I’m wondering if anyone can help me please? I’ll try and keep it as brief as possible.
me and my ex husband split up in 2016. He left the the family home. We have two children together DD 16 and DS 10. He went to live with his dad. I was heartbroken, I begged for him to come back.
I told
him I would do anything. we agreed to parent the kids 50/50. No court order is in place.
I had a good job but only 12 hours a week after having DS. I didn’t ask for any money at all because I wanted him to come back. Anyway, it turned out that he had met someone else and moved in with her pretty quickly and subsequently got married. In that time I had to make a claim for housing benefit etc. I also qualified for pupil premium and I still do. For both children. It means I am responsible parent and this is their home. Since 2016 both the children have had free school meals, free after school and breakfast club. It also means that because this is their primary home he has never had to pay anything.
I also qualified for child tax credits and the child benefit. He has now in the last 6 years whenever things aren’t agreeable to him makes a counter claim for these benefits. They stop and I have to provide evidence that I am the kids mother etc…the threat of this is real and terrifying. I am eligible for these benefits and I use them for what they are meant for. I won’t be able to get through another long period without them both financially and mentally.
The situation now is that November 2021 he decided he didn’t want our daughter to live with them anymore. She came to live here. I tried to contact him to chat about it. He wouldn’t speak to me. In the January he sent me a note via our ds asking me if they could take Ds on holiday. It was a full schedule of holiday requests. Like I was a nanny. I agreed , I always agree. But in the letter there was no mention of DD. So I plucked up the courage and made a claim for child maintenance.
he has refused to ever give
me his address and uses the kids to send me messages. If he wants to speak to me he calls one of the kids and they have to pass the phone to me. I can’t say I’m busy. If he doesn’t like the answer I give him he comes round on a Sunday evening and rings the buzzer of my apartment constantly for a long time. It’s a bit scary. I don’t think I should have to live like that.
anyway when cms finally found him in June last year he had a change of heart and decided he wanted dd back after all. Three nights a week. I said ok. She said ok. I changed the cms application to reflect this change of circumstances. I expected that he would owe the debt but ongoing there would be nothing to pay. They worked out that he owed the debt and also still owed £25 per week. he was furious. They I think he appealed about 5 times with different reasons and every time I got asked for evidence.
so he has threatened to make another claim against me for the ctc and cb. I don’t think he gets it that it’s means tested, he thinks I’ve ‘won’ he says watch my back.
ive had a text from the kids doctors asking asking for me to confirm what address the kids actually live at and what the situation is. Because we keep changing the address to our own address. I give consent though to vaccinations for the kids through school. Their address is here. Everything is here. I do all the kid admin. I don’t know what to say to them? I think he wants them registered at his address for a reason and I don’t think it’s a good reason.
I can’t keep fighting him. I live alone with the kids, I just want to be left alone to live my mundane existence. I guess I would be grateful if anyone could skim though that and let me know if my thoughts are unreasonable please? He thinks I’m a psychopathic crazy ex wife from hell. I don’t think I am. But then I doubt myself…..