AIBU to think his ex-wife-son are taking us for too much

[Shesonlyworth30]

Long time lurker, first time poster. It’s a long one so apologies in advance.

Been with my DF for almost 7 years, have a 3 (almost 4) yr old and getting married in the summer.

DF was married before (to C - she was also married before and had 2 other sons (both older) and has one son with DF (16 this year) who lives with C in Scotland. DF has never not paid for his son, he even chose to have it deducted straight from wages when CSA were in charge. He didn’t trust C and wanted there to be a proper paper trail if ever she decided to say she never received anything. Since we have been together the payments have been just shy of £200. I have never had a problem with him paying for his son.

C has never let DF speak to son or see him since he was 3. She tried to kill herself a few times (once when pregnant and once when son was born) so DF took parental responsibility for her 2 older sons and their own while she was sectioned. They split up when son was 3 and she told a court it would be detrimental to her mental health to allow DF custody and access. Court agreed. (DF living in north of England at this point and C in Scotland)

Fast forward to last year. CMS took over from CSA and they re-assesses him and told him his payments would need to be £500 a month. We argued that this was a massive increase. They said it was because of what he earned. However they were taking overtime into account which we said was wrong. His overtime was not guaranteed and he did that to pay for our wedding/holidays etc. They said they were right. He went to court and while the judge was sympathetic said there was nothing they could do. He even tried showing them that if he had a basic month, with no overtime, paid the mortgage (a not unreasonable £660) gas, elec etc he physically would not have enough to pay the CMS. They didn’t care. They don’t take household expenses into account. He then said he had another child to support (ours) they said they had allowed £30 pcm for her. £30 bloody quid. That’s not even a day in nursery.

Because C doesn’t want him to know where she is she wants everything doing through the CMS so he has to pay their admin charge (extra £83 pm) and now we are in a vicious cycle. He worked more OT last year to pay her and still have money for our savings but because he earned more he now has to pay more this year £634 pcm!!!!

I’m fed up with it. My daughter doesn’t have £634 a month spent on her from her dad. I expected his payments to go up but AIBU to think this is grossly unfair and there is a fundamental flaw in this thinking. Surely if CMS believe 2 children should cost £664 then that money should be split between the 2?

His son can leave school at any time now but we know she won’t tell us so this could be ongoing for another 4 years because there isn’t a doubt in my mind she’ll make son stay at school if she’s getting £550 odd quid a month. Oh and she’s back with her first husband!! 🤬🤬

As far as access goes, she moved to Scotland and didn’t tell him where she was. His son was 3 when he left and he didn’t want to cause lots of upset for him when he thought about access again his son was clearly older but wouldn’t have known DF from Adam and logistically wouldn’t have had easy access. Of course he could have made the time but the nature of his job is being on call (and at the time was 2 weeks on call, 2 weeks off call) and working all over the country. He also didn’t want to have to cancel/change plans last min and give her any more ammo

Are you actually for real?! He really thought the option that would upset his son would be fighting to see him?? Because cutting his son out of his life is totally the least upsetting option for the boy isn’t it? Growing up without his dad is a real hoot. Your DF clearly saw his son as an inconvenience since seeing him wouldn’t work too well with his work schedule. Maybe he should have fought to keep his son in his life and arranged work/childcare around his son like other parents do. I hope you never find yourself in the position of being separated, underpaid maintenance and your child not having their dad around.

I don’t think you have any concept of how much older children cost. Set up for school uniform alone is about £200 for secondary school. Logo’d PE Kit and school jumper are the minimum. Then there are shoes on top. Branded goods like Nike Huaraches are very popular. Adult sizes (6 upwards) £100. Even if she spent £40 on school shoes (twice a year) and the same on trainers for his PE kit plus football boots for the kit, that’s £180. Up until recently just those items alone represent almost 1/6 of the annual total your df was paying toward his child. And you’re on here bleating because she got money from other sources and his income increased and therefore his contributions. You really look bad op.

I agree £600 a month upkeep is ridiculous. Tell him to stop the overtime if it bothers you she is spending his money on herself. Get him to go back to court and show proof of earnings and demand he sees his son. She'll also be getting 80quid a month child benefit for him. No way would I happily hand over 600 a month to an ex for a child Ive never seen. I thought with csa etc the parent got more rights to access.

*Good lord OP. It's NOT ABOUT HIS EX at all - she could be a millionaire and he'd still have to pay the measy 15% of his income that has been allocated for child maintenance.

And yes, it's fair. You've got the other 85%.*

This. I think you're missing the point op. It doesn't matter whether the ex wife is on benefits or whatever, your husband should pay towards his child's costs.

Am also staggered that your husband would be willing to forego seeing his child.

On another note how do women not see a huge red flag when they meet a man and find out that
a. He had a child he never sees, and
B. He's all too ready to slag off his ex, and she falls for every word he says despite never meeting the ex.

This^

As soon as a man mentions children he doesn’t see and/or a crazy/psycho/gold digger ex I am out that door. It’s the most obvious red flag there is.

This post has made me quite angry I've been on both sides of the fence shafted by the car as a single parent and then when I met oh and he was paying for his children.

If his ex was so bad that he needed to take custody of her 3 children then why has he not tried to be more responsible for his son? We live near you and my step son lives in Scotland, he stayed with us 50% of school holidays and we have been up there and stayed near him to spend time with him, Yes English and Scottish laws are different but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

The csa used to be able to take 15% or 40% If there is arrears, it sounds to me like he must have had arrears.

You don't want your child to miss their father for 2 nights a week but your step son has been missing his father for 365x13 days a week.
I also don't understand why he is still in contact with his ex in-laws and if he is surely they must be able to find out where she lives they are finding out everything else she is doing. If she is on disability benefits she must need them, you say he's was married to her and he knows she was playing the system he must have been involved with that too.

I think you med to take off your rose tinted glasses he has a responsibility to his first child as well as his child with you, his first child is probably not having a great life he is living in poverty (his is living in poverty if his mum is on benefits) with his disabled mum who will likely never be able to improve her situation. He has been abandoned by his father which will likely leave him emotionally scarred for life, he will be likely to feel resentful of your child who is getting to have a relationship with their father when he couldn't be bothered to try and have a relationship with his firstborn.

Jimbob £600 for a teenage boy is NOT ridiculous and children are not bloody "pay per view" utterly despicable, cruel and selfish attitude you have to a CHILD

Posted too soon. You look bad. Your df looks worse abandoning his child. The child isn’t safer or happier for being abandoned. That’s just a bullshit justification your df has sold himself to justify his inaction.

"Because C doesn’t want him to know where she is she wants everything doing through the CMS so he has to pay their admin charge (extra £83 pm) and now we are in a vicious cycle."

I think this part of your op and the fact that a judge agreed your dh to not have contact should set alarm bells off to you. Judges do not stop contact so easily there sounds ALOT more to this story than what he is letting on.
Also cms will only add an extra charge on a month when you are using the system collect and pay. Collect and pay is only triggered if the Nrp (your husband in this case) fails to make payment.
He should also being re-assessed every year.
He should be used to all this by now if he regularly pays for his child.

Wake up to reality and stop listening to his lies because its all rubbish clearly.

You also say you have been together 7 years and the payments have always been just shy of £200 So less than 200 for 7 years, so he's not had a pay rise for 7 years?

Jimbob

While this parent should have access to his child, child support and access should not be linked. The child still needs to eat, be clothed, housed etc regardless of whether he gets to see his dad.

This dad has a good salary, so his son should have an okay lifestyle.

A teenager could easily eat his way through over a hundred quid of food a week (probably more), clothes, housing, school supplies, after school activities, pocket money etc etc.

I assume this couple won’t be helping out if he goes uni.

Tell him to stop the overtime if it bothers you she is spending his money on herself.

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face!!

If he gets £200 over time a month his ex gets 15% of that. That’s £170 in his pocket. His other bills don’t go up when he does over time so they’re still better off doing it. If he is really missing the time with his daughter then of course he should stop the overtime but something tells me that’s just the narrative that’s given to anyone who will listen. “Oh he has to work so much overtime to pay his ex and misses out on his own daughter”. Reality: his overtime pays for his holiday and luxuries and he’s happy to do it for that reason. Only 15% of it goes to his ex and it wouldn’t go to her if he wasn’t earning it, so no, he isn’t missing out on his daughter to pay his ex.

I’m tempted to save this thread so that if the OP comes back in a few years, complains about her ex being an arse , never seeing his daughter, telling everyone what a terrible parent she is (but not bad enough to go to court to fight for contact). Doing everything he can to avoid paying money to support his child and stating that he has a new girlfriend and child and that she can’t believe his new girl friend believes all his lies, I could refer her back to this thread.

A month!! I meant a hundred quid a month

Coffee - she'd name change.

I've been on here a few years now and I have strong suspicions about certain posters with different names where exactly this has happened.,

They've posted as a begrudging step parent then the deadbeat has shafted them too and they post about that under a name change.

I believe I'm quite good at spotting similar posting styles and peculiar spag mistakes.

As a single resident parent I may not spend 600 a month on my child, I do, on childcare, extra rent and bills, food, birthday presents, swimming lessons, clothes etc.
But even if I didn't. By being a single parent I lose about £1000 a month in potential earning power by being curtailed in the hours I can work, the promotions I can get and the jobs I can realistically do by being the only one who is there for our child on a day to day basis.
£600 sounds right to me from what you say he earns.

@Coffeeonthesofa

Crack on

I thought that if you paid maintenance on collect and pay from CMS it was calculated monthly via HMRC? My payments vary every month, some months have been 0, a few months at £30, some at £300 and then I got £100 last month after they wrote to tell me I would get nothing!

Does he have arrears?

Jimbob

You don’t have a clue, or one tiny clue, how child maintenance, the court system, the CMS and anything else related to separated parenting actually works. Your post is ridiculous to the point of stupidity. If you know nothing about the legalities, stop with the advice.

If his wage changes by 25% then they will do a recalculation. So if overtime stops then he will get paid a smaller wage (prepare for this in advance as cms will still take dull payment). Then he can call CMS and tell them that his wages have changed by 25% or more and they will calculate again based on the new wage once they get proof.

@Shesonlyworth30
PP’s have tried to poor cold water on your DF’s excuses, about how never seeing his son and leaving him with a “mad” mother is somehow doing him a favour, some very complicated and convoluted reasons about why he doesn’t know where his ex and his son live but he knows they live in Scotland, convenient extra excuse about different legal systems,
Believe me they let most useless/ abusive arseholes have contact with their children in Scotland ( professional not personal experience) at the most extreme it would be supervised contact, his ex saying it would be detrimental to her mental health would barely be taken into consideration. Despite nobody having seen his ex or his son for 13 years ( so no one call tell him where they live) somehow he magically knows everything about how his wife conducts her life to the most minute details. His reasoning that he is somehow exempt from paying for his son if his ex is on benefits or dares to have a partner herself - the money is for his son not his ex it doesn’t matter how much money she has or how many men she wants to see. It is a legally set 15 % of his salary and he gets to keep 85% of it. It seems the CMS has been able to determine ( through actual facts) that he has been significantly underpaying for his son for years, and this has now caught up with him.
Judging by your timeline you met your DF when his son was approx 7/8 so you only have your DF’s word about everything that happened from his son’s ages of 3 - 7/8.
Having gone back to read your OP in case I was being unfairly harsh, your disgusting attitude about your DF’s education, you think his mum would force him to stay in school just to get more money out of your DF. Not because the boy wants to get the best education he can, go on to college or university in due course?
Actually on consideration you and your DF seem to be well matched so your marriage will probably go the distance.
I’ll save my concern for all the children caught up in this mess.

Why is her siblings asking their mum about her financial position if they have no contact with her and why are you and you’re partner asking questions about her financial position.

If you’ve got her family keeping tabs on her then why would he not know if his own child had left education?

If you’re saying she’s faking being ill then why does you all think “she’s mad as a box of frogs”. Healthy mentally well women don’t attempt suicide and a dad looking after his children while mam is in hospital doesn’t make him some kind of amazing.

It’s a bit shit this woman’s own mother is passing info to her brother to pass to Dad about her daughters benefits and money instead of Dad asking to find out how is son is, if he’s happy and healthy and stable, what his hobbies are, if he wished his dad had fought for access and if the reason he doesn’t this shit is because none of the family have that much to do with her then they can’t be that certain about her finances or health.

Why didn’t your husband do what you did and take a lower paid job to allow him to be around for his son instead of using his job as an excuse.

His mum could be married to and out earning Alan Sugar, it does not mean the parent with less money gets to opt out of his responsibilities. It sounds like his increase in income isn’t a one off and he’s been doing extra shifts regularly to pay for luxuries for his wife and second child.

The figure isn’t what CMS say a child costs, it’s a minimum amount based on salary and you cant say the first family is getting more from him than than the second because he isn’t paying over half income for his child.

Your title saying his son is taking you for a ride is disgusting too. Given his dad hasn’t bothered with for 13 years and has been underpaying too it ain’t his child taking anyone for a ride.

Don’t count on it stopping when he turns 18 either. CSA had dh pay for my stepson up until 21 in full time education. Don’t know if that still counts or if Scottish children have to be full time education until 18 now too.

Just noticed your username too. Is it a coincidence or reference to what you think his should be allowed?

Wow he’s done a number on you. Disgusting man.

This is a really depressing post. Please open your eyes and think logically about why your husband is in the situation that he's in now. No one is asking him for money he doesn't have, it doesn't work that way. Why hasn't he seen his son in 13 years? Violently abusive addicts with criminal records are allowed to see their children if they bother to go to court because they get supervised contact. So your husband has either done something unspeakably awful, or more likely he just doesn't give enough of a shit to bother getting access. Surely this tells you everything that you need to know?