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!

I'd be hard pressed to give a fuck really.
I say this as a single parent who knows that, no matter how generous or how much a father is made to pay, it's never really even half when all things are taken into account.
And don't come at me with the "but babies cost nothing etc etc" Not true and CS will never be a truly equal contribution 🤷‍♀️

Reading the op again I am not sure that the friend is doing anything wrong. She is getting her ex to pay the true cost of childcare while finding ways of making savings on it at her end to her own benefit. Is she really getting anything extra by using her work
holiday allowance to spend a day with her dc? Holiday allowance is not finite. Her ex has to step up and pay his dues. How she finds ways to make savings to her and her child’s benefit is nobody else’s business. I couldn’t begrudge a single parent for finding ways to make her and her child’s lives a bit easier.

Yet strangely he had insufficient concerns about her character to have sex with her, and found her intolerable only at the point a baby resulted. What an unfortunate coincidence. Particularly for the blameless child he ignored.

Children need care & if the father won't do it, he needs to buy in that service to cover his obligation for 50% of every minute of every day. Even at minimum wage, that's almost £1k per week. So no, he's not being swindled in my opinion. It's the swathes of bad fathers who offload their care responsibilities to women & expect that labour for free who are the swindlers here. Not a woman who knows the worth of her time & efforts.

Maybe that’s why she is doing this actually. He’s unpredictable and once walked out on her while she was pregnant and stayed away until the child was 6 months. The child is still only 2 with ages to go until they turn 18 and perhaps the mother is assuming he is unreliable based on personal experience and is planning ahead for if the child support suddenly dries up again, which it often the case.

I agree it’s not honest but I would just pretend I never heard it. The friend was not very smart to brag about it. I probably would double check anything she charged me too to be on the safe side.

Wow fascinating poll results just shows how this place is full of men haters who’d justify any morally bankrupt behaviour so long as a man was the victim. Wow just wow 😳

He's not a victim. He abandoned his kid for 6 months.

😂😂 someone that abandons their child is NOT a victim by any stretch of the imagination!

Seriously couldn’t be bothered to get worked up about it. Everyone knows that CM doesn’t cover the actual cost particularly the cost to the mum career wise of being full time carer. He left her when she was pregnant and didn’t even see his DD until she was 6 months old. If your friend wants to trick him who cares? Doesn’t mean she goes round defrauding grannies or anything- she probably does feel she’s owed for what he put her through.

Funny how people are ignoring this. It's nothing to do with him being a man or man hating, it's that he's a terrible parent. If the sexes were reversed I'd say exactly the same thing.

And I have no sympathy for shit mothers.

She doesn't sound a shit mother to me. She's doing all the parenting.

I wouldn't get that worked up or judge/end my friendship based on knowing this one piece of information. There's probably a lot more to it and I wouldn't want to get involved. Agreed it's silly of her to be talking about it, but looking back I've also over shared about exes to good friends. Although it's not relevant/doesn't excuse the dishonesty, break ups cause a lot of pain and being left while pregnant and six months after with him not seeing the baby sounds fairly traumatic so I'd probably let this one go if she's a good friend otherwise.

Doing all the parenting doesn’t automatically make you a good parent.

She’s a shit mother because she’s dishonest and deceitful, and those are awful traits to demonstrate to your child.

I wouldn’t get worked up over this. You don’t know the exact amount he is paying or whether it is beyond what his maintenance should be anyway. Sounds like he knows very little detail about the nursery his child is attending. If I was paying nursery fees for my child I would want to see the contract and fee details - it all seems very odd.

Maybe she felt embarrassed when you mentioned about going somewhere cheaper and so blurted some weird reason out as to why she could afford more than you but it came out wrong?

Well the baby would be in care if it had been left to the loser Dad go step up. She is a wonderful mother for knowing her worth and ensuring he is supporting her to spend time with her dd, which is after all BENEFITING the child most of all. Good on her.

Nobody knows why the father left. Nobody knows if he was denied access to his child. Nobody can judge on assumptions. That being said, if what the mother told the OP is true:

OP stated that his maintenance payments are already high, which would suggest higher than what CMS would demand. The pair of them have come to an agreement that adequately covers his share of childcare and the cost of raising their child.

It's wrong for the mother to defraud the man (keep in mind it's not all going towards their child, as she called it 'extra income' to explain why she was viewing expensive hotels) as some kind of a retribution for no contact for the first six months.

As a previous poster said, two wrongs don't make a right.

And he's a shit father.

Agree. Fade her out if you don't want to know.

The system itself is stacked against mothers. Of course they will look for other ways to get their child’s needs met, he can’t even manage a night - pitiful!

Wow, that’s a low bar to set! “She’s a wonderful mother because she didn’t let the baby go into care!” 😂

No, she’s an awful mother who will bring her child up to be an awful person just like her.

Erm, he is the father and missing in action.

Good for her. Absolutely salute women protecting themselves and their children from feckless useless men.

Do you not have anything to say about the dad who doesn't even parent his child overnight and did nothing for the first 6 months?

And blabbed about it to the OP whose DH works with her ex !!! Bonkers.

And these responses show exactly why men shouldn’t trust women.

(I am a woman myself btw, and you’re embarrassingly letting the side down. If you think you’re a feminist, you’re not, just so you know.)