I’m internally fuming about this situation but I wanted to get other opinions.
DS (10) stays with his dad two week nights plus every other weekend. He pays £250 maintenance per month which covers his half of our child-minder fees, half of DS phone bill and half of his Spotify account. I buy all his clothes, school uniform, cover pocket money, haircuts etc - he doesn’t contribute a penny more. He earns more than double what I do and has a partner, I am single.
Up until mid way through last year, if DS needed to go to breakfast club or have a school lunch whichever parent had him that day would just give him the money for that (£2 per time). The school then changed to an online payment system and despite me sending his dad the details on numerous occasions, he would never top the account up and would then use up the credit I had put on for my days. If I brought this up he would send me a small amount via bank transfer. I made it clear that I didn’t want him to do this, I wanted him to top the account up weekly/monthly depending on his needs. He said this was no problem and he would do this when school went back after the summer.
Our school’s went back earlier this week and DS’s dad has told him that he can’t afford to send him to breakfast club or for school lunches. I’m not happy that he actually told a 10 year old that and didn’t mention it to me but the main issue is that despite DS not going to breakfast club he is still dropping him off at the same time, expecting him to hang around in the playground for an hour in whatever weather and alone for most of it until other children appear! I’ve tried to contact him to discuss this and discuss options but he is just ignoring me. I just really don’t feel like this is okay and it frustrates me so much. If he had spoken to me about it I would have offered to cover breakfast club costs. If I’m being completely honest that still would’ve annoyed me as they have much more money than I do and he should be capable of feeding his child on his days but I would’ve sucked it up for DS’s sake. I have never at any point said that he can’t see DS but I’m really reluctant to allow him to go on his weeknights next week incase the same thing happens again. I honestly feel like leaving a 10 year old standing about alone in the rain, and soon to be cold, because you can’t/won’t pay £2 (and can’t communicate like an adult!) is verging on cruelty and neglect.
AIBU to feel like this? I feel like the bar is set so fucking low for men/dads yet they still manage to trip over it. The other option I have to keep the peace is to pay money on DS’s account for his dad’s days and tell DS that there is always money on there so he doesn’t need to sit in the playground and can go into breakfast club. I will probably end up doing this for DS’s sake. Sorry for the long ranting post!