Child maintenance reduction

[Istheregoldattheendoftherainbow]

I earn 3x as much as my DH. This isn’t an issue at all but we’re wondering what to do when it comes to child maintenance.

DH was paying his ex girlfriend a very generous amount (at this stage no CMS involved and turns out he was paying 3x more than CMS would’ve calculated)

When his ex found out me and DH were pregnant she unilaterally reduced contact to half of what it was and went through CMS thinking she would get more money. I don’t think she realised our lifestyle was because of my salary; not DH’s.

Anyway, things have always been toxic with her and DH served a court order on her when she reduced contact which saw myself and DH gain overnight contact. Not as much as we would’ve liked but it was better than what we had.

His ex has now broken the court order by saying the children do not want to visit us, stay with us etc therefore we are barely seeing them. DH doesn’t want to force them to come but we miss them.

DH has reduced his salary and CMS would decrease by 25% at the end of the month. Is it unreasonable to reduce it to the CMS suggested level?

To be very clear u will never win
you can’t pick and choose she wanted to go through the cms when it suited

cms and court for access sounds like parental alienation

MMM interesting.

That thread is almost word for word the ex’s side of this story. Although OP hasn’t yet admitte here that she was the OW but I always figured that was likely.

Yeah, all about how he neglected (your words) his first children by never spending time with them.

All about how he hasn’t gone back to court to get access to them.

All about how he’s going part time to spend time with his shiny new baby and reducing. Maintenance for the children he’s been neglecting since they were born.

If that’s your definition of a good dad then you need to raise the bar.

You know he isn't a wonderful Dad OP, you've said so on this thread. I'm not saying that to attack you or your husband. But you're clearly a very capable woman and it's always sad to see women like you folding themselves into knots to defend men like your husband and working their arses off to provide a quality of life for him. In real life people will umm and ahh along with what you say, but many will be silently judging and losing respect for you. Especially when you combine finances and then reduce maintenance, as you then become part of the problem.

Anyone considering whether to reduce their income surely looks at their financial commitments to decide whether it's viable.

For him, dropping his income if he cannot meet his financial commitments (even putting aside his children's well-being) is not viable. Is he reducing or breaking any other financial commitment or is it just the maintenance? Nowhere else he could cut his cloth to enable this drop in income?

You & he have made a joint decision for the benefit of your child. He hasn't given the same consideration to his other children (does that sound like a good dad?). And the ex is just expected to pick up the impact of that.

can I just clear up we’ve been to court umpteen times
In 4 years time! Where do you live that the court system is so efficient?

And you said that he didn't leave her for you, so it's not even 4 years!

Can't help but think we are only getting a small part of the story here...

@Istheregoldattheendoftherainbow
I'd like to offer you my perspective, as someone whose parents split up when I was sixteen. My mum received a lot of maintenance for me and my sibling, got to stay in the house (mortgage free) until we were in 20s. I resented that she was never prepared to spend any of the maintenance on anything for us other than food and bills (I had to buy clothes and Toiletries from pocket money from my dad, and later from my part time job), so I kind of look at it as not only did she not financially contribute to the last years of our childhood she also 'profited' from us living with her.

I wonder whether it would make sense for your husband to cut back his payments in line with whatever CMS says he owes, then set some more money aside for his kids for the future (Just like you're paying into an ISA for your child).
He might also like to consider writing a dated letter to each of them now, and sealing it in an envelope and leaving unopened, so that even if there is hardly any contact during their childhood he can one day give them the money towards uni/a car/a house and let them know that he did always care for them and do right by them? If he does manage to get contact with them reinstated (and I really hope he puts all his efforts into doing so) then he can even use that money towards more expensive things they might need as they get older?