the actual basic costs of raising a child.
The amount the op says he is paying sounds on the higher side compared to most BUT I do genuinely strongly suspect it includes arrears, and if not arrears then his regular taxable income is higher than either op or her df are claiming - and why shouldn't his son benefit from his level of income as well as the daughter he lives with?
Personally I'd make nrps who also don't have contact pay more cm.
"Let’s reverse it: my partner and I have had a child. WIBU to ask my ex for an extra £10 a week cos we’re a bit short with the extra child?
I don’t really understand your point here but yes you would be unreasonable" why? That's essentially what happens when a nrp has more children when they are able to reduce the maintenance they pay for their older children. The rp is effectively expected to subsidise the children the nrp has in addition to the original children. It shouldn't be the case. Especially when cm calculations are mostly woefully INadequate! How many RP's or non separated families do you know who only spend 15% of their income on their children?! I don't know any!
Having more children is NOT a necessity. I'm sick of hearing stepmums bitching they can't afford children/more children because their partner/husband already had children from a previous relationship and resenting that those children exist. It's disgusting.
If you choose to be with someone who already has children then THEIR needs (not just financial but also practical and emotional) HAVE to be considered when making major decisions that affect them to do anything else is completely unacceptable. Indeed they should actually be prioritised over the adults needs.
I am very privileged to know several excellent step parents who have acted with their step children's needs in mind, have supported them, worked hard to build a good relationship with them and even at times called their bio parent (the step parents partner/spouse) on their shit if they weren't being good parents. Some have due to circumstances become RP to their step children and they don't differentiate in how they treat their step children and bio children.
There ARE good step parents out there. Unfortunately they're far more rare than they should be.
As for deadbeat parents I don't understand their attitudes at all and think current U.K. Laws are wretchedly inadequate and enforcement is piss poor!
Personally I think all maintenance should be deducted at source (the dept is already under hmrc this really shouldn't be difficult. Reasonable nrps would have no problem with this, unreasonable ones would then find it much more difficult to avoid paying), the loopholes around self employment/cash in hand need seriously tightened up (as much for tax avoidance as this), contact should be much more tightly regulated & recorded.
If a parent doesn't make an effort with contact, doesn't support their child they should have their parental rights terminated. Ludicrous that this doesn't happen.
Headinhands - you're right to encourage op to ask to see evidence of his claims of financially supporting his son prior to their relationship starting. My ex told now wife 2 and his parents that he was paying "loads" of maintenance and I was badgering for even more!
He made the mistake of telling them himself that he was paying by bank transfer (I think he dummied up a copy of some paperwork to "prove" it) which I was easily able to prove wasn't the case by showing them copies of my bank statements. In his mothers case she was actually with me in the bank when I requested the copies and I handed them directly to her from the teller handing them to me.
At this point he still gaf what they thought and they were then able to shame him into paying. Unfortunately this didn't work long term.
Ditto contact, he tried to claim I was blocking contact, again I was happy to show them evidence this wasn't the case.
Ditto the divorce - he was telling now wife 2 that I was dragging my heels on the divorce and that's why they couldn't marry. Truth was he was sitting on various paperwork despite several letters from my solicitor chasing - which again I was able to show her - that started a humdinger of a row with them!
I also find it very interesting that not one of the posters agreeing with the op are using a username I have ever seen on mn before and I'm on a lot! Suggesting they've either Nc (and lacking the courage to have these views associated with their regular usernames) or they've signed up just to support this post. Odd.
AuntieCJ we haven't missed anything! We're just capable of reading between the lines, having the life experience that strongly suggests it's highly likely that op's partner never even went to court to try and get access, or that he was in some way extremely abusive and that is why he has been refused contact.
Also none of us have said all RP's are perfect or that all nrps are evil. We've responded based on op's rather nasty, bigoted and prejudiced posts about a woman she's never even met!