Blended family and step-children costs split

[tiredoflondonwanttomove]

A hypothetical question. The situation is not mine (discussed with a friend over the weekend), but it got me thinking.
So the situation.
A single mother at the moment is a sole provider for her young children, and has been from their birth (dad is not in the picture financially). She is in a relationship with a man, which gets serious and the next logical step is marriage.
Her new partner wants to have children in this new marriage (he doesn't have any), and she is not averse to the idea herself. Which will, most likely, lead to a couple of years of decreased earnings for her (her job is not very compatible with caring after babies / toddlers). No one is on the breadline here, but not wealthy either - at the moment she probably earns a little bit more, but it is quite situational, their earning powers are roughly equal.
What is the "fair" way to deal with costs regarding her older children in this case? I am genuinely interested in all opinions, of course in every specific case the arrangements would be unique to the family. I am just interested in what people consider to be fair in the abstract case. Should her new DP pick up some of the costs in respect of the stepchildren or not?

My partner pays for everything, doesn't even question it. My son isn't his, I'm not currently working, mat leave, sons father isn't working because he lost his job due to covid so has stopped paying maintenance. I do ask if he minds if I put something for my son on the credit card and I'm always greeted with 'why are you asking, of course you can!' I realise I'm lucky to have to worry about this kind of stuff.

We have a child together and my child from a previous marriage. All money is family money. With the maintenance I receive from my exh we contribute approx equal in to the pot. But it wouldn’t make a difference whatever. In my (and his) opinion when he moved in / married me he took on my dd too and regards himself as having 2 children.

I am currently the main earner in our family as DH is retraining and working part time (which also allows him to provide child care in the holidays for both DD and DSS - who are 13 doesn't need it so much but still) and all the money goes into one pot and is then spend accordingly. DH isn't expected to support himself and DSS and half of DD because he wouldn't be able to afford it and also it would be a very difficult way to manage finances. If DSS needs money for clothes or activities after school (he lives here half the time and so we pay for everything while he is here like lunches and clubs etc) then it just comes out the joint account. Whilst we have to consider whether we can afford certain things as it's tight right now, we never include who is going to pay for it as part of those considerations.

I don't see how they can be a family if he would be willing to see his step children lose out as a result of choices they have made together.

Why does he need to be a SAHD to support both his child and her career though?

There are plenty of couples where both work full time - nannies, childminders, nurseries. Why can’t he do the pick ups from those? Or however she manages it for her existing child.

Why is the answer that she takes a demotion?

I’m another poster who says it would be a different response if it was the other way round.

In my experience when my dad remarried and had a new family any expenses for me and my sister came from my dad not the ‘family’ pot of his and my step mum.

It never even occurred to me that my step mum should be contributing to my upbringing. She is not my parent, my mum and dad are

It's fine if he doesn't want to contribute, but then she should think long and hard about having another child with him.

I would say exactly the same if a proposed father HAD to step back from his career to have a child (like the OP has said this woman has to do).

You simply shouldn't structure your affairs in such a way that your existing children are prejudiced. Now, I do understand that the financial pot for only children and children from small families is always going to be bigger, but that is not what we are talking about in this thread and certainly it wasn't what was being talked about in the other one. We are talking about basic support, not luxuries.

The step parent knew the kids were part of the package from day one. That applies to mums and dads with custody. If you don't want to be responsible for step children then don't get in a relationship that will mean having step children. If my partner had decided he wasn't going to treat my child the same as our child we would not still be together over a decade later.

My partner is not my daughter's father, and we are not married and don't intend to have more children together. But he knew when he moved in with us (triggered by his landlord asking him to leave) that I was highly unemployable, and that I intended to home educate her (so wouldn't be working any time soon anyway). He has always supported us financially.

I certainly would expect someone in the situation in your OP to do the same.

@Cocomarine

Why does he need to be a SAHD to support both his child and her career though?

There are plenty of couples where both work full time - nannies, childminders, nurseries. Why can’t he do the pick ups from those? Or however she manages it for her existing child.

Why is the answer that she takes a demotion?

Because that's the situation they are in, in their specific circumstances. She won't be able to continue her career to the same level as she has now if she has a small baby. Her older children's childcare requirements are met to a significant degree by school. With the nurseries and childminders, someone still has to dash off at 5 on the spot to make it to the closing time, and it is not an option with any of their jobs. A nanny maybe, but I suspect a nanny cost will push them into red.

In the family situation where the child becomes a member of the household then yes I would say it is a joint household pot and all expenses come from there.

In the context of paying child maintenance then although payment might come from a joint point in law the step parent's income does not form part of the parent's income for the purpose of child maintenance. I think people are confusing the issues.

I think that until they have children then maybe she should pay for hers but it would seem unfair if they were married and had a much higher disposable income than her so I think they need an arrangement that is fair in terms of disposable income.

She would be silly to have children with him if it's going to be at the detriment of her existing children. He can't expect her to give up her career to bring up his child and then have the same level of expenses.

Either its family money and it all goes into the same pot, so he pays for her children or he takes a step back in his career to do reduced hours or more working from home or whatever to fit around childcare.

I just think that if you have a child, then you cant treat that child differently to the other children as that's a recipe for disaster (unless her current children already have a full relationship with their other dad which is different). For example imagine the dad had more money because the mum was at home. And he chose to buy his biological child more at their birthday because he could afford it but the mum couldnt. And he could afford great school trips and after school activities but the mum coulsnt afford that for her first children. If they are not going off seeing their dad all the time and are around to see the new child get more, this is going to cause a load of resentment. If you're going to have 'his' and 'her' children then you probably aren't ready to live together as a family in my opinion

When I met DH I already had DS1 (then aged 2). We decided two years in to get married and have a child together. I lost all of my benefits when we moved in with DH and subsequently decided that I'd be a SAHM when DS2 came along. I continued to be a SAHM until DS2 went to secondary school so DH has supported the whole family for the entire time - DS1 included.

DS1's dad does pay CM but it's fairly minimal and just gets put away to pay for any extras that DS needs - he's off to Uni next year so I'm currently saving it for then

Everyone has a different idea of how finances show be run in a household and things work different for different families. As some people are better than others at managing finances.

Some married nuclear families don’t even have one big pot yet some unmarried step families do.
I have 2 dc with my exh and my dp has 2 dc with his exw. We will not be having any dc between us nor will be getting married.
All wages go into one pot, all exps come out. He earns about 10x more than me and we did have teething problems because he had never shared his Money before but the way it works I think we would of argued more the other way. (He was living with me in my house with an extremely low mortgage and I lost my tax credits when he moved in).

We have the same goals in life and want to live as a family. All children are treated the same as much as possible
But one of my main reasons not to having more is that would complete it further

If her older childrens dad isn't a fully involved dad, I wouldn't even contemplate more children with a man unless he was dedicated to treating his stepchildren exactly the same as his future biological children (and I trusted that he would actually do so).

That's not to say there's anything wrong with not being able to treat stepchildren and biological children the same... just that I'd never pursue a relationship with someone who couldn't.

@Whenitgothard

Everyone has a different idea of how finances show be run in a household and things work different for different families. As some people are better than others at managing finances.

Some married nuclear families don’t even have one big pot yet some unmarried step families do.
I have 2 dc with my exh and my dp has 2 dc with his exw. We will not be having any dc between us nor will be getting married.
All wages go into one pot, all exps come out. He earns about 10x more than me and we did have teething problems because he had never shared his Money before but the way it works I think we would of argued more the other way. (He was living with me in my house with an extremely low mortgage and I lost my tax credits when he moved in).

We have the same goals in life and want to live as a family. All children are treated the same as much as possible
But one of my main reasons not to having more is that would complete it further

This is nice to read. All this makes sense.

I would say though that even though I would absolutely support DSS while he is here and we never differentiate the cost of something for him from something for DD I wouldn't step in to pay CM to his mum - it may come out of a joint pot but if DH reduces his income I wouldn't top it up to its previous level. That is probably because we have a clear 50/50 split though and pay for everything (ie clothes, uniform, clubs, childcare when it was required, splitting unexpected expenses like school trips etc) and support him financially fully the time he is here and I think his mum has to do the same from her side too. I think it would be different if we were every other weekend and we didn't cover his expenses to this degree, but we have never been in that situation and if we ever are we would address it then.

I'm not sure I agree there are double standards on here. I think it's more that there is a difference of opinion re resident parent vs paying of child maintenance. So if you move in with someone who is the resident parent, arguably, there's a greater expectation that you will have some financial and emotional responsibilities by nature of all living together. But if you move in with someone who pays child maintenance to the resident parent, this can get murkier.

Personally, while I completely understand why step parents don't always want to pay for previous children, it seems to me that when you marry someone you do so knowing that they will have certain financial obligations that have to continue to be met. So if you separate all finances, then sure, separate kids spending too. If you combine all finances, you can't then keep the cost of DC separate.

But I suspect there's something instinctively that makes this something that has to be carefully navigated.

The advice I'd give your friend is that her and her fiancee need to think about this carefully and talk about it very openly. and then go away and think about what the other one has said before making any final decisions.

Surely once married they will be splitting all household costs proportionally to what they earn (with him paying more if she decides to stay at home after having children/reduced pay for mat leave) and her already existing children and their needs fall under household costs.

That is if they don’t just have one big shared pot of money.

In her situation, there is no way I'd be marrying, not would I be having more kids.

I will do everything I can to secure my children's future, and that includes no blending finances.

I think that the role new partner takes in lives of his/her step kids is something that should be carefully considered before any form of cohabitation. It would differ depending on the active role of the other biological parent and the age of the kids.

E.g. my sis had a DD whose bio dad refuses to see or pay for her. She has gone on to marry a new guy who met DD when she was just a baby. New guy is, to all intents and purposes, DDs dad and he acts as such and there is no difference in treatment of DD and DS (DS is his biological son)
VS
My DD is 10, has an actively involved Dad who she spends roughly half her time with. My new DP will never be her Dad. Were he to move in I wouldn’t expect him to pay towards my DD or to act as a parent. I’d expect him and DD to behave kindly towards one another and that’s about it. There would be no more kids (neither of us want more).

In both cases the new partner was clearly aware of expectations up front and in both cases is in full agreement of the scope of their role.