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.

Really?
Now he has met you, he's able to retrain and qualify in a job he loves but maintain that same lifestyle because of you supporting him. The only person suffering for that choice is his daughter.
^This.
As a parent, it's pretty stomach churning that a dad could do that to their child tbh. I'm alright Jack, sod the effect on the kid. I can see why your friends are disgusted. Although it was rude of them to say (and how would they know you're not supplementing his maintenance? Unless it's obvious from the child's lifestyle change).

I wouldn't be with a man who did this to their kid, without even discussing with their partner how the change in maintenance could be minimised. There are lots of compromises between the job of your dreams and piss all maintenance or a heart attack inducing job and loads of maintenance. Of all the balances between the parent's and the child's interests, picking the best for yourself the parent, even though it's the worst for the child is really disgusting tbh.

I don't know why the ex is getting slated.

We don't know that she's been complaining. We know nothing abut the ex's situation except for the nasty snippets the OP has given us and of course, she'll put her own slant on it.

It's the friends that have raised this, and who knows, the OP's partner may have told his friends himself when he was chatting about his re-training plans.

Anyway, clearly it has been an eye opener for the friends and I imagine a lot more family and friends may have an opinion, and voice it openly or not, when they're attending a big lavish wedding knowing that the groom has chosen to drastically cut the financial support for his child.

It'd certainly make me look at any friend of mine differently if I knew they were letting their child take a financial hit while they were living it up.

Any RP or NRP who marries a wealthy partner is likely to have a much better standard of living than their ex

Would it be better if the OP made him live in a shed in the garden ?

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”

This implies he has another child? With you?

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

So he should work himself into another heart attack then should he? To keep the ex wife happy.

Have CMS told him to pay £1300 a month on an NQT salary which works out to about £1600 a month take home?

What your parents spent on you is irrelevant. The high maintenance ensures that there isn't a big disparity between the homes an isn't related to typical payment amounts.

If your partner was living on his 30k income then nobody would question him. But he has all the benefits of a massive wage because of you, but now his dd doesn't.

It's the epitome of having your cake and eating it.

The ex may get zero if the Dad in the scenario drops dead...

🤷🏽‍♀️

His friend has probably just said what the rest of them are thinking OP.

But crack on.

Don’t they take household income into account when working out maintenance?

@RandomMess - I imagine someone on that income would have life insurance so the ex prob would have been financially better off if he died...

Children come first.
I agree with her.

Some of these comments are bloody ridiculous.

He’s retraining to become a teacher, not going on the dole. A teachers salary is good enough to support a child 50% and it sounds like the ex still receives more maintenance than many people earn in a month themselves.

So the DD misses a few ski trips. Is that really the end of the world? I’d FAR RATHER my father was alive and loved me, and was an active parent than living a depressed miserable existence because he was so stressed at work.

Fucking hell.

Fuck these "friends" off (jealous fuckers tbh) and do your thing. The DD will still have a lovely quality of life and hopefully her mother has saved a lot of money over the years in the bank...which she surely has...as hard to get through 100k a year without private school fees and mortgages. It's likely in savings for the DD?

1300/ month out of his savings is not being a terrible dad, when there are no private schools or mortgage

100,000+extras is a tremendous privilege, but not a longterm right
Noone should work themself into an early grave to finance that

• if he'd stayed with his 1st wife, she might be a widow now

What was his old job?

How often does his DD stay with you? What is your relationship with her like?

Has she shown any resentment?

A child can easily cost that much to bring up if they're going to private school and participating in certain activities

Bullshit. If the mother now can't afford 'certain activities' then she'll need to cancel them won't she? Mother should have been contributing half of her DD's costs anyway. I seriously doubt she was paying 100,000 as well. Looks like Dad was covering everything and now Mum is furious that she'll have to cough up.

How your partner can indulge his luxury lifestyle whilst fucking over his own daughter staggers me.

Good on his friends that they are prepared to stick their heads over the parapet and say to your face what ALL his friends will be thinking. And they’ll be talking about it at all the tables throughout your dream wedding.

Still. At least your DSD can eat nice food and remember the lifestyle she used to have every time she comes to visit you.

think it’s clear that the real problem here is the ex-wife who got used to £100k a year

The ex might not have complained to the friend. Anybody who knows how CM is calculated will know that a Dad who earns a fraction of his previous wage will be paying a fraction of the CM that he used to earn.

Men who earn high salaries can often do so because they have a SAHM/PT working/low earning partner who picks up the domestic slack so they can compete with childless colleagues and work early morning/late and night.

How do the friends know how much you spent on the wedding?

Wow! As usual on the step-parent: child maintenance threads there is a lot of projection.

OP- you aren’t wrong. £1300 a month without a mortgage or school fees to pay is very good. Except if she has also been living on the CM payments. Which is tough shit for her.

For those railing against the OP as selfish- if your partner had a work related, life threatening health care issue would you be pushing their nose back to the grindstone for the sake of money?

Your DP is very lucky he gets the choice to continue an execeptionally lavish liftestyle funded by you - not so much his daughter.

Seriously if you are on nearly a million a year - how can you not pay £1,300 for a school ski trip? (that's how much my DD's trip is costing)

Afraid I would judge you both too.

It is a weird double standard on here where step fathers are expected to fund their step children where as step mothers are not.

But hey, only the children who suffer.

Apart from anything else, have the wedding you want op. So what if it's your second marriage, there are a lot of bitchy people on this thread.

Oh poor darling can’t go on a ski trip now because dad chose to prioritise his health and his family. How on earth does this make him a selfish anything?

Surely the problem is the poor little darling can no longer go on ski holidays but daddy still can.

In what world is 1300 a month ‘fucking over his daughter’ !

Christ.