to think this is enough for brother’s ex to live off?

[frimscratxh]

My brother ended things with his partner a year ago when my niece was 1. He took a job in London, several hours from my niece as he had no option to secure work. He comes back every weekend he can to see her. He’s currently paying more than cms would dictate and gives ex 900 a month, cms calculates it at 750. Last her knew she earned the same as him and after tax, with his 900, she has around 4,400 a month. She is now putting my brother under pressure to give her 30 pounds a week for a two hour babysitter on a Saturday so she can ‘keep on top of things as he’s a deadbeat.’ My brother can’t get up from London until late Saturday afternoon due to his work, so she is saying she is solo parenting all the time and needs a break to catch up. I get this but also see the huge financial strain my brother is under and she is often quite rude to him. AIBU in thinking she should be told enough is enough now? I was a single parent a long time ago so I KNOW it is hard but this seems to be taking the piss out of my brother who is trying his best. I am overseas as are our parents so can’t provide practical help.

@frimscratxh

He spends all day with my niece on a weekend and gets there as early as he can but sometimes ends up being late Saturday

well that is a contradiction isn't it ?!

what time is ' late Saturday ' ?

It has nothing to do with you. He's adult enough to father a child. He needs to sort it out himself.

He might have had good reason to leave his partner but there's no good reason for leave by his child.

I too could get better and more stable work in London, but I'm not about to fuck off and leave my son.

He should live where his child lives.

but leaving a relationship doesn't mean leaving your child. And whoopie he's paying a bit over CMS? but she gets to do all the parenting 7 nights a week? I am going to assume the ex is working, the grown-up and right thing to do would be for them to go halves on the nursery costs that allow her to do that.

Moving so far away that you spend a few measly hours with your child is a bit of a dick move.

Having read the replies I agree that deadbeat is more likely about the turning up rather than the money.
How much notice is he giving her when he can’t turn up?
She’s not unreasonable to want to be able to make plans at the weekend. Also she needs notice to book the babysitter or cancel if he is going to travel up.

How many Sundays a month does he see his dd? Is contact at ex’s house?

I'm sorry but as much as he can might not be enough given the child's mother is virtually a solo parent.
Can't he try and get a job nearer his child? Or can he work from home? I know several people who were based in London but have now moved to another city because they can work from home, some don't even go back for meetings as they have them on zoom , others go once a month or so. He needs to try and find a way to have more of a role in his child's life

How often is ‘every weekend he can’ though? What on earth stops a single man working Mon-Fri travelling a few hours to see his toddler EVERY weekend without fail? Does he take her for a few days regularly when he has leave?

Assume stays overnight if arrives in Saturday and leaves on Sunday? Does he have the child overnight then so his ex has a night off childcare duties?

Shocking that a mother excuses a father of neglecting his responsibilities to his very young child.

if his rent is extortionate in London surely it would have made more sense to get a job in a cheaper area closer to his child so he can carry out childcare more regularly and have 50:50 custody?

His partner is working full time and doing almost all of the childcare (including taking time off work for the child’s illness I should imagine) while he’s not even housing his child or covering the childcare costs so his ex can work and keep up her career. While he’s free to work on his career with no hindrance and live as a single man 6 days a week at least.

Can you not see anything wrong with that OP?

He should absolutely be doing all he can to make the mother if his child’s life more manageable in these circumstances.

It is the same old story where the dad thinks he can just carry on business as usual after having a child with no life adjustments and then the mother is meant to be ever so grateful when he actually does some childcare. Obviously this is then even worse as they have split. Seriously you need to have words with your brother about his priorities. Sounds like he is saying all the right things to you but his actions speak differently.

Yeah, she's not wrong.

Why can't he get the on Saturday morning? Then there would be no need for her to leave the child with a baby sitter, as she'd have her free time to go do what she needs to do.

Must be so frustrating - working full time and not knowing from one week to the next how much time you have during the weekends to run the errands you need to run.

He might have had good reason to leave her, but he could have left her and still stayed close enough to care for his daughter.

Maybe it’s time that your brother considers that move that many women consider when they have a child … What job would allow your brother to be involved his DD’s life and pay enough to give her a good life ? He may need to take a pay cut but considering his high travel and London costs like rent, there must be alternatives that give everyone (including the ex) a better quality of life.

It's not alot if child is in full time nursey so mum can also work.

Your brother sounds like a terrible father and I can see why his ex is utterly fed up with him. It just isn't good enough to make such woolly commitments about when you will see your child, especially when he knows the mother is stuck facilitating these arrangements. It's all about what suits him, what time he can make etc with the built in assumption that her time is unimportant and she is the default parent even when it is technically 'his time'.

I can imagine her request to cover a babysitter will be related to an agreement that they have (that he keeps breaking) that he will takeover at a certain time on the Saturday. If he can't make that time then he should be arranging alternative childcare instead of simply expecting her to pickup the slack. I wonder if your brother would be so accommodating if she decided that he could only return their child at different times that suited her. He would surely find this impacts on his ability to get back to London etc so would complain and yet she is expected to just suck it up when he does exactly this on the Saturday.

Btw you sound a bitter that his ex is financially better off than you were. I'm sorry that you received such crap support from the father of your children and you had to cope with that but please don't expect all women to willingly accept such crumbs from the table. The CMS system is a mess and many women are screwed over but this doesn't mean every woman should accept this and be grateful for the bare minimum.

He hasn't got good reason to piss off away from his child all the time, though. The nature of his split from their mother is irrelevant.

She is solo parenting and presumably she isn't able to go to another city all week so she can work and play as if she has no child.

It's nothing to do with you anyway. By all means support your brother but this isn't your fight.

The correct thing for the dad to do is:
Set regular times he will be there and stick to them. No excuse. Or at least a month or two's notice if he is eg going on holiday / to a wedding etc.
Pay 50% of the nursery fees to enable the mum to work.
Pay the £750 CMS amount on top.

So be reliable about when going to be there and pay £1,350 a month. Sounds a lot but this would allow the mum to get a cleaner and babysitter when needed to compensate for the dad being so far away 90% of the time. And will reduce when the nursery ends as the girl goes to school.

So he pays half the nursery fees, plus £300 a month towards the cost of housing his child (as a bigger property will be needed), food, clothes, shoes, nappies, activities, holidays, extra childcare when the child is ill and can’t go to nursery, time for his ex to have a break given that your brother looks after his child for maybe one day a week? And the other six days a week the mother is the sole parent, with the whole mental and physical load? Yet you think he is the one being hard done by?!

So what job was he doing before? Presumably they lived together before they split?

it’s great he gives more than the legal minimum of money that he has to… but the set up sounds utterly utterly shit for his ex and his child.

Its not "extra" - he's the child's father and should be paying half the nursery fees and frankly acknowledging that his ex is the 24 hr carer six days a week with all the hard graft and leaving him to do the Disney dad day.

If he doesn't like the arrangement then he needs to change something to spend more time caring for his own child.

The reasons for the split are irrelevant and frankly both partners will have their own views. The child is entitled to proper support and time with her parents. Its depressing that you promote the bare minimum as if she isn't his flesh and blood.

People split up and sometimes they need to move away from where their child(ren) lives.
However, their obligations as a parent don't change.
While your brother does seem to be providing a reasonable amount of money, without knowing all the ins and outs it's impossible to judge if it truly is reasonable.
Regardless, your brother's obligation to his child is more than just financial. And frankly, spending most of a Sunday most weeks isn't a lot of contact time and does mean his ex is solo parenting almost all the time.
Is it not possible for him to travel on a Friday night and return early on a Monday morning? Or even just leave at c.5am on Saturday so he gets more time with his daughter? Can he not do compressed hours/a nine-day fortnight so he gets long weekends with her? Does he take her for weeks at a time when he has leave? Perhaps there are clear reasons why none of this is viable, but it doesn't sound like he's moving heaven and earth to spend consistent, quality, time with his child and that's not acceptable. At all.
Ultimately this is something your brother and his ex need to sort out themselves. However, paying 15pc more to his ex than he has to and spending what effectively amounts to c.12hrs a week with his child really doesn't make your brother sound like Dad Of The Year.

"No option to secure work" other than in London? Do you think those of us living outside London don't have jobs then? I'd have moved to a different line of work if necessary rather than move away from my child.

If the ex has such an amazing life, why doesn't your brother go for full custody and he can live the high life on the maintenence he gets from the ex?

The cheek of him to abandon his child. What if the mother decided to do the same, just up and move away and come back when she can?

What does your brother do after work every evening? Does he have any thought for his ex who is tied to bed-times, night wakings every night?

What time does he get up for work? Has he imagined what it would be like if he had to get a child up, breakfast, dressed, nursery drop off (after waking how many times during the night) before he goes to work himself? Then rush from work at the end of the day to pick up, get home, make dinner, bath, bedtime before it starts all again the next day.

And he can't be arsed to get up on Saturday morning to see his child. The ex is right; he is a deadbeat.

Does he ever have his child overnight? Or away from his ex? Does she get any time to herself?

He is a deadbeat dad. He doesn’t parent. She does everything. He’s a complete failure of a parent, throwing money at his ex does compensate for the fact that she is a full time working single parent.

Why he left the mother is irrelevant, the issue is he needs to step up and do more for his child.

I think sometimes as well there can be a bit of a retaliation/control element in partners behaving like the brother here. He obviously feels like she treated him badly and like he is the injured party. But now the ex can’t have a life because she is picking up the majority of the childcare, and even when she isn’t scheduled to, she can’t really plan because she never knows when on a Saturday he is going to turn up.

she can’t just plan to do something and involve her child incase he arrives, but if she plans to do something with out the child she can’t be 100% sure he is going to turn up. Seems quite petty and controlling to me.

He’s not paying £600 a month extra to cover half of the nursery fees though is he?

So whatever the cause of the split, she is paying more both financially and in time and effort…