To think my friend is truly awful for doing this?

[Jamye]

My friend has recently been very keen to book a mini break with me. I’ve been looking forward to it and she’s sent lots of links to luxury hotels etc. It got to the point where I had to say could we go somewhere cheaper, she said that was fine and then proceeded to say she only had ‘extra income’ because she was getting her ex to pay for all her DD’s childcare by firstly giving him inflated cost of them, not telling him she’s using tax free childcare and also taking holiday allowance one day a week so has a day with her daughter that basically her ex is paying her for as he thinks he’s funding nursery!

I was really shocked by this and think it’s very wrong. His maintenance was already high in the first place and then she asked for more because nursery is more, when it’s actually not. So she has all funded nursery and some left over for dd and for her to spend as she wants. I haven’t told my DH as he is still a colleague of my friend’s ex. They had an acrimonious split and my friend feels she is ‘owed’ this (he left her and only started seeing their dd when she was six months). I do totally get my friend has been through a lot and I have huge sympathy, but this is basically stealing money?! He is not a wealthy man and she earns well herself. AIBU to be surprised/disgusted by this?! I genuinely don’t feel I can sustain the friendship as it is so lacking in basic honesty!

He can’t even be bothered to look up/ check with nursery the fees (where I am each nursery has their fees published online so am surprised he’s unwilling to spend 2 mins to check); I can bet he doesn’t even know which nursery his child goes to. As such, as someone else said before , she’s fully entitled to charge ‘admin’ fee. I don’t know how much her holiday allowance is but it’s not endless; also I bet she s the one taking time off when kid is sick etc.

That’s up to you but I think integrity is important.

Meh. Integrity doesn't pay the bills.

I think you’re the bad friend to be honest. I imagine your friend went through hell being left when she was pregnant and raising a newborn baby alone while he waltzed off for 6 months with no responsibilities. I imagine now, like most mums, she’s still picking up more of the childcare and mental load than him. And you want to support him to pay the bare minimum? If you can’t see things from her side, she could do with a better friend than you.

Exactly! I struggle to believe this post is real.

If it is, the misogyny of ‘all women fuck over men financially’ is really coming through.

He never has his kid and totally ignored her for a 1/4 of her life.

She’s not stealing - she’s just getting paid for all the free labour / childcare / mental load someone else is doing on behalf of a child he helped make but doesn’t help with on pretty much any level 🙄

I'm sorry this is such a silly argument I had to say something. What if she assured him she was on the pill or some other kind of reliable contraception, but she lied?

Are you saying a man is to be punished for trusting his partner when in a loving relationship? Because it sounds like that's what your saying and that would be bonkers.

It's not a silly argument at all. No, you should never rely on another person to use contraception if you don't want children, even if you are in a loving relationship. I wouldn't ever rely on a man for contraception, I deal with it myself.

You have no idea how much he helps, all we know is he doesn't have her overnight. We also don't know if he tried to see his child before 6 months.
Tbh once someone has lied about one thing, how can you trust anything they say?
Or perhaps she is on MN and took the advice that is always given about men , to LTB.

Yes, it is. If he was a hands on, involved dad she wouldn't be able to pull this off.

Not being a thief isn't exactly 'high' ground. That's just ground.

I’m equally happy to say he sounds like a shit dad and she’s a dishonest person. Not great.

He doesn't have his child overnight and clearly doesn't know what the nursery fees are, so he hasn't even bothered to be involved in that area. Shit dad.

What a stupid take. If he's that bothered then he shouldn't have sex to begin with. There's always a chance of pregnancy when you stick your penis in a woman, can't believe that anyone would seriously think that "oh I didn't want a baby" counts as a good reason to avoid paying for a child that they themselves created.

Is he automatically a dick for leaving her while pregnant?

If the relationship wasn’t right, surely he did the right thing by leaving.

He hasn’t been trying to shirk paying his maintenance at least.

Now hold on just a minute - yes, he is automatically a dick!

He walked away from the woman he'd just impregnated, and didn't even see his own baby for 6 months.

Yes, he's an utter dick!! I don't know what is wrong with you that you are trying to justify that!! And if the relationship wasn't right, then maybe he shouldn't have got her pregnant in the first place!

@Beezknees I was responding to a PP, I didn't assume anything

You assumed it was all the man's fault - but OP could have taken birth control pills / made sure he wore a condom / taken the morning-after pill / not had unsafe sex/ abstained ........ it is a 2 way street.

Yes, it's not fair that women have to take the precautions and take all the consequences, but it's because we take the consequences that we have to think about the precautions.

And before anyone starts, this is not to say that women are responsible for all birth control and men can just do what they want

• but

1. sometimes accidents happen. or 2. sometimes no precautions are taken by either side, or 3. sometimes the woman wants a baby and the man doesn't - is it always just the man's fault?? Genuine question.

In 1 and 2 above, the man should definitely contribute and share responsibility - in 3. should he??

There's a lot of knee-jerk reaction on here.

She's probably getting what she can out of him now before he disappears again.

He sounds like a horrible bastard & you don't sound as though this woman really is your friend (who needs enemies with friends like you)

I don't think it's any of your business and all this being shocked might have an element of jealousy? Good for her I say.

A man should always contribute to a child whether he wanted that child or not!

If a man doesn't want a child, he needs to either wear a condom or not have sex, it literally is THAT simple. If he doesn't do that, he is accepting the risk of a potential pregnancy. There is no 2 way street about it. I would say the same thing for women, I do not want any more children myself so I use my own contraception. The difference is, if I had an unwanted pregnancy I could get an abortion, so if anything men ought to be MORE careful about what he puts in a woman's body because he doesn't have that choice.

I’d also be uncomfortable with her dishonesty and I’d wonder where she would draw the line, what else is she dishonest about.

And I would not be booking a holiday with her.

LOL absolutely is relevant. A deadbeat dad getting what he deserves? Sounds good to me.

I’m a single mum/rp and I’m not cheering her on.

Unfortunately friend made it the OP's business when she told her. She should have kept it to herself if that's what she was doing. Very unwise to shoot her mouth off.

Given that it's not the OP but the OP's friend who has the child with this man, the OP already followed your suggestion of abstaining from sex with him.

Your arguement has one major flaw: the mum is paying for her child. "It's a two way street" in the sense that both parents are responsible for financial upkeep of the child (and as we know, the legally enforceable fees on the non-resident parent are minimal). No one is saying that it's "just" the man's fault.

In answer to your question, scenario 3 (viz., woman wants baby and man doesn't) then yes absolutely he is still responsible and should pay his share. The only way to reliably avoid this is not to have sex.

No knee jerk reaction here. It's obvious that you should be responsible for the children you cause to be born, and that this applies to both parents.

For the record I think that what the friend is doing in lying for more money is wrong. Not as wrong as not seeing one's own child for six months, but still wrong.

Well if we're going to start making up stories...what about if it was a planned pregnancy and he cheated on her with a woman from work because she was too tired for sex? Or maybe he persuaded her to have a baby and then changed his mind? Or maybe she trusted him to use a condom and came off the pill for health reasons and he used it incompetently, or it was too big and fell off? Or maybe like a lot of men he thought the risk (to him) of pregnancy wasn't worth having to wear a condom, because he could always walk away if she insisted on going ahead with it?

Seriously, we know nothing whatsoever about the circumstances of this child's conception other than two people had sex, so were both responsible for the consequences, and that the one person who was able to walk away from the consequences did exactly that, leaving the other to face them alone.