To be upset my hubby is insisting I go back to work full time even though ...

[Willowwisp]

We could manage me doing 4 days compressed into 3 with strict budgeting and if he went to the CSA again to get the 1/3 for OUR daughter taken from his salary?

Ok long story cut short coming up .... Hubby has ex-wife, has two children who I adore and get on famously with. Ex-wife is a complete loony who has made our lives, particularly mine a misery since we got together (they were split 3 years before we met). She thinks he is a personal bank for her to delve into when she see's fit, he has always paid for his children, never missed payments and pays half for everything, but she still wants more!

When we met he paid an outrageous amount of money to her (over £600), we wanted to get married, get mortgage, have a family of our own etc and he asked her to reduce money by £100, she said no (blamed me, she refers to me as the 'bitch' to his kids) so he went to the CSA and they reduced it for us, which was fair according to his salary.

We now have a daughter (8 mths) and I'm due to go back to work in 8 weeks, I can't bear the thought of it but know I have to, I want to go back part-time and he is insisting 'I have to get my head around full time' as we can't manage financially. Ex knows we could go to the CSA to get the other 1/3 taken of his salary for OUR daughter so she has been Mrs Nice since DD was born, calling him mate, sending pleasant text and it really fecks me off! He forgets that last year she told his kids he was a shit Dad!

He point blankly refuses to approach the CSA to see about getting the 1/3 taken off his salary, ex has massive 4 bed house, convertible car, works part time and lives a life of luxury, BUT I'm expected to struggle through. He say WE will have to cut down and DD doesn't need all the nice things I think she should have, like his kids do!

So AIBU to think my DH is being unreasonable in expecting ME to finance his ex-wifes luxury lifestyle and miss the most precious days of my daughters life to a CM?? all because he says we can't manage, when he knows what has to be done!

Any suggestions?

£600 would be amazing. I get £0 from my ex!

She cant help being ill-informed. Dont be too hard on her

But actually my comment was the most helpful wasn't it? The classic trick to pay less to the first wife and family is for the new wife to work full time and the father not to work at all and then he just has to pay £3 or £7 via the CSA. That is correct isn't it? Therefore the best way for the second wife to get her revenge etc on the first or indeed do a good turn to the first by forcing the first back to work (or I suppose into the arms of another man prepared to support her) is for the second wife to work full time and keep her new baby and husband and the husband to stop work.

The most useful comment on this thread was info on the CSA calcuations website IMO. Glad you followed the link, willowwisp, so you know where you stand.

I'd love to know how the second wife can afford such a luxury lifestyle. It can't be from the £600 she gets from her ex husband. Sorry, I am being nosy.

willowwisp, you are not being unreasonable to feel resentful, but now you know the difference is just £60.00 a month, at least you know the CSA payment is not going to be the deciding factor in you working full or part time.

I don't think anyone with a small baby should feel obligated to going back to work full time if they strongly do not want to - and the family can manage financially. Obviously some people - I was one of them - have to work full time with a baby to keep the family together. But I don't feel that's the best solution for everyone else.

Is there any chance you and your dh can raise money via a loan or remortage so you can work part time for while, then agree with dh to up your hours later?

"The choice to work is an easier and more obvious one when the salary is attractive. This is not the case for the VAST majority of mothers."

Madame Cholet - I sort of agree. I know where you are coming from.

But attractive salaries come at a cost. In my case - very long hours, a lot of tight, unpredictable deadlines and frequent unforeseeable international travel.

An attractive salary is not always sufficient to make the choice to continue to work after having children "obvious".

Xenia - I know you are angry at your ex-husband (and have a little bit of understanding why you are so) but I don't think you are helping the OP with your posts.

I think the OP's DH is trying to be fair to everyone and not upset the status quo - and that is very, very difficult. I know: my partner often has conflict-of-interest issues to resolve between his ex and our family (and they are not, thankfully, financial issues).

oops, just seen I attributed the luxury lifestyle to the second wife. I meant the first wife of course!

I completely disagree that first children should come first - WHY??? I'm an eldest child should I get preference over my siblings?????

That's not to say that their father should not pay for them. The payment however has to reflect further children he has with subsequent partners and his circumstances.

To say also that the OP is not paying is not true. She 'pays' every time the child(ren) stay, their bank balance goes down, she buys them things, she caters for their birthdays, she treats them as one of her own, she compromises knowing that she chose to marry somebody with other children etc etc etc.

I don't think you are being unreasonable in the slightest but think you have a hard road in front of you. Please don't get stressed about things you can't do anything about without putting pressure on your family. You should be able to deal with CSA directly btw but your dh will have to sign a form which should be downloadable from their website allowing them to speak with you as a 'representative'.

Good luck

In France it is clearly enshrined in law that all children, whether they are from first, second or ninth marriages or born out-of-wedlock get treated identically when it comes to inheritance or indeed parental hand-outs.

My partner recently made over a lot of money to all three children. He had to give exactly the same sum (down to the last centime) to each of the three.

How can the ex build a swimming pool on £600 a month?

Why does everyone assume that the divorce and the breaking of the first marriage commitment was the man's fault? There are situations where women are a nightmare to live with, or where they are unfaithful to their husbands. If a marriage ends, the marriage is over. The mutual commitment to the children remains of course, as it should, so the question really is whether the husband is paying enough of HIS SHARE in the cost of THEIR children. On the one hand, it is hard to calculate the financial cost of children, because it is impossible to put a cost on the emotional disruption of forcing the children to move out of the family home because you feel it is too luxurious. On the otherhand, if the ex is using the money to buy designer clothes and handbags, whilst your dh is unable to contemplate "necessities" such as his own new baby in his own life, despite being the main earner, then he is not being treated fairly. Furthermore, the first marriage is over. The choices that EITHER person from that marriage makes, in terms of new partners/families, are nothing to do with the ex wife - the effect on the children of the first marriage should be considered imo, but not the ex-wife.

bluebutterfly - I don't think everyone on this thread assumes it's "the man's fault" (I certainly don't) but you make a very valid point.

In any case once a divorce is pronounced there is no reason on earth why either ex-spouse should remain endebted to the other and especially not to the extent that a "first family" take precedence over a "second family". The idea is madness.

I second bluebutterfly, men often take th fack but it's not always their fault that the relationship ends yet they still ahve to maintain th echildren (rightly) and the wife (not so) imo

Some of you are being deliberately obtuse. Obvously all children are equal when they arrive. Nobody is blaming the 8th child of a fourth marriage that he/she was brought into the world.

But it is too cavalier to bring more children into the World when you can't support the ones you have. When family one is 'managing' only just, it must be sickening to know that the children's father is spending money on IVf for more children.

And if the OP's ex only contributes 7,200 to his son's upbringing for the next 18 yrs, then he will be paying a lot less for that child than if they'd stayed together as a family.

Time and time again the inference seems to be that the first family can enough to survive, and no more. Any extra is grudged. The second family however, want to see the fruits of their labours in terms of luxury and money to spare.

I have learned some lessons in my life too. I am an intelligent woman of 38 but I have not got a pot to piss in.

I would advise any woman to work. And I say that knowing that the only good thing about my life right now (on paper I mean, I'm not unhappy generally) is that I get to stay at home with my children.

Dont allow yourself to be backed into a corner with nowhere to go but the poor house.

Ok, my case was extreme, so ignore the last sentence .

I think that that is not the point at all MadameC, in fact quite the reverse seems to be the case in the OP's situation. The first family have a luxurious lifestyle that the OP can not replicate at all. I don't think extra should be grudged the children of the first marriage, but nor should it be grudged the subsequent children after the first marriage is over. I think that allocations do need to take account of the father's obligations to his new baby, too, and as we have no idea what led to the divorce in the first place, it is easy to assume that it was the man who left the first wife high and dry. It may have been the other way around. If he has been forced to live away from his children, with limited access to them, and continuing financial responsibility, he may feel that he is missing out on their lives to an extent and who would begrudge him happiness with a new baby that he can be around all the time?

I don't think the op has said anywhere that the ex wife is building a swimming pool on the £600 a month what I think she is saying is that she is feeling backed into a corner about working full time so they can afford to live normally day to day yet her DH will not look into the possibility that he could be paying a bit less through the CSA to his ex wife and their children.
While he is refusing to do this to possibly save them what may be only be a few £'s but they do all add up that his ex wife is doing massive re modelling to her home including some huge luxuries.
While I totally agree that he should be paying for his children I can see and understand why the OP is resenftul of the situation. She is not wasnting to give up work merely work less hours to be able to enjoy a very much wanted and tried for baby. I think her DH needs to listen to her and see if they can work a compromise here.

I think the obligatoin to work full time as a mother of a baby is actualy very common particularly if your husband is just a policeeman and you've a mortgage etc whether you're a first or second wife. I always worked full time in a marriage (a first marriage) where both of us worked.

On the question of subsequent children my point is most people can only afford 2 children and one wife and one house. If they do divorce whether through the fault of the ex wife or not I don't see why they have a licence to have more children than they otherwise would have done morally (in law obviously they do in law they can give up all work and not support any of 9 children if a man so chooses). if you can afford to support two households an dhave 3 more children with a new wife, great. If you can't afford it then your obligation remains to your first children and you shouldn't perhaps have more children as you can't afford them. Obviously I'm just taking one point of view here. I would like to see many more incentives to make single mothers of under 5s and upwards forced to work full time and more obligatory 50% of contact arrangements where fathers are forced to have their first children to stay one week on one off an dpay for child care of those children during their compulsory week or half of each working week.

If you have children who live with you you have day in day out financial demands which all mount up whether you're at my income level or anyone else's and men who only have their children for occasional times like every other weekend like most men don't really understand the constant financial demands.

In a sense when you choose to marry a man with children (many many women avoid them like the plague to avoid these kinds of issues given there are lots of men around without these complications and financial drains and other priorities) but if you do go for one of these men then this is often a known complication. Also men paying out to their former housewife do tend to want the second wife to be different and work full time and Anna's case I think is the same in reverse - he has wanted someone at home more because having a full time working wife didn't work out before.

OP you have my sympathy. I have to leave my baby and work, to pay for DH's ex wife to stay home 'for the children' - who are all mid to late teens.

Lazy cow.

"just a policeman"???

YANBU. The ex-wife isn't struggling financially, so your dh has no obligation to pay her anything over the amount that the CSA deems to be fair in your current circumstances, taking your baby into account.

Xenia - I get £50 a week for DD - it is a pathetic amount but apparently my XH has a low paid job - what planet do you live on where £600 isn't a lot?

YABU

Sorry. My belief is that your DH had pre-existing financial commitments to his children. You knew that when you married him and it was part of the deal. Now you've got lovely children of your own, I do understand and sympathise but it is not fair to renege on previous agreements simply because you've taken on additional commitments. The first family deserves certainty.

I do agree with Xenia that £500 a month is really not a lot of money as a contribution to two children btw

What's wrong with working anyway? It's good ...

"it is not fair to renege on previous agreements simply because you've taken on additional commitments"

In this case, the specific agreement includes a provision for renegotiation should the man have more children.

So, from a legal perspective, you are not correct Quattrocento.

By the way, the OP refers to the ex-wife getting £600 per month BEFORE it was reduced - the request was for it to be reduced by £100 so I am assuming that the contribution is now £500 a month. So that's £6000 per year for two children. Which is not a lot.

As for the standard of living of the first family that is nothing to do with the second wife. The first wife may be (a) older which normally leads to greater financial security (b) have a good part-time job (c) have parents or family who provide financial support.

It's really best to think of your DH as not having the money that he contributes to his first family - as though it isn't his - a better and more healthy way of thinking IMO.