Will try to keep this short as otherwise I’ll never stop…
I left when our daughter was 18 months old (she’s now 10)- he’s not seen her at all since she was 3. Has never made any effort whatsoever to keep in touch with her or communicate- just doesn’t care.
He was however paying some maintenance (nowhere near the right amount, but I took the simpler option of not engaging with him as he’s infuriatingly unpleasant, unreasonable and untruthful).
In Feb this year I finally decided to go through the CMS (there are no words to describe what a joke they are). Well- despite earning upwards of £100 grand, and having a very solid-looking LinkedIn profile showing up-to-date employment- they wrote back saying that as he ‘earns less than £7 a week’……… he qualifies for the nil payment criteria.
Nil.
He had been paying £250 a month- so nowhere near what he should have been paying, still. But now- nothing.
He took them at their word and stopped paying altogether. Despite the fact that prior to their “assessment “, he’d managed to ‘scrape together’ 250 a month.
I have no savings and don’t earn a huge amount by anyone’s standards. I live in a small flat with my daughter.
He has yet another child (plus two others who are older), clearly earns a lot and yet this is what the CMS have come up with.
He was always a compulsive liar. But I didn’t think that even he was capable of pulling this.
Today I phoned the company on LinkedIn where he is apparently some kind of director (it says Oct 2020- present).
I’ve tried to be as objective as possible, but I am convinced the woman I spoke to sounded shifty when she said he’d ‘left the office’. Is that what people say instead of ‘he no longer works for us’? I was confused at first thinking she meant he’d just popped out. It was only when pressed that she said he didn’t work there any more and had no clue whether or not he was working now.
I’m fully aware I can’t expect anyone at work to divulge personal details and I very openly told her that I was trying to appeal to her as a woman who might have some empathy with my situation. Not for a second did I think I was being reasonable or that she’d tell me anything - but I hoped, and acted out of desperation.
The CMS have been beyond useless. If it wasn’t for them, he’d still be paying.
If it wasn’t for him being amoral, he’d still be paying.
I won’t even get onto the emotional damage his lack of interest has had on my daughter.
As a final note (it’s for another thread, and I don’t have the energy) she’s been desperate to connect with him. She- as a 10 year old (and as an 8 year old a week before her 9th birthday last year) took the strength and courage to reach out and phone him- the only two times she’s had anything to do with him since she was 3- and all he’s done since is ignore her existence.
He’s never even sent a birthday card , nor even acknowledged her birthdays at all. Not even her 9th- when she’s spoken to him on the phone a week beforehand and talked about her birthday.
I have of course (though not for the last couple of years) tried and tried and tried to get him to see her.
As I said, it’s for another thread and I don’t want to rant (any more!). All I want to do is remove him from my consciousness, and from my daughter’s. But I can’t- and regardless- why does he get to choose to pay nothing for her just because he wants to pretend we never happened?
My question really is- does anyone have any advice as to how I handle this? I can be too laid back and just accept things as they are- but HOW DARE he do this? Not only do I need this money- he is obliged to pay it.
Do I email him directly? (I haven’t done since he stopped paying which I know many will think is ridiculous). It all just feels so overwhelming.
I suspect his current wife has been given a very creative version of events, if she even knows anything at all. They live a few hours away.
Final note - he was an emotionally (becoming physically) abusive psychopath and I left him in fear of bringing my daughter up around that. My crime is to have seen through him, and to have left him. His bitterness never subsided.