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!

another thing Ex used to do is agree to them going to parties on DP's weekends and then expect DP to fork out the money for a card and present for the other child. a child that DP has never met or heard of and didn't agree to the youngest going to the party. but he does it so the kids don't miss out and he doesn't show up to a party without a present.

This is normal parenting. It’s normal for parents not to meet every classmate and to have only heard of them if their child tells a story involving the child. Turning up with a gift is just manners and the parents often take their child so their child has fun and other child has people turn up for the celebration.

You criticise mum for using her mum for pick ups etc but the maternal grandmother is helping her daughter AND your partner out.

The only bit that sounds unreasonable is your partner being unable to say no when he doesn’t want to help but that’s his fault rather than the ex’s.

Gosh if your partner put on half as much effort into his own life as he does judging and moaning about his ex, imagine what he’d manage to achieve/equally provide for his kids…

@forestcookie I feel sure that you are the ex! I do not understand how else you would have such detailed information about the lives of children you have never met. So weird to say that the children's mother doesn't make an effort with her appearance these days too. It just doesn't add up.

Oh @forestcookie as a step mum of 10 years, I really wanted to empathise with you. I do to an extent because it’s not easy navigating a relationship when an ex is involved. But you’re gonna have to realise that some of what you’re saying really isn’t reasonable.

non resident parent should be paying whatever maintenance is legally due, and then covering half of all costs that the maintenance doesn’t cover.

She may be ‘charging’ him childcare because she’s recouping costs that he doesn’t pay for other things. I’m on the flip side of this. My DP earns much more than his ex, has 50/50, still pays her maintenance out of choice (kids would suffer if he didn’t) AND pays ALL expenses for kids. All extra curricular activities done on dad’s time so she doesn’t have to take them anywhere. She pays to feed them when they are with her and an occasional activity on her weekends. Nothing else. I can’t think of a single item of clothing she has ever bought them, yet she manages to afford her fags, booze and class As. So believe me your situation could be a lot worse.

if there’s a party on dad’s weekend then ex should give him the invitation and he can sort it out. That includes RSVPing, buying present etc. Not sure why you think it’s up to ex to buy the present.

I’d suggest your partner has more overnights if he’s looking after them in her house until 9pm. If he can have them overnight on weekend then he can have them in the week. That solves the uncomfortable issue of her prancing around in a towel (that would piss me off too). Then he will be doing a lot closer to 50/50, which is how parenting should be.

I wonder if she is refusing him the extra time or claiming that the kids don’t want overnights in order for her to remain the ‘main’ parent. My partner’s ex did this and he had to get a CAO for the 50/50.

My advice to you is to step back and try and disentangle yourself from it. She’s going to be in his life for years to come and it’s just going to stress you out if you let it. Mum and dad decided to have the kids, let them sort it out.

This just can't be real. You don't know how compressed hours work, you want to dictate what sort of clothes his children wear and what pool they go to, he's paying lots of maintenance except when he's not, he went three weeks without seeing his kids but does loads for them and spends too much time with them, his ex should not assume he'll take them to planned parties on his weekends because no reason, his ex is trying to seduce him by wearing a towel but takes no care of her appearance, you haven't ever met them because you couldn't do any kind of daytime only meetup...

Do you actually hear yourself?

Hahaha if you weren’t trolling before you clearly are now.

nah, this is seriously a troll, no-one can be THIS stupid!

So the ex shouldn't go on holiday, she should be providing clothes for the children to bring to the father's flat, he changed job to spend more time with the kids but doesn't, he doesn't pay any maintenance, he doesn't get a share of the UC or benefits which isn't fair.

What. Utter. Bollocks. I'm amazed this thread is still standing...and that shit about the Fruji pajamas?! What the actual fuck

I’ve been wondering about this thread since this morning and seeing some more of op’s comments. Not adding up I’m afraid.

I havn’t read the full post so maybe we can call them needs or requirements. In my experience ex wives tend to carry out the childcare requirements as if they are still a couple . Therefore ex husband has to drop everything at all points ( in my experience this meant dropping our shared child at ex wife’s whim ) and parent like they are together and don’t have new commitments at all. This seems to work for them , but if you are a new partner it is frustrating as hell and seems like boundaries are being crossed.

It’s why I wouldn’t bother if I was OP, it clearly isn’t the right relationship for her .

So because they have a deadbeat dad the kids shouldn't have nice things?

Who hurt you?!

You sound insane now. Kids go to their classmates parties. Parents buy presents for them to take.

Gosh, he's really spending on those kids. No maintenance. Half the swimming fees. And now a birthday present for a child.

This is quite an unusually interesting situation for mumsnet. We have an almost absent useless father, not unusual, but he is a billion times better than the op. I'd give up people, I genuinely don't think the op has the capacity to take in and understand information. I am quite intrigued about what job you can get with zero brain cells for £30k though.

I’m intrigued why OP’s partner wouldn’t go for the same job since he’s supposedly got more brain cells 👀

What I'm having trouble understanding is the OP's assertion that he pays more maintenance than the CMS tells him, yet apparently they tell him he hasn't got to pay anything.

Your boyfriend is doing considerably less than a 50% share of the parenting. How is that 'loads'-unless you start from the assumption that 90% of the parenting should fall to the mother?

In my experience ex wives tend to carry out the childcare requirements as if they are still a couple . Therefore ex husband has to drop everything at all points ( in my experience this meant dropping our shared child at ex wife’s whim ) and parent like they are together and don’t have new commitments at all.

Well this is what happens when a woman is expected to be a primary carer. If it doesn’t suit you, maybe you should have been more involved in equal care of your shared child from day dot. Don’t worry, a lot of men find it a shock to the system to realise that they actually have to pull their weight/miss out on precious commitments outside of family life once they separate. Women of course are quite used to it.

Because then he'd have to pay a reasonable amount to support his kids and he wouldn't have OP fussing about how wonderful and hard done by he is for doing largely fuck all.

Hmm, maybe he is the smart one...

Someone get this guy a medal! Half the cost of termly swimming lessons and the occasional fiver shoved in a card for their child’s classmates birthday party in lieu of any maintenance or contribution towards clothing, feeding or housing the kids.
Dad of the year.

Well he wouldn’t be paying for 2 wardrobes would he since he hasn’t bought or even contributed to the main set of clothes in the first place.
If he only had them 2 weekends a month what’s the big deal with him buying a few days worth of clothes if he does so much for them anyway?
No wonder the children don’t want to spend any more time at their dad’s house. Who can blame them.

The kindest thing I can say about your post is that you obviously don't realise how much time, money and effort it takes to raise children.

"According to DP," "he keeps me separate from the kids:" Nothing is wrong with this in principle, but he's apparently loading you down with complaints when you're not even directly involved in the drama. Did you know that early relationships should be fun and have enough time to breathe so a couple can build a solid foundation? You sound like a bit of a mug, but I also think you deserve to get out of there and grow with someone who doesn't have all this going on with apparently zero resources to improve it.

He's clearly playing you with "evil ex" stories, and you seem very naive and satisfied with only getting half the story: There's no way this will end well.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Excellent post. Not that any of your balanced and thoughtful points will be taken on board in the slightest by the obnoxious OP, who is still refusing to address any posts/questions except those that even slightly agree with her.

Again, what is your income/mortgage potential?! And why on earth if the relationship is so serious have you not met his children casually in a park or something?

He's not your partner, he's a casual boyfriend. You seem to have a lot of selfish, unattractive character traits in common though so keep clinging on, I guess.