Blended Family - who is BU?

[blendedfamilyopinionspls]

Hi. I'd like some unbiased opinions on some issues we're currently facing as a blended family.

Family set up + financial facts (think these are relevant)

Married couple
Joint mortgage

Wife has teenager from previous marriage who she is resident parent of.
Couple have two children together - 1 primary school (early years) and 1 baby (under 1)

Couple have been together since teenager was 3.

Husband works full time and contributes the majority of the family income. Higher tax payer.
Wife works part time (20hrs) and doesn't pay any tax. Currently on maternity leave (standard)

Couple have joint account. All bills are paid from this and they get an allowance each for personal spends.

Wife receives Child Maintenance from non resident parent which pays for teenagers phone bill, school lunches, any school trips, activities, days out with friends, clothes, uniform, shoes etc.

Joint household income covers the teenagers basic living expenses - mortgage, electricity, food etc.

Joint household income also covers holidays/days out etc.

Question 1 - Should the Child Maintenance payment also be used for petrol in the family car to cover the collecting of teenager from their non resident parent 2x per month? On average 200 miles per month (non resident parent lives 48 miles away via quickest route)

Question 2 - Should the teenager receive less at Christmas/Birthday than their half siblings as they also get presents from their other parent ?

Intrigued to read the general consensus. Thank you.

@Warmhandscoldheart So would you really spend equal amounts on presents for a baby and a teenager?

X post on why it doesn’t go in the joint pot. Why is the NRP’s flakiness causing friction?

they agreed to avoid further confrontation CM would be paid directly to wife to cover all extra expenses for teenager other than basic living costs

So this would, I suppose, suggest that yes, extra petrol for contact reasons would be a ‘teenager extra expense’ not a ‘basic living cost’ therefore yes, it should come from CM.

BUT

CM did used to go in family pot but non resident a bit flaky with jobs so this has increased and decreased a fair bit over the years and caused friction between married couple.

If non-res is flaky with paying CM then it penalises the mother who will have to either sub the teen, or sub the petrol from her own income. Or cut the teen’s expenses to afford petrol.

Ultimately it’s the same if that comes from the joint pot - if there’s not enough income for expenses something needs to be cut somewhere.

I think it’s the set-up that’s odd, but more than that I can’t imagine being pissy about petrol or cutting a family child’s Christmas arbitrarily.

You are over thinking it.
If everyone feels loved equal and has enough of the practical things they need then the rest doesn't matter.
Teenager should have a big budget for presents because of their age.
Find it a little shocking you would think she should have less at Christmas and birthdays. Your youngest doesn't even know what a birthday is yet why are u giving this hesdspace now? After being a big part of her life since she was 3. Now it's an issue who buys her petrol. Who cares, as long as everyone has what they need does it matter.

1. yes
2. not meaningful to compare the presents of a teenager and a young child, they are too different.

All money should be pooled. All children treated the same.

Both adults should have same amount of personal spends.

Presents from non resident parent are never opened in the blended family home and are kept at non resident parents house. Unless it's something like a book they are reading. Or in one instance where parents went half on a laptop (which is obviously used most at the blended family home)
So since they only ever see that stuff at flaky exs, you’ve actually thought the teen should get less to have in the house they live in nearly al the time than their much younger siblings? People spend more on teen gifts not less as it’s more expensive stuff. This is a pretty horrible attitude tbh.

1. Yes to putting the money towards petrol, unless it means teen will go short of fairly basic things and pocket money you intend to provide for the other children, in which case of course not.

Mostly I think if you form a family unit with a woman with a child who’s 3, then you treat them as your family, and that means expenses are family expenses and income is family income.

Parcelling out the ‘extra costs’ of one child when you got together with their mother ten plus years ago seems parsimonious in the extreme.

Have you got a spreadsheet about how much your stepson costs to the penny?

Are you planning to factor in the additional depreciation on the car with the additional mileage? 48 miles by the shortest route indeed.

There are lots of ways to organise money in a blended family, but this all sounds pretty horrible. Something about the tone suggests strongly that you are the husband.

She’s on maternity leave and presumably worked part time to look after your young child pre-maternity leave. And you’re counting every penny that gets spent on her eldest child.

I don’t even know why you’d be comparing presents for the kids. Small children get big piles of stuff because that’s what they like. Teenagers like stuff that costs far more per square inch.

I wouldn't have been having a second child with a man who felt like that after 10 years.

It doesn't read well OP.

Family unit regardless of having a step child. Treat her as a daughter, spend what she needs and make sure she never feels this friction over such petty things!

If you’re actually blended then it seems really petty to be divvying up what gets spent on the teenager and what doesn’t - especially down to petrol to drop the poor kid off. Perhaps instead of letting the exes flakiness with paying CM affect them, the couple should present a united front to all their DCs and their exes by actually being a couple here and supporting each other and all their DCs. No child should be a second class citizen in their own home, so no, they definitely shouldn’t be given less if they’re opening their gifts together. But then again I don’t really add up the exact cost of gifts for my children, I just buy what I think they would like and hope it looks a similar amount! I would veer towards that kind of approach instead of adding it up and then subtracting the amount the teenager gets from their other parent, that’s just mean.

Question #1: How petty can I be?

Question #2: How cruel can I be?

JHC.

No and fuck no. Husband is a tight petty resentful knobhead.

I have a similar blended family. My cm goes into the family pot. The dcs gets what they need regardless.
Should they get less for Christmas? No but I would balance out any gifts from nrp for younger ones when oldest one is with NRP. Eg. Treat out when that dc is away that suits only that age group.

If the Step-parent has co-parented this teenager with the resident parent since they s/he was three years old, it's a really odd thing to be fixating on at this point. I'd have thought that after at least a decade, the blending would be pretty much done, and the CM going straight into the family pot.

If it's not, then yes, I do think the petrol could come out of it. It is a cost purely related to the teen and doesn't benefit anyone else.

The Christmas present thing, jeeze no. This child gets treated the same as everyone else in the resident family. The extra gift from the non-resident parent doesn't even come close to making up for not being with them, and having his/her life interrupted and inconvenienced by the EOW trips (almost guaranteed to clash with his/her social life and stuff s/he wants to do with mates)

Can't read the thread (no time) - but you seem really mean. Poor teenager and poor wife! Do you count every penny?!

So your wife is ear infection less than £12,500 and is currently on maternity pay for the second time in 3 years. You earn upwards of £60,000. And you begrudge your stepchild pocket money (as presumably if the petrol for her contact came out of the cms she'd get less money as a result - though we are talking half a tank of petrol? £25? A month) and Christmas presents.... unless your mortgage is very high and you budget very very tight- I think you need to give your head a wobble!

You do realise you are going to have to contribute to the teenagers university costs give there is a high earner in her household don't you? Thats going to cost alot more than £25 a month - and without the high earner living with her mother she would get full loans probably!!

Absolutely not to both, and nor should the spending on the elder child be itemised and separated in this way. Horrible.

Ear infection... = earning!!

I wouldn’t have a blended family unless all of the children were treated equally. And that goes both ways.

The teenager is living with his mother and siblings and a man who’s been in his life since he was three. How on earth isn’t the teen just seen as an equal child?

All of the obfuscation when we all know step dad has turned into a douche now he has biological children.

I’m not sure which party you are OP but basically teen should of course have equal gifts. In a healthy family the CM should go into the family pot and older teen supported just as you’d support the other children.

Have similar - a nearly teen from 1st marriage and a young child together and dh been with us since oldest was 3 ish.

We’re a family - all money in one pot, including maintenance and all expenses paid out whatever’s needed. Presents are based on what they want / need but never on the fact eldest gets more elsewhere,

DH considers he has 2 dds which should be the case with a family blended when one was so young / long ago in my opinion.

1. you're petty

2. you're petty and awful

@mocktail I would never dispute teenager presents will be more expensive than a baby. However, I think equal amounts of money should be budgeted for each child then parents buy the presents, money left over gets put in an child's savings bank account for that particular child.