To not contribute to child care costs (separated)

[justbeingadad]

Wife and I are getting divorced, two children, 3 nearly 4 (15 hours free nursery + a 3 paid afternoons) and 7yo (yr2).

My stbxw doesn't have a significant income. Maybe £200/month.

We still live together but she's moving out in December.

We've agreed finances and she'll be receiving £1800/month from me in form of child maintenance and spousal maintenance. She's also getting about £100k cash from house and savings. (I'm remortgaging the house and staying there and will have under 10k cash).

This has all been (in formally) agreed for months, just waiting for solicitors.

Today she told me she expected me to contribute to children's activities and additional hours nursery fees for our 3 year old.

AIBU to think that £1800/month should cover all the costs? She doesn't want me to have the children more than 2 nights a week so it doesn't affect her CM payments (although she's getting about 40% more than I need to pay + spousal maintenance).

For reference, 1800/month is about 40% of my take home.

Help!

Perhaps you could go to the CMS calculator and put in yours & the kids' info then print up what she would be entitled to. It's highly likely to be considerably less than the £1800 you're offering. You could also estimate childcare costs, half it to show what you'd theoretically contribute after the deduction of the free hours etc and add this to the CMS figure. See where she wants to go from there. I suspect the £1800 will be the higher figure.

Defo use the calculator and bring what it says to her attention. She can do the calculator herself and be delighted you’re being so generous already that she shouldn’t ask for any more money. I work and I don’t even earn £28k so it’s a lot of money.

Remember too that you may meet someone else and want a life with them, possibly with kids of your own with them, so don't overstretch yourself for sure. You’re right to knock her back. I don’t think I’d even give her extra for school trips. She can save from what you give her surely. Unless of course that’s covering school fees or something and she’s getting by on buttons by the time the outgoings have gone out!

Yes. So CM calculation is around 850/950 depending on if you include bonus / argue about averaging nights with annual leave etc. So she's getting a good deal in that regard. But I love my kids and they've had an exceptionally comfortable life and I want them to maintain that so the amount I pay is not a concern, it's the fact she thinks that I should also be contributing extra so she can work 6 hours a week.

A few have asked. Both kids are in state school, no significant expenses. They do swimming once a week and one other class each per week. The children don't have high outgoings of that makes sense.

I don't actually think it's relevant what you earn, you are giving her over 30% of your take home and buying her what seems to be fairly out of the house.
If she still thinks this isn't enough then you should push for more time with them to lessen her costs, if she isn't going through The proper channels for child
Support the number of nights you have them isn't relevant.
I can kind of see her point for extra cuticular activities if it's school trips and the like (you paying half at most) but in my opinion expecting you to pay extra for child care is cheeky.

Remember too that you may meet someone else and want a life with them, possibly with kids of your own with them, so don't overstretch yourself for sure

Wow what an awful attitude! He already has kids of his own! I hate the attitude that the dad should be free to swan off and have a new family with most of his free time and 70% of his income for himself. When the mum is probably spending 95% of her income and free time looking after the kids she already has!

I don't think that's the case here - OP sounds like a good dad, but doing a calculation based on CMS is the bare minimum not the amount a decent parent would spend on their kids.

Unless things have changed in the last couple of years maintenance payments are not classed as income when applying for tax credits so she’ll be able to make a claim and get childcare component too if she’s working. One of my friends did this and got full tax credits even though she was getting a similar sum to your wife in maintenance. Her kids even got free school meals and went to uni on the maximum student loan due to ‘low household income’ even though she was better off than me!

Swimming lessons, that's it?

She's really having a laugh.

Tell her you will see her in court and let the judge decide. If he wants to award her less, I'm sure a reasonable man will uphold the original offer.

She has them most of the time, but she also has to contribute financially. Her attention to them doesn't put food on their table.

fairplay to you making sure your kids are ok. But shes taking the absolute piss.

She needs to get a job, more hours while they are in school/nursery.

I would not give her that much. I say that as a single mother.

I think you'd have to be massively stingy to only give the CMS amount.

Why are you keeping the house out of interest? Seems odd to uproot the kids to a presumably smaller place that will eat up a lot of your ex's money.

I would stick to the original amount and not pay the extra for childcare which at any rate is unnecessary if she's barely working but I would be prepared to pay some extra for kids. Your their dad and apart from financial responsibility you should be involved buying clothes, decided which extra activities they do and paying extra for them too.

So the choice about the house is pretty black and white.

1. We sell. Kids "lose" their family home. I have minimal desire to rush into buying somewhere else nor rent so probably stay with my parents which would have an interesting dynamic on my time with eh kids.

2.i buy her out and stretch myself financially because I'm not in the right place emotionally to know what I want long term. I can always sell the house in years to come and there is some continuity for the children when they stay with me, it's very much "their" home and they are not "staying with dad".

I'm honestly not sure keeping the house is the right decision, but I don't want to make such an important decision whne everything is so raw. I'm in the exceptionally fortunate situation that I can afford to buy her out and that, in the short term at least, seems the lesser of two evils.

In my budgeting, I've accounted for savings for both me and the children, holidays away and money for weekend activities. This is essentially how we budgeted when we were together.

Sounds like she wants the budgeting to remain the same and for her to be included.

Could there be an option of them staying and giving her a less lump sum?
She wouldn't be happy but it would be less disruption for the dc's.

I think you are being very reasonable with regards to your contribution.

I don't think you should have to increase this amount to cover childcare; it will already be enough to cover some childcare on top of government allowance, and plenty for her to work part time.