Ex going on paternity leave

[PooHeads]

My ex - who left me and our young DC for another woman two years ago has since had another child with OW - has just announced that he is taking two months paternity leave and therefore won’t be paying any maintenance in those months and won’t be contributing towards our DS nursery fees for that period either. He tells me the CMS say he doesn’t have to. I work ft and he expects me to continue paying full time nursery fees whilst he’s at home.
For info - my ex also has two other kids with another ex. The OW has no other kids. I think this is incredibly selfish of the both of them but not sure if I’m overreacting? Is this ok?
It grates on me that when we had our DC there was no question of him taking paternity leave as he was too busy shagging the OW at work. AIBU to be really pissed off? Or am I overreacting and it’s fine?

Great if he's on paternity leave he can look after your child while he's not paying nursery fees.

Agree that he should look after your child then. Do you think he’s really on 2 months unpaid leave and he’s lied about CMS?

Can he really just stop paying? Hopefully someone along soon who is knowledgeable.

Drop the children off with him while you go to work! If he doesn’t want to pay to get them taken care of while you work then he can take care of them.
He sounds like a real keeper.

Also only one more child with this woman and he’ll be off again. You had a lucky escape!

Well he can look after the child then can't he?

Also, just because he says cms said that - it doesn't actually make it true does it.
Have you called them yourself? I always thought it was 12 weeks of a change of income for them to do another calculation as it runs on the previous tax year - unless you loose your job and claim benefits?

For those saying he can look after the child while he's home are missing the fact that you still have to pay private nursery fees if your child doesn't attend. You could of course give notice to nursery and re-enrol him after ex's leave finishes but this seems like more of a faff for you OP.

I think you're going to have to begrudgingly pay the fees and maybe Ex will pick up some of the slack by collecting and dropping off your shared DC. I hope there's some way to make him pay though!!

Dropping him off with her ex won't help, nursery fees will still need to be paid. I agree he should doing pick ups and having dc more while he's on paternity leave, but I doubt he will.

Unfortunately you can't guarantee CMS and other payments, your ex could die or be sacked and you wouldn't get anything. I know nursery years are hard financially, I remember, but relying on CMS etc is a risk.

Thanks. I don’t rely on his payments at all - they’re hardly earth shattering amounts and like I said I work ft - it’s more the principle of the thing.

I can see why you’re pissed off about it but it is the sad fact of the system, and I suppose the only hope is that he may have turned a corner in parenting and is now prepared to be a better dad!

I thought he would still have to pay?? How has he got 2 months? I thought it was 2 weeks?

I thought unless a permanent financial change of over or under 25% you notify then it only stops after they recalculate, by which time he is back in work..else its annual review to tweak..

It is unfair if he can

Your problem is that taking your children out of nursery for 2 months will be hugely disruptive and you’ll likely lose the places. Then he’ll repeatedly let you down anyway.

He’s a shit. But you knew that. It’s unfair. But at least he is your ex. Feel sorry for the OW - she’s not won much of a prize in him.

A better dad to the new baby maybe but not to our DC clearly.

Well is mean surely the benefit to leave if that he is available for all his children. Wonder how he will feel about that.

I don't think this is true. Doesn't his annual earnings estimate have to decrease by 25% (or something similar) for the CMS to do a recalculation?
I'd phone them, let them know and tell them it's 2 months paternity pay so his overall annual income won't decrease enough for them to recalculate.

It’s two months unpaid paternity leave

Surely he just looks after your kids full time alongside the baby? And his other children.

No one should have more kids than they can look after by themselves on a daily basis, I think is the rule of thumb. So a man can’t have kids with multiple women and expect never to look after them together.

2 weeks is the required minimum but some places offer better. DH's offer 6 weeks at full pay.

I’d try to screw him over with the cms by contacting them and giving the details in case he’s telling you nonsense, but I’d try to focus on the DC because it doesn’t sound like he has any interest in them at all, which is truly awful. It’s like he’s decided this new baby is worth his attention and his older DC aren’t. As they grow up they’ll surely come to realise this.

2 weeks is the minimum. He can take up to 50 weeks of shared parental leave.

He might be lying about the unpaid bit. If it’s shared parental leave, he can get the equivalent of SMP (or his employer may pay more).

Is there any info about his employer’s parental leave policies online that you can check. You might find he gets 2 months full pay and just thinks he can bullshit you.

Not just paternity leave and shared parental leave.

Every parent gets 18 weeks of unpaid parental leave PER CHILD to be used before their 18th birthday. As he has 5 children (assuming all under 18) that’s 90 weeks of unpaid leave he can take if he uses it all. As a rule you can use 4 weeks a year, but actually your employee can allow more. Sounds like he’s using some of this allowance.

Check with CMS yourself because to my knowledge their calculations are worked out over his yearly salary and then divided into monthly payments (or weekly/1lump sum payment) His 2 months paternity leave will only affect his next yearly review calculation not this one. I could be wrong though.

My exh quit his job last summer - his choice - and is now on benefits, in a start up self employment period. Because of this, and him having the kids EOW the CMS has said he doesn't have to pay anything. I bought him out of the house last year so he has 100k in the bank yet it's not counted as income.

It's really shitty, he wasn't in a high paying job before but i am nearly £300 a month down now and everything is so much more expensive. 😔

I've had some luck with getting him to pay things ad hoc, like he's topped up the school dinners account a couple of times. I'm supposed to be grateful for this I think. Better than nothing I suppose.

You have my sympathies OP.

Even if I still had to pay the nursery, I’d still drop the children off with him in the mornings. If he wants to be a stay at home dad then he can look after ALL his children. Arsehole! Make sure his contact number is first on the list at nursery!