To say no to OH increasing child maintenance

[Nastyurtium]

Need a sanity check here.

OH pays maintenance at CMS level to his ex for their three children. We have them every other weekend and half the holidays and provide everything they need whilst they’re here, as well as paying half of school uniform and trip costs.

I earn double OH’s salary and pay around 75% of our household costs. He is paying off joint debt from his first marriage; I pay for the children’s holidays, clothes and hobbies whilst with us. We live ninety minutes from the children (his ex moved after the split and this is as close as we can be with OH working in his field - if we weren’t worried about proximity, we could both earn double living further away in the UK).

His ex has been commenting a lot on the children costing more as they grow up (they’re primary age), the cost of living going up and the fact that she’s had another baby so can’t work as much, and I’m expecting a formal request for more maintenance money soon. We have a cordial relationship. She has a partner, who is self-employed and she works some hours for his business. I don’t know a lot about their finances but they take more holidays than us and seem to have a similar lifestyle, albeit in a cheaper region. We’d happily have the children for more of the holidays or even full-time but this has always been refused.

AIBU to just say no? If OH was paying half our living costs, it’d be his choice, but he isn’t and has nothing left at the end of each month, so realistically any increase would be coming from my salary.

Not sure how it works with CMS but when it was the Child Support Agency my partners’ ex asked for a review of maintenance and DP had to pay more as a result. When he queried it he was told that as I could afford to pay more for housing and living costs, he could afford to pay more child support as a result. Which is essentially the same thing.

any increase would be coming from my salary

Yeah no way would that be happening..

what? The way I see it he should be providing for his kids 50% of the year or 183 days. The child maintenance wouldn’t be applicable if they lived with him 50% of the year. They don’t but He already has them 97 days approximately where he pays fully for them. That leaves 86 days he needs to “maintain them” where they live with their mum. He pays her cash of £4800 per year. That’s £55 per day for those children. Is that not more than adequate seeing as they also provide towards school uniforms and pay half towards things like school trips etc. plus dad won’t see a money of child benefits so she has that income as well

as for the ex not having a pension. Tough shit! She should have thought about that before she opened her legs! This situation wasn’t the dads choice remember! She fucked around behind his back while he was probably sat at home looking after the kids!

and then dumped a £400 a month debt on him that she’s jointly responsible for

Not accurate for CMS

That seems reasonable to me too. I don't see why the OP should subsidise the ex-wife to have a better lifestyle than she has (if as she says, they currently have comparable lifestyles. And her OH is paying off all the debt, which makes it double what he has to pay through CMS, plus he's paying for uniforms and trips.

The amount of people that have not read this properly 🤦🏻‍♀️

If he wasn't clearing their joint debts, I would say perhaps he should pay more than the bare minimum decreed by CMS - but effectively she's getting her half of the debt paid, so no. Plus he's paying for trips etc.

Could you go back to court for more time with the children in your home? She might not be so concerned to have them with her if she is busy with a new baby - she may welcome the reduced workload. Four kids is a lot of work no matter how much she loves them.

Oh and she also gets all the child benefit, which is another £150 a month at least for three children.

I think some people are deliberately misreading it to suit their own narrative. If the OP and her DP had the children 50% of the time, that would amount to something like 180 days a year. If you count up every other weekend and half the holidays that comes to around 90 days a year, in which the children stay, during which time the OP and DP pay for everything - even contribute to school uniforms, trips etc. So the £400 a month he’s paying for the other 90 days of responsibility amounts to £4800 a year - over £50 a day. Plus he’s paying off the debt for an asset his ex still has ownership of. Seems more than reasonable to me - certainly not the ‘bare minimum’ some believe it to be.

I thought it probably wasn’t, as it was a long time ago and the CSA took a lot of flak for it.

There is absolutely no way I would agree to this op.

She isn't subsidising the first wife though is she? She's subsidising her boyfriend

The op still hasn't clarified if he was ordered to pay this debt in the consent order when they got divorced.

We’ve discussed fighting for more custody many times but ultimately the children are happy where they are. They’re settled in school, being with their mum is their status quo and they spend a lot of time with her family.

We’ve already moved two hours closer to her, which is two hours further from our family, friends and easy careers. If we moved to where she lives, I’d have to either work away during the week (not ideal if I had a child), do a huge commute or take a severe pay cut, and my OH would probably be on minimum wage. She’s also said she’d fight us all the way if we went for primary custody or even 50/50.

Bluntly, I am expecting her position to change once they’re teenagers. Hormonal, expensive and hungry will be significantly harder for her to manage especially if she has more babies (which she is, according to the children). I’m expecting at least one or two to choose to live with us by GCSE years. And I expect she’ll pay no maintenance at all if so!

No, he wasn’t. They’re supposed to split it but afterwards she said she couldn’t afford to without declaring bankruptcy and he informally agreed to pay it all.

That is false. The CMS is based on the gross salary minus pension. It is not related to the child's cost. It can be much more or much less than the child's cost depending on who the mother chose to create the child.

Why would he have been? Its not like he's on a huge wage .

And if he was it would have Bern because his wife didn't work, which is hardly fair

Why is be earning so little?

Is £36k so little?

Only on mumsnet!!!

I think it would be fair enough for him to say he will consider increasing CM when she pays him back her share of their joint debt. Presumably if he's paying £400 p/m, they've been separated a while and it still won't be paid off for another 2 years it was a pretty huge amount initially so he's already saving her a fortune.

She's already basically getting an extra £200 each month by not paying her half.

Well said.

It creates an us and them divide which hurts all the children.

I think it would be fair enough for him to say he will consider increasing CM when she pays him back her share of their joint debt.

I agree with you. She's financially irresponsible, I think you know that. But that debt is in both their names. I definitely wouldn't drop her half back on her to pay her share while paying more maintenance instead, because it seems blindingly obvious that she's going to blow it and your partner, or more likely you, will end up footing the bill.

CMS does not include a partners income.

She's a piece of work and he's spineless.
I certainly wouldn't be planning to have a baby with him