Not paying for schoolbag

[Another2022]

Need a sense check please.

My daughter needed a new schoolbag, it broke yesterday. I said I’d get her one when I got paid tomorrow and offered her another (less cool obvs) bag to use for a couple of days.

His evening my ex took my daughter out and bought her a bag. I wasn’t asked about budget or what bag she was getting. Daughter gets back and says ex wants me to pay for the bag. I’ve said no as I wasn’t even asked how much I could afford etc…

AIBU not to pay for the bag?

Ex has form for buying stuff without telling me and then expecting me to pay half of it. Tbf, it’s all stuff that needs to be bought but it takes the control of my own budget away from me.

YANBU.

If your ex chose to spend her money on a new bag for DD, that's her decision and nothing to do with you.

If she wanted to split the costs, she should have spoken to you beforehand.

It's just a bit petty. I'm sure you buy plenty of things and don't request half the money from him ?

Maybe tell him you can call.itnevem based on whatever you've bought recently

You need to be firm on this or he will keep doing it. If he wants money from you towards something then it needs to be agreed in advance, and the same vice versa. Or he buys her what he wants but it comes out of his pocket. Calmly repeat as many times as necessary.

OP's ex is female.

OP's ex is female.

I DO think it changes things that OP
is Dad and the ex is Mum.
Going on the assumption that OP is resident parent and pays for everything usually with a (usually) small contribution from the ex has coloured all the responses.
if this OP is in that situation (he is resident parent and bears the majority of the costs and responsibilities) then fair enough, the sexes don’t matter.
But if Mum is resident parent and pays for most things, then Dad offers to buy a bag but says ‘later when I get paid’ then I think it’s a different situation and more than fair if Mum buys the bag sooner so that the child doesn’t go without (and OP admits it’s a reasonable price, what they’d usually spend) and ask for half back.
can OP clarify the situation in terms of who bears the bulk of financial and emotional responsibility?

It’s 60/40 her way. I’d love it to be 50/50 (and in practice it kinda is…this weekend will be the 4th weekend in a row they’ve been with me for example cos she’s been busy and I’ve got them all next week cos of her hobby) but she won’t allow it. Not sure if it makes much of a difference tbh. Even if I was a eow dad then I’d still need asking before my money was spent.

Emotional responsibility? Surely that’s shared anyway?

As it turns out she did ask me directly for ‘half or more’ of the cost this morning. Now I’m paid (yay!) I sent her half of it and asked her to agree spend with me first in future so I can keep control of my budget.

If it's close to 50/50 then presumably not much maintenance is going over? Which is absolutely fine if you can hand on heart say you share most expenses evenly, uniform, kit, shoes, spending money, phone contracts etc. If you do, then I would imagine odd one offs like this would also be fairly even and I'd have said well I'll get the next one. Either way, you absolutely should have been asked first though.

Tell him you are not paying half.
You will pay him 25%
As you can't afford anymore

And the next time he needs to communicate with you FIRST because of budget reasons

And you wont reimburse im otherwise

@SparklyBlackKitten
The OP is a man. The ex is a woman.
He has paid half.

based on mumsnet mainly being a female site, a lot of women have children with men, therefore it was reasonable to assume the OP was female and the Ex was male

With this in mind, it makes no difference at all which sex is which - Ex has behaved badly and does not get to spend the OPs money

This! How pathetic the father is so pathetic to argue over the cost of a school bag that his daughter needs.

Just offer half surely? Sometimes kids need things I don’t budget for, I just have to juggle it and make it work as best I can.

Don’t pay or he’ll do it with someone else next

Wow, what a prince among men…

He’s her Dad, he should want to buy her things. There’s no way he should purchase anything for her and expect you to reimburse him, you both created her so there’s equal responsibility to pay for her.

Dad was going to buy her a bag and pay for it himself, but mum went and bought it and is now demanding money for it.

What a princess among women eh?

I thought the same. How depressing for the poor child, I wonder how it makes her feel even being in this situation 😕