Being made to feel guilty by friends. Should I contribute?

[Jpw74]

Nc as other threads may be outing. Sorry if this is long!

Been with partner for several years. Both in mid-early 40s. We are getting married later next year, second marriages for both.

When I first got married, neither me nor my parents had any real money to speak of. Ex-dh and I did a low key registry wedding.

Since then, my career has taken off, I feel incredibly lucky and I am planning on paying for the kind of wedding I’ve always dreamed of.

Now the point of my post: we were having drinks with partner’s best friend and his wife this weekend and the wife made some sort of comment like “I can’t believe you (me) are willing to throw Xxx at a wedding but are ok letting (my partner’s) other child receive less money via CMS”

Partner used to work a very stressful but lucrative job. When we got together I saw the effect the job had on his MH and how truly unwell he was because of it. After looking at my salary, we decided that it would be better for him long term to retrain and become a teacher, something he has always wanted to do!

His ex is unhappy because the drop in maintenance was significant and must be sharing this with friends. In all other respects partner has maintained the same relationship with his dd as before and we intend to do so going forward.

To my point: Am I being the unreasonable one in thinking I’ve worked hard for my money and if I want to throw myself a big wedding I should be allowed to do so. I am a hurt that the wife thinks I should be contributing to partner’s dd’s maintenance to keep it at previous levels.

Partner’s thoughts on this are that he is not dodging his responsibilities, parents lose jobs, switch jobs, etc As long as he parents to the best that he can both in the financial sense from his current salary and is physically present for his dd, Ex should have no right to look at me and my salary + the lifestyle it provides us as dd is not my responsibility.

To give you a sense of figures, I make high six figures/year as did partner before switching to being a teacher.

How much maintenance was he paying before and how much does he pay now?

I understand the exs and friends point of view.

Your partners child now receives less money, because his new partner earns well. Significantly.

The child doesnt cost significantly less, because he is retraining.

You looked at your income as a joint one decided he could give up his job. But arent treating them as a joint income when it's to do with supporting his child.

To the poster that says Retaining and becoming a teacher, benefits the child in the long run.....what supporting the child now.

As a high earning step parent, I think this was poorly thought out and the person missing out is the child.

My initial reaction is I can see where she is coming from. Bit bad taste to have a lavish wedding when family 1 now living in much reduced circumstances due to daddy’s lifestyle choices. If he hadn’t met you could he have afforded to follow his dream and retrain or would he have needed to work to afford to live whereas now you are keeping him.
I imagine loss of cams is huge. What did he pay before on £100,000 say £500 a month? Now he has nil income as a student and pays nil. When he gets a newly qualified job his maintenance payment will be nothing like before. So child is living in vastly reduced circumstances maybe has had to stop extra curriculars they loved, cant go on school trips or have new clothes or is left alone while mum works overtime. To then throw a lavish party no matter who is paying seems inappropriate.

I guess the q is how you divide your finances. Do you have joint household finances? If so, yes, I would be unimpressed by your fiancee splashing out on events and not on his own child. Even if you don't have shared finances, I presume your husband gets to keep a greater proportion of his teacher's salary than he would if he was single and if he is not passing it on to his child I think that is a shame. In general, I would be pretty unimpressed with your fiancee if I was his ex-wife. He has taken a worse paid job on the basis that he gets to keep his lifestyle but his child does not. There might be another side to the story, but I can see that from her perspective it would look very selfish.

Oh and the child is missing our while you spend you money on an expensive wedding? That's pretty shit.

I wouldn't have a lot of respect for a man who did this. Neither as the ex wife or the current partner. It's fine to want to do something else, but is not fine to allow that to adversely affect your child. Ideally, you and he would have agreed to leave the child support at the level it's been (using your money if necessary) when he decided to do this. She's not your child but she is your family.

I think the very least he can do is acknowledge with his ex the position it's putting them in and offer "childcare" for every single school holiday. And pay child maintenance plus half of all essentials like uniform and trips and negotiate one after school club. Let's face it the CM rate is appalling. My ex pays 2/3 of what he uses to and no extras due to lifestyle changes and his new family.
My kids miss out and I've had to go without all sorts so they don't.

He's be able to give her even less if he had a breakdown and couldn't work at all. The ex has to suck it up.

Not your responsibility.

I disagree with the others. His mental health comes first or he may not be able to contribute anything. Yes he should support his daughter as best he can but most exes don't receive maintenance based on 6 figure salaries.

Maybe compromise and pay abit more or offer to help with trips etc.

Hmm, I can see her point. If I was his ex, I would resent that he still gets his lovely rich life courtesy of you, whilst his daughter will have a significant change to hers.

The dd isn't wholely responsibility for supporting his dc. What does the dm do to provide?
Sm are always told to mind their own business when it comes to dsc!!
So keep out of it op!!

I don't see why you shouldn't have the wedding you want with YOUR money because of any of that.

Can someone tell me how to reply directly to posters on the app (computer illiterate!)

To answer some questions: I am not sure what partner would be doing if I hadn't come along. What prompted this was a diagnosis of stress induced (we think) heart attack and his doctor's suspicions that he was suffering from anxiety and depression.

The results in terms of career change could have been the same or something worse could've happened to him due to his old job.

To posters saying it is a significant drop in lifestyle, I think this is exactly his Ex's point. She wants him to go back to his old job.

He does pay more than the maintenance being calculated but it obviously doesn't cover all the extras (ski trips abroad is an example) but covers all the essentials. In the last year of an essential expense came up and Ex told us about it outside of the monthly payments he gives her I chipped in.

Having grown up not having ski trips abroad, fancy lessons and tutoring I simply don't see it a being essential to him being a good father and I don't want to pay for it myself.

I don't know if this is me being unreasonable or not but I had a very happy childhood with none of the extras the Ex is lamenting about missing and I don't think they are necessary for a child to be happy and well cared for.

Well your partner's friends obviously think pretty badly of the pair of you.

And I'm with them.

The ex is now having to step up to cover the significant shortfall your partner has dumped on her. He's not a good man.

Legally fine, morally though I kind of agree with the friend. Your salary has enabled your partner to earn less and so pay less. Yet you clearly have money to pay for other things. It reads like the step child is low priority.

Reply directly - type the @ sign and immediately start typing the username - then write your message 👍🏻

*It’s not fair for you to be expected to pay anything toward DD’s maintenance.

It’s not fair for DP to maintain his luxurious lifestyle whilst DD and EXW lose out.*

I agree with this its the real crux of the issue. You supporting him means that he still gets everything he did before but without the stress so Win Win for him. But his child suffers because of it because he can no longer provide for the things he was before such as trips and stuff and is planning a huge wedding with you when he has said this to his partner
I can't give or pay for everything and anything school related. Let's create a budget, figure out the essentials needed for school, sports and I can give you a realistic number of how much I can afford to give or what things may need to be cut.

Its not your fault but your partner really is having his cake and eating it and giving nothing back. If he is saying he cant give her much school related whilst being ok with having a big wedding he is going to lose his daughter.

Presumably she will come to the wedding (and I hope play a big role) and see all the money that is floating about and start to wonder why things her end are having to be cut.

So I do think you need to properly sit down with your partner and come up with a realistic figure between you that enables his daughter to not have to lose out.

Well the child has 2 parents.Why doesnt the dm either get a job,or a better paid job.She should have a back up plan in case.After all she used to get loads of maintenance.Nothing stays the same.You have to plan for emergencies

What jobs pay 800k?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

Having grown up not having ski trips abroad, fancy lessons and tutoring I simply don't see it a being essential to him being a good father and I don't want to pay for it myself.

Yes, I'd agree with you here.

"Yes, he helps as best as he can"

He's a parent, it isn't helping. He should have thought about the effect on his daughter, because as said, there's been none on him.

Why doesnt the dm either get a job,or a better paid job

Yeah maybe she'd like to quit her job and retrain too... only she can't now because one of the parents needs to support the child, and the OP's DP has ducked out on that.

Not such an unusual story - he's still a selfish wanker however. He's indulging himself to the extent that you can't once you've chosen to have children. Once you've made that decision, your choices as a parent are limited for at least 18 years. Pretty sure he wouldn't have given it up for his MH if you weren't around to provide for him.

It's not however your responsibility but you can't expect him not to be called on it. Good on the friend who had the balls to point it out.

Do you really mean high 6 figures? As in, almost a million?

It's human of the ex to resent this

However, his DC - and his health - are his responsibility, but your money is yours

Whenever someone posts about MH suffering from their job, the consensus is that health is more important than money,
assuming of course the family is not on the breadline