Who is being unreasonable ?

[Grouchymardybum25]

I have a step DC who is young primary school aged, he lives full time with us and has 3, 2 hour supervised contacts a month and one supervised over night a month.
he had fallen in a puddle one contact when on over night stay so they had bought him some clothes now sometimes he turns up in them from over night contact and we just rotate clothes so they go on his pile etc
we dress him and send change of clothes in any of the clothes we have. She has made contacted demanding the clothes she has bought be returned to her as his only allowed them during contact ? I can’t get my head around this ? Like I can’t understand why he needed 2 scooters because she bought one for his birthday but only allowed to play with it there, so then we had to buy him one for Christmas. We bought him a bike and he uses it at both.
AIBU to think it’s pathetic ?

I can guarantee money is one of her problems already, Op already says she doesnt drive I bet shes not working either. Rather than just give the clothes back in a bag their response it to hit her where it hurts.

He is claiming for the right reasons he has him full time she works full time and yes the Joggers etc was probably the last straw because he was genuinely thankful when she contributed, now he feels if they can not have a way of contributing when those items are not beneficial for 95 percent of them then he will ask for child support.

Money is no more a problem for her than it is us.
I am not sure why the assumption is that she is some damsel in distress with issues rather than was a awful parent and partner.

Fair enough. He should have been doing that from the get go.

@LondonPretty I stopped caring about your in you opinion when I became evil step parent for buying a scooter

but your ok with my subsiding the cost of raising him for the net decade ?

Mum needs to contribute financially to the upbringing of her child. It's not pick and choose what bits of parenting you want to do.

She wasn't right about the scooter but she's right about the money. If the mother had toed the line he wouldn't be asking for maintenance.

She should have been paying it all along. Its for her child. Why wouldn't she pay. If my DH didn't pay his CMS I'd be the first to tell him what a useless parent he was.

Or.. he's been very generous and not bothered claiming until now

Nothing about that, if she would contribute to things then he wouldn’t.

@Fluffodils nobody's disputing that she should have been paying all along, just that him going for maintenance now is a power move.

Ok but then is this not a conversation that can be had before he jumps straight in to claiming maintenance?

I know he can't talk to her but could her relative not be the mediator? Is it something that could be discussed when you're in court?

Yep, the scooter was a silly comment but this, if they have never asked for cm before as not needed it is purely out of spite. And that boy will surely be picking up on all this unfortunately.

She does have stuff for him that we don’t own in our house.
these clothes were handed to us a while ago and were used for HIM.

@Grouchymardybum25 to be clear, I do think she should be financially contributing. I just think your partner is being difficult for personal gain rather than his sons benefit.

Why does that matter? If he should have claimed earlier.

Everyone should get the child maintenance they are entitled to. It doesn't matter if they can do without. That money can be saved for uni or driving lessons or something if not required.

Then it doesn't matter if its for spite or whatever. He is entititled to claim it. She should be paying it.

@GoodChat this is where it has all come from. I sat down with DP and spoke to him about at the court case being able to extend visits ( I’m not a monster like some would claim ) she wanted a plan before going to court which was fine. As court isn’t about us stopping contact or anything she was never taken to court for custody before. He was removed by SS not a parental dispute.
everyone was actually getting along until it was obvious that due to her breaking original court order ( cancelling contact ) that it was unlikely to go in the direction that they both wanted. She blames him because she doesn’t feel like he needs to mention on his paper work about how many contacts were missed so then it all kicked off and this followed.

Children are not pay per view