To expect child maintenance?

[greysa]

Posting here for traffic.

Currently pregnant, not in a relationship with the father nor were we ever in a relationship. We have the benefit of not having split up or holding any sort of bitterness or resentment that that may have caused. We are friends and he is excited about becoming a dad for the first time. His parents are equally excited and have bought lots for the baby already.

Obviously we don’t live together, but he is adamant that he wants to be as involved as he can be. I have a good job but their maternity policy is rubbish so I will only be getting SMP for my mat leave, and I am anticipating struggling financially to begin with. I’ll probably only be able to return to work part time too, and I assume he will continue to work full time so shared 50/50 custody won’t be feasible.

I’m worried that by bringing up the topic of him paying child maintenance, that he’ll be offended and think I’m implying that he won’t do his fair share if that makes sense. I don’t want him or his family to think I’m being grabby, but I also need to try and plan for how I’m going to manage on my own, at least for the first 6-12 months.

AIBU to expect child maintenance payments to begin with on the basis that he won’t have baby overnight etc and I’ll be doing the majority of the care? I was thinking it could then be reviewed based on how often he has her overnight etc, and how much the parenting is really shared. It’s hard to gauge it at the moment before it actually happens as I’m not 100% sure what will happen with my work, and his. Never thought I’d be in this situation so have absolutely no idea what’s normal or reasonable, and he and his family really have been lovely and supportive and I don’t want to rock the boat if it turns out I am being unreasonable!

Err no he will not 'help as much as he can'

I would probably bite the bullet and say 'We haven't discussed maintenance yet, I was looking into when the CMS paperwork would need to be filled in - I will need some details from you' - just open it as if it's a given.

If he quibbles or acts surprised - you say 'Sorry, no. The financial impact on me will start to feel real the minute my income goes down from X to X when I start maternity. When maintenance kicks in, 20% of your income will come to me. It won't even start to make up the shortfall. Do you want to explain why you think it would be better for me to have even less, and you more, and me still have the baby with me 100% of the time? Are you planning, for example, to go part time so we can share care next year?'

He’s difficult to pin down, always seems to be busy with work etc, and is so laidback he might as well be horizontal

This is by design. You will be pulling your hair out with frustration in the next 18 years over him being unable to commit to having your child. These men are so predictable. He’s already training you now to expect nothing from him.

Also “help as much as she can” is a really useful statement for him. And a giant red flag for you. Think of it this way, will you help your baby as much as you can? Or will you do what your baby needs you to do? The two aren’t the same. Him saying he’ll help as much as he can isn’t a commitment of anything real. “As much as he can” is a matter of opinion, it’s not a set amount, and it will be his opinion that decides whether he can or can’t give you as much as you need. You’ll find that amount of help means different things to him according to whether you and he are getting along or not. Or whether he has an event he wants to attend on a weekend he is supposed to have his child, or whether he has a new house to buy with his new partner.

Below are three texts my ex sent me to explain not paying child support, he genuinely believed these were appropriate reasons not to feed his children

1: “I’ve just bought a car so won’t be able to pay you anything this month”

2: “we’re buying a house so things are tight, sorry”

3: “can’t really give you anything at the minute as I’ve just had to buy an engagement ring for X”

When I asked for a face to face to discuss this he brought his new fiancée and she, with the tact of bulldozer, described the renovations they were doing to their new house.

Honestly, when they’re not doing the day to day work of raising children they lose all sense of what it costs to do it.

Get your child’s father nailed down and committed to a financial figure now. Use the CMS calculator so that you know you are getting at least the legal minimum he has to pay. That’s what the CMS figure is BTW- the legally minimum he has to pay for his child’s upkeep- its not a badge of honour that he pays this. It’s the bare minimum. Just like you will be providing more than the care minimum of care for your child, so should he expect to provide more.

Bear in mind the cost of housing when thinking about what it will cost to raise your baby, OP.

When they're tiny, it's no big deal if the baby stays in your room, but sooner or later he/she will need their own room. That makes the cost of housing go up a fair bit, regardless of whether you are renting or buying. And a bigger house will cost more in heating and council tax.

If you're currently living somewhere small, you may even find you need to move sooner rather than later. Babies need an astonishing amount of stuff - baths, buggies, changing tables, toys and the amount of space their gear takes up is remarkable.

Or - simply put in the CMS claim, say nothing, and then act utterly ASTONISHED when he queries.

You - 'What? I don't understand. Of course you would pay maintenance. What? You are on the birth certificate, you pay maintenance - I'm not getting it?'

Him - 'But I thought we coudl do it privately...'

You - 'But surely you would rather an official record of your publicly supporting your child? It's a bit like being on the birth certificate. It is official - you have just as much financial responsibility to her as me. If you are worried that it makes you look stingy - I know it's only 20% of salary when you can see how massive the financial change is for me in comparison - you can always voluntarily pay more. It's a minimum requirement. Everyone knows that raising a child takes a lot more. It will change too if for example you end up only working part-time and we share care.'

Try a few sentences like that and he will be absolutely fucked, as there is then no way on earth he could say 'Actually, I was planning on supporting her a lot less - like, bunging some cash your way every now and again and coming round to play with the baby every Saturday...'

:)

He’s difficult to pin down, always seems to be busy with work

Presumably he wasn’t difficult to pin down when you conceived.

Me again.

So I sent him a message yesterday saying that we need to have a proper discussion about how things are going to work, and I asked him to let me know when he’s free so we can do that.

He finally replied tonight, so more than 24 hours later, and asked what did I mean, what sort of thing do we need to sort. so I mentioned how we’re going to manage this financially, i said that I had no idea what his expectations were regarding contact etc, that I had to think about going back to work and how we’ll manage that with childcare etc, and also how that fits around his work. The gist of my message was that I’d like to plan ahead as much as we can, and at least make sure that we both know each other’s expectations in advance. He replied saying that we can plan all we want, we won’t know how things will be til she’s here and financially he expects us to go ‘halves on everything’.

I feel so frustrated that he doesn’t seem to understand the massive responsibility that we BOTH have, and like I’m the only one thinking about these things. I’ve told him that I’d still like to talk and the next thing I’m planning on asking is if, for a start, he’s looked at the CMS calculation for a starting point for his maintenance amount and thought about if and how he’ll manage that.

You are entitled to maintenance if it is his child. This will be based on his earnings and how many nights he has the child.

If you know his earnings you can use the calculator on the CM website.

If you don't want to go in too "strong" you could tell him you are trying to budget for baby and can you both have a chat about what he is able to contribute as you will only get SMP on mat leave. See what he says.

If he isn't sure (it sounds like he is trying to be supportive) then you could suggest using the calculator online.

Another consideration is how much all of the things they are buying come to as he might think he's doing that instead of. I'm not saying that is reasonable or isn't but he needs to be able to plan ahead too so you need to be upfront with him.

Just read your update.

I think you should ask what he means by going halves on everything.

So he’s started already fobbing you off with “we can sort that later”. It’s a very common tactic OP- later never comes- it always gets pushed back again. Sorry you’re dealing with one of those men.

Halves on everything, great- so he’ll pay half of the baby’s share of your electric bill, your gas bill, your water bill, your food shopping bill when she is on solids, your rent when you have to get a place with a bedroom for the baby? Is he going to expect you to provide receipts for everything? (I know men that do this to their exes)

No sorry but hes being utterly unrealistic and TBH I don’t think he wants to be fair to you.

In your shoes now I would drop any plans to discuss anything with him and when baby is born put in a CMS claim straight away. Don’t discuss any of this with him so that he won’t have time to start hiding income or change jobs etc. He’s been given a chance to make a plan and he has declined- you don’t have the luxury of not planning for your baby so you have to go ahead and plan without his input. Unfortunately it looks like you won’t be able to rely on him for anything but the bare minimum financial support that CMS will order him to pay.

He wants to go half on everything? Work out the difference between mat pay and your normal pay over the period of mat leave, and ask if he means to give you half of that.

Alternatively, does he plan to take 6 month's parental leave?

You could also ask if he's planning to cover his 2 1/2 days of pre-school childcare by going part-time at work or by paying for childcare?

He may also need to request flexible hours so he can drop-off and pick-up from nursery on his days.

Yes- everything @LannieDuck says. He’s massively underestimated what half over raising his child will cost. He reckons it will be half a bag of nappies a week.

I honestly think he’s just totally clueless and naive about what’s actually involved here, and honestly thinks it’s as simple as ‘we’ll go halves and everything else will work itself out’. I don’t think he’s purposefully trying to be unfair, I think it’s a case of absolute ignorance though and he’s quite stubborn so will make it difficult to have the conversation because it’s my idea. Probably a worrying thing to notice, but whenever I want to do things a certain way, he’ll be as difficult as he can be. Example: 20 week scan, I wanted to leave 10 minutes earlier than originally planned because it was at a hospital where they had just started the vaccine rollout, and I also hadn’t been there before so didn’t know the layout etc. He argued over text for about an hour because he didn’t want to leave earlier. He wasn’t at work, just didn’t want to leave his house 10 mins early. I ended up in tears at work because I was so stressed. Eventually we did leave early and we were still late because there was nowhere to park. Had to bite my tongue so hard to not say I told you so.

Little things like this, plus the reluctance to have these important conversations are starting to worry me. I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he doesn’t make it easy.

Right the scan thing- don’t make plans that involve him getting you there. If you want him at scans tell him when they are and make your own way there. Otherwise what are supposed to be lovely things for you will be ruined by his behaviour and you being stressed.

I’ll probably only be able to return to work part time too, and I assume he will continue to work full time so shared 50/50 custody won’t be feasible.

A court might feel 50/50 will work and it can be starting point if parents want that so don’t assume it won’t be feasible. After all, it’s perfectly acceptable and realistic to have a child in a nursery whilst the parent is at work. Many parents work full time and have full custody of their child/ren.

@JackieWeaverIsTheAuthority well I won’t be making that mistake again. At the time I thought it would be nice for us to spend some time together at least. He’s supposed to be my birth partner but at this rate I don’t know how comfortable I’m going to feel with that. I hate the thought of being at loggerheads with him. I never thought I’d be in this situation anyway, and I thought if we could at least get on and be friends then it won’t be so bad. But it’s not looking like that’s going to go to plan!

'Ok, so if you are planning on going halves we need to sit down and work out my maternity pay deficit, and what your official CM rate is and if you will be paying more in addition to this'.

I also agree with another poster that you should work out a newborn plan, can you have a relative come and stay with you or can he come and stay with you for the first few weeks?

Maybe be a bit more direct and say that if it's too complicated you can both just use the CSM calculator to see what is a fair payment based on his salary

I think he needs to sort it with you and you need to reply now rather than letting it drag on

You need to look at things like UC calculators. People shouldn’t be categorically telling you that you’ll get x, y or z because no-one on this thread knows how much you earn, how much savings you have, if you own or rent your home etc.

You need to know where you’ll be at financially. Start all of your calculations for your essentials on your income.

As much as possible earmark any contribution from him for any nice-to-haves

Now, don’t tell him that. He doesn’t need to know. It’s just better for you so you know where you’ll be if he turns out to be one of the men who is shit.

You need to find out what he means by halves on everything. If he expects to just pay half of the weekly visible costs for a baby then that’s very little - some nappies, some cream and (if needed) some formula. However, maintenance is meant to be a contribution to everything.
If he’s a “halves” person then is he going to start being a pain if he doesn’t agree that they need new shoes, for example? That doesn’t work.

My sister thought like you, OP, in very similar circumstances. Her baby’s dad played the part for a month or so. He’s about to turn one and hasn’t had so much as a phone all from his dad for the last 8 months. Hasn’t stopped him going to court for 50/50 access. Court refused even face to face contact until he’s put some work in for several weeks, possibly months. He does pay maintenance, but expects everything else to be made to work for him.

I warned my sister not to give the baby dad’s surname, but she did. She double barrelled it with hers, so at least there’s that. 🤦🏻‍♀️

When your baby is here OP, you won't want to give up your child for 50% of the time. Also, the dad could lose interest very quickly once he gets into a new relationship.

I would move ahead in your mind as a single parent. You can apply to the government for help with childcare fees (means tested) and child maintenance.

@JustLyra thank you. I’ve used the EntitledTo calculator and it looks like I’d be getting about £400 less a month whilst I’m off on leave, but I’ll also have more living costs then as I have a company car and usually have my fuel paid for. I’ll need to pay for that myself when I’m off - it’s not massive, but still another outgoing.

I probably won’t get a reply from him til tomorrow now but I think I’ll send him the link to the CMS calculator and let him know that this would be a good starting point for our discussions. I don’t actually know his exact income to work it out for myself.

Personally Op I wouldn’t be sending him anything more or involving him in any plans or appointments. I would leave the ball in his court and just watch how involved he makes himself, rather than you always involving him. You need to know how interested he actually is before you agree to any sort of parenting split. Just sit back and watch. See what you learn.

@JackieWeaverIsTheAuthority I won’t see him til the birth if I do that. and then it would feel almost like a stranger being there for one of the most important experiences in my life.

God, reading my own replies here I’m realising how pathetic I sound! I’m just really holding out hope that he’s going to be a decent guy but it’s just one thing after another already.