to be sick of DP's ex wife's demands

[forestcookie]

The dc live with her primarily but DP does loads. He takes the dc to school 2 mornings a week so she can go to work early and miss the traffic, he has to be at her house for 7.45am. He picks the children up once or twice a week, depending if it's his weekend or not - has them EOW for 3 nights. He would pick them up more but he works late 3 nights a week. He is on 25k, she is on something like 40k but she has standard office hours - 9-5, no late nights etc. He is in a tiny rented 1 bedroom flat, she has a large 3 bedroom house with a garden, driveway etc. She also gets child benefit and UC help, DP doesn't see any of that.

DP has just given her £300 towards their swimming lessons and summer holiday clubs - his "half", IMO she should pay more because she earns more, and I don't know why he is paying towards childcare because UC pay for it, but he didn't want her to kick off.

Now he usually picks up the children on Wednesday nights from after school club, again this enables her to work. She has just told him that tomorrow night she is going to see a friend for dinner and won't be back until 9.30pm. DP usually likes to leave her house by 9pm so he can get home and have dinner and prepare for work the next day. DP has told her this and she has kicked off saying she doesn't have a life or time to socialise (she does). I don't think she should be going out that night anyway, because DP has to be in her house without her which I don't really like. He has offered to have the kids overnight Wednesday nights but the dc don't want this.

AIBU to tell DP to put his foot down? He is knackered all the time from working late or looking after the DC while she gets to earn more and get home late as long as he is looking after them!

Ex gets 85% of childcare costs back through UC. Yet she still expects (and DP pays) 50% from DP. so she is actually making a profit !!
You are joking, right?
She houses, feeds and clothes their children with money she earns. Not to mention bearing the mental load as well. But you're concerned about her 'making a profit' You've already said he's paid two lots of £300 THIS YEAR. Every post is highlighting YOUR jealousy. She's 'lucky'. He can't afford to buy a house but "she bought him out and her house is worth more than he can get"
She has benefitted hugely from the rise in house prices
She's benefitted from losing the dead weight he must have been just as he's 'benefitting' from the choices HE has made 🤷‍♀️
On wednesdays he doesn't leave as soon as she gets home because he wants to spend time with the dc
So she's not even around and he's spending time with the kids but doesn't leave when she gets home so he can spend time with the kids and he just happens to be subjected to her walking around in a towel. Oh, OP 😆
I don't see why dp should have to remain single because he has children. he deserves a life outside the kids and work and if the ex hasn't moved on yet well that's not his problem
What a ridiculous statement 🙄
No one said he has to remain single. And, clearly, he 'has a life' with the little time he allocates his kids. Which you want to restrict further. The ex works and provides for THEIR children and you're calling it 'hasn't moved on yet'. Nothing like the green eyed monster shining through. Just because she is obviously much better off financially and emotionally no doubt, than you know you'll ever be with him. Focus your frustration in the right direction OP. Nothing you've said about her indicates she's unreasonable or pining for him 🙄
the more money she insists he chucks at the kids' expensive hobbies the longer it will take for us to save up for a place of our own
Awwww, poor you. Of course the kids should have to swim in the cold pool so you don't suffer. 'Expensive hobbies' my arse 😂
Not sure how you worked out that she is smart and capable when she has to rope her Mum and DP in to cover what she can't manage. From what dp said she had some lucky breaks at work and was lucky to land a family friendly flexible employer that she's worked for for years
'ropes in' 😂 'can't manage' 😂
You are the gift that just keeps giving OP. Luck. All luck. 🙄

You will get a lot of angry posts from disgruntled ex-wives on here, but you are not BU. Mothers using their kids as a weapon to get their own way over their ex is far too common and she does sound unreasonable
Meh.
You'll get supportive posts from disgruntled step parents but you are still BU 🤷‍♀️
In no way does this woman sound like she's using her kids as a weapon. She sees to be getting on with her life, providing for her children and receiving as little support from their father as he can get away with. Totes unreasonable lol

I see, thanks guys. This was in Covid times 2020, we also checked on the gov website and it stated if not employed then CMS wasn't required. Perhaps things have changed? 🤷🏻‍♀️@Thoughtful2355

Yes, I have been with my bf for 4 years and we don’t live together either. But I don’t call him my partner, because he’s not, he’s my boyfriend. I love him dearly and things are great, but we don’t cohabit, we have separate finances, he has zero say on how I parent and wouldn’t dream of having any kind of opinion on how to deal with my ex, because it has nothing to do with him.

FFS, he doesn't do loads. He does barely anything.
Child support obligations don't change because one parent earns more. This would all have been calculated in the original support agreement.
You sound like you just don't like his ex and maybe are a wee bit jealous of her lifestyle.

He's tired from having his kids for a weekend every two weeks and taking them to school twice a week? 😆 Aw, the poor baby.
YABU.

Thats great for you, and I respect that. The point is that you dont get to decide how other people define their relationship.

I am in more of a partnership than many people I know who live together or are married to be honest! So I choose to call him my DP, and him me. Why are you to say that the OP wrong in the terminology she uses, just because her relationship is different from hers?

Well in the case of the OP, it’s because the entire situation sounds pretty ludicrous, and even being generous with the term ‘partner’, I think that it would be a stretch to describe their situation as that. Saving for a house to buy together but no idea whether the kids know about her or how they get on…they sound as daft as each other.

Exactly. Plus jealous that her boyfriend does anything at all for his kids, which she sees as helping out the ex. This is the kind of person who thinks men occasionally minding their own children is worthy of a brass band and a ticker tape parade. She's wishing he would stick 100% of the care on his ex and pay no support.
Being jealous of the small amount of time he spends with his kids is so gross and wrong. 🤢

Why does the end result of any relationship have to be "living together"?!

Seems to me that so many define relationships this way, despite this being the very same way that most relationships fail!

See MN for examples "He was wonderful until we lived together/got married"....no thanks!

Smart and capable enough to make her own luck! Good employees are valued and employers want to retain them EVEN IF they have children!
Do you really believe that she has had random luck & hasn’t earned her good fortune by being smart and capable as an employee AND a parent, yes also smart to move on from Ex.

Wow. You are one of the most misguided posters I have ever seen.
I don't even know where to start with this load of rubbish.
It's a good thing he keeps you away from the kids. Maybe he has reasons other than the small space, like, for example, you don't give a flying fuck about their well-being and are completely selfish.

The gall of you deciding wearing a towel while saying goodnight is "inappropriate" for a mother to do. What are you implying here, that's she's doing it for sexual reasons? Absolutely despicable. You're just saying that out of venomous spite towards his ex. You're quite a piece of work. Please never have children yourself.

Oh, you think young children somehow cost less than teenagers to raise? 😆 Good grief, the ignorance! What a nightmare you must be IRL.

Your attitude is absolutely shocking.

You think your boyfriend is amazing for doing a couple of collections/pick ups and having the kids EOW but that he deserves a life and break so should tell the ex to fuck off, but you judge and slate the ex for needing a bit of help when she has the kids the majority of the time. Those people are picking up your boyfriends share of the parenting by the way, not the exes.

You think she should pay for everything because your boyfriend told you a load of lies about how CMS said he wasn't earning enough to pay so you think that he's giving her loads of money he doesn't have to give her because he's generous. There's no way that on 25k he was told he's not earning enough to pay anything.

You have entirely swallowed the Kool-aid.

they only assess his wages once a year, so when the time comes for reassessment of course he will pay more if that is what he is told to do.

A decent man provides for his children. Not the bare minimum he can get away with, and the occasional handout.

i haven't met the children yet because i can't stay over at his place yet whilst his children are there due to lack of space. i can hardly come over to his ex's house can i.

There are more than two places in the world for you to meet up. There are parks, for instance.

So she doesn't even have to do the school run half the time. Just finishes work and comes home

And then does everything else! Have you even ever met an actual child? You will keel over and die if this man and you ever do progress your "relationship", as they are time-consuming, draining, and incredibly expensive. You already resent them when they are not in your life, and not taking up much of his time.

And then does everything else! Have you even ever met an actual child? You will keel over and die if this man and you ever do progress your "relationship", as they are time-consuming, draining, and incredibly expensive. You already resent them when they are not in your life, and not taking up much of his time.

If they live together she'll be one of the posters posting on here about how the ex is taking the piss by asking if the dad can keep them for an extra night here or there. And God forbid if there were any health issues on the mothers side and the kids had to move in full time for any period of time.

What a bitch she is, expecting him to parent his children AND contribute to them financially! Wow, that poor poor man. No wonder he had to give up his better paying job so he didn’t have to pay maintenance. She must’ve been literally taking his money and spending it on the kids! Greedy cow!

@forestcookie she had to rope her mum and dad in to do things she can't?

That's not true, it's your slant on it? She's arranged reliable childcare when neither her or their father can do the childcare.

What's it got to do with you not liking him going to her home to look after his children?

You sound very immature and jealous.

And he is winding you up a treat.

As I posted earlier in this thread, my ex is living entirely on benefits (UC), and whenever I've used the CMS calculator it says their income is too low to have to pay anything at all. Not even £7 a week. I've ticked pretty much every box on the benefits list on the calculator, and it always gives me that answer. The only way it ever gives me an answer that isn't zero is if I tell it that my ex gets an income of over £100 a week.

Is the government calculator wrong?

@forestcookie and being together two years and not meeting his children is a 🚩 imo!

Why not meet at the park?

Mumsnetters, something is off here. For two years she's been with him but has not met his kids? The excuse about the size of his home is ridiculous. Clearly he does not want the children to meet her.

I suspect the reason he broke up with his ex is he had an affair with OP. So he is hiding her from his kids so they won't figure it out someday.
OP talks like an OW. She's jealous of the ex-wife and angry about the fact that part of BF's income is going to his kids instead of being used to take her out and buy her things. That's typical selfish OW bullshit.

It's bonkers. He just doesn't want her around his kids. She is massively deluding herself.

Sounds like she's the one who can't win.

There was obviously a period of time where he couldn't take them overnight and she never got a break, now he's taking them EOW and does a couple of pick ups and sees them for a few hours and he's whining about how he's so exhausted and never gets any me time.

She doesn't get maintenance from him and just asks for him to pay half of stuff here and there and you and him are still moaning and complaining.
If he paid her maintenence then she wouldn't need to be asking him to pay for stuff, she shouldn't have to ask, and you act like she's in the wrong for expecting him to financially contribute to his own children.

Just once she asked him to stay a whole 30 minutes later because she's having dinner with her friend, and he's moaning that he likes to leave by 9 to get ready for the next day and you're on here starting a thread about it and how he needs to put his foot down. God forbid he can't clock off from parenting when it suits him every time he has to look after HIS OWN CHILDREN. Considering she lives with the kids full time I'm sure she has many, many evenings where she doesn't get to get ready for the next day at the time she had planned.

Wow you sound like a catty busybody.

I genuinely think that a lot of the toxic thinking towards your DP's ex is coming from him and should be a red flag for you to maybe consider if you ever want kids with this man.
HOUSE VALUE
You state that she has profited from increased value of the home like he didn't have the potential to. House value is fluctuating and there is absolutely no way they didn't have the house valued (either by surveyor or 3 estate agencies) prior to dividing the assets and her buying him out. Why are you spending time guessing what her house is worth now? He is no longer invested in that asset as she fairly bought it from him. If you are taking that guess from zoopla it's a very poor way of estimating value. Do you know that her new mortgage is £700 or is that based off the mortgage payment they had? Because she would have had to re do it with new interest rates so that seems fairly low for the price of house. Honestly let it go, she's doing well being able to afford a house and working hard to provide a nice space for her kids.

School runs
I work unsocial hours around my DH office hours and I recognise I have much more flexibility to do the school run. Also I love my kids and want to see them before and after school. Therefore I do 10/10 school runs even when on a run of 3 nightshifts. Your DP is working evenings and sporadic shifts during holidays and does a maximum of 4/10 (but often 2/10) which is still less than half. She is responsible for getting the kids the rest of the time which she occasionally delegates to parents. She's still getting them from after school club so there is still a school run albeit later so that is a moot point.

She's not a waster, she is working hard for her kids which is tricky in office hours. I certainly couldn't do it. Nor could I raise kids solo on her salary. Your DP has reduced his hours and salary significantly to spend time with the kids but spends not a whole lot of time with the kids. I understand love turns to hate and its hard to see someone thriving in their house while you are in a small flat but I think there's a lot of value in speaking about the mother of your children respectfully. He doesn't seem to be that guy which is fine if that is what you are attracted to but the level of interest you have in this woman's life is a major red flag.

I just did the same thing and it came up with £7/week. I ticked Universal Credit and they had no other income. Calculate your child maintenance - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Is the government calculator wrong?

I just did it again but instead of ticking the children stay 1 night a week, I ticked 1-2 nights, now it comes up with zero. In order for it to calculate £7 they have to stay zero or one night a week which is fair enough. I'd have preferred a night off a week over my massive £7!

May the Good Lord preserve all single parents from the ill-formed opinions of their ex husband’s latest sticky beak bedmate.

Amen.