I have been separated from my ex for 3 years, we have 3 children. He has children EOWeekend (his choice) and 1 week most school holidays, and is supposed to pay £80 a week maintenance which minimum amount on gov calculated based on his ‘reported income’ - he is self employed and I’m fairly sure his reported income is a lot lower than he actually earns, and him being self employed also makes it difficult to go through CSA. In reality he pays maintenance sporadically in lump sums here and there and says he will catch up all the payments but usually doesn’t, according to my calculations anyway but it’s hard to keep track because it’s so erratic and if I question it he will insist I’m wrong.
He currently owes me around £700 in maintenance, he said he had money last week but he took the children away on a UK holiday and now apparently has no money left. When I tried to tell him it wasn’t okay to do that when he owed so much maintenance he said I was trying to deprive the kids of a holiday out of spite (I struggle to afford even a uk holiday so they don’t go away much) I couldn’t insist he gave the money to me as he’d already told the kids he was taking them away and they would have been devastated.
I feel it’s so unfair that he can take them away but I cant afford to because I have to pay for childcare, school uniforms and sports clubs while he fritters his money away having fun with them.
I find it really hard to have a conversation with him without me ending up being in the wrong, I always come away from conversations about things like this feeling like IABU. He refuses to discuss anything by text or answer the phone to me so the only alternative is to talk about it in front of the kids and I end up backing down so I don’t cause an argument. I just really need to be clear on who is actually unreasonable here so I can tackle it appropriately!