Just a rant about how blatantly unfair this is for women?

[jiarA]

And yes it is mainly women.

My ex does next to no parenting. I do 95% of it because he is ‘busy with work.’ Many women actually would criticise me for this and say I should TELL him to step up. I have… newsflash, he won’t.

He pays CMS which is 12 percent of his salary. Despite being a reasonable amount as he earns well, this doesn’t touch the sides of 50% of the actual costs due to nursery. He gets away with this while I meet the shortfall…and do all drops offs and picks ups and 95% of personal care for our child.

The narrative of single mothers being a drain on society.. sorry what? You mean the mothers picking up the physical, emotional and financial shortfalls of these largely absent men? The narrative is so deeply wrong it is shocking it has become a narrative at all.

Ex doesn’t need to be there if his child is unwell or needs to be picked up from nursery. But if I wasn’t there I would be considered neglectful.

My earning potential is hampered by the fact I am doing more than the lion’s share of care for our child while he does almost nothing. He will be applauded for his career and his standing in society while I am forced to fade out at least until our child is older.

There’s lots more.

These men should surely be noted for their lack of involvement with their children? Even if they cannot be forced to actually parent, it should be publicly available for all to see exactly what they pay and what they do for their child.

I know I sound bitter. I’m actually quite good fun usually - honest 😂 but all of this bollocks absolutely drains me. It feels unfair because it is!

Really? I can't remember seeing a single thread like that. Where the woman wants a child and the man doesn't and 90% advise an ultimatum? On this website? I have seen threads where the woman wants kids, the man says he does but "not yet" and it's been 10 years. In those cases sure people will be advising a deadline or ultimatum on making a decision. But even there, lots will be saying LTB not give him an ultimatum.

I agree with you op I'm absolutely fuming that my ex did that to me - I had half a years salary lost while on mat leave and he says child maintenance is enough as he didn't think I spent several hundred a month 'on the baby'

But guess what - now that the nursery funding has come in and he has moved in with a girlfriend and her child he is agrressively suddenly trying to take the child 50/50 to avoid child maintenance having never had him overnight or even for nap time at his house before. Be careful what you wish goes

Have you told his mum
I'm honestly considering that as my next step

I agree

YES

YANBU. At all.
I am home with my 3 daughters, one of whom is going through school refusal and is a challenge, while my ex husband is on a 3 week honeymoon in Canada (with the woman he cheated on me with).
There is NO way he'd have them for 3 weeks if I went away.
If he came across a raging bear, I wouldn't be too disappointed

No I think mumsnet obviously has a bias towards women who want to become mums. A baby has such an impact on a woman, her health, her body, her career etc etc. You just won't hear about the men pressuring their partners here.

Ex boyfriend has had his son 90% of the time since he and his wife split in 2020. His inability to see me due to her flaky childcare is what essentially led to us splitting up.

He was desperate to become a dad. She was indifferent. When he finally became a dad, he fell deeply in love. She fell into her career while he picked up a lot of the child rearing slack. When they split, he fought to stay in the family home with his son, but she didn't argue. She half heartedly agreed to 50/50. She quickly started cancelling having her son. He buys everything for the boy and she half heartedly has him every other Saturday and one occasional overnight a week.

Ex boyfriend loves his life, as he gets to spend so much time with his son.

@bbiscuitandcake well that's an interesting way to 'reframe' it. Usually it's if he doesn't want to have a kid then LTB, and do it alone if you really want it (which obviously means then no chance of any maintenance and most likely even worse outcomes for the child). At the end of the day, people need to teach their children, both male and female, to make good choices and be responsible for the consequences of those choices. I still stand by that a man who can just walk away from his children, in most cases can't have been someone with great values in the first place.

Which is great when it works ultimately my ex decided that he didn't want children after all

They were five and one when we split he spent the next 8 years cutting his parenting time down and eventually out he is getting married soon and not invited his children

Bastard. And bastard for taking the out a few years after getting what he wanted and leaving you to deal with the carnage he left behind.

Like you, I'm getting a bit fed up of the rhetoric of some on this thread insisting that it's only the women pushing to have children and the men are indifferent to wanting them.

@Sweetteaplease then you're willfully refusing to believe what many women have told you. Not sure why you'd do that...no-one is saying that in some cases there may have been red flags but not in all, not for years in some cases . There's no point in participating in a discussion if you're not prepared to be open to what people are telling you.

I'm not reframing anything. I was trying to maybe see the point you were making because what you said made 0 sense. Find me one thread ONE where a poster complains her "Man doesn't want kid." and "99% people tell OP to give him an ultimatum". I think you are just making up what other women think to make yourself feel superior at this point. Which is fine if it works for you.

I know who you mean! It's utterly ridiculous the double standards.

I agree. And it’s nice that this thread is mostly supportive.

My ex husband works term time only, so you’d think maybe he’d cover the majority of the school holidays, or at least half? Nope, he’s only done 2 weeks this summer. I realise that’s 2 weeks more than many other men would do but he’s had 4 weeks to do whatever he wants. Me however, 99% of my annual leave I use up during school holidays.

I asked him to cover one extra day this week as my mum who was supposed to look after our two dc, had a hospital appointment. He said no.

If a woman worked term time only and refused to look after her own children for one extra day so her ex husband could work, that wouldn’t be acceptable would it?

He also pays no regular maintenance due to being self employed and CMS saying he doesn’t have to pay because supposedly he’s on benefits. As the single resident parent I am expected to work 30 hours a week (which I do and more) but he isn’t expected to work any. Makes total sense 🙄 He is almost certainly committing benefit fraud as he has a six figure sum in his bank account from me buying him out of our house. As soon as he got that, he stopped paying maintenance. Convenient! He’s managed to buy a new car recently though and go on multiple city breaks with his girlfriend.

I hesitated about posting this because no doubt someone will come along and say that I am so lucky because my ex does some of the holidays. And this means I get so much time to myself apparently, despite the fact that I am working. My best friend said it was “really good” that he contributed a few quid to the holiday club. My work colleague said I was “so lucky” to be able to go home to an empty house now and again, but I don’t tell her how bloody lucky SHE is to have a husband who brings home triple her salary!

There is someone doing work on my neighbour’s house at the moment and we got chatting about holidays, and I said we’d just got home from spending a week in Cornwall. He looked at me in shock and asked “how on earth do you afford that”. Probably because I wfh and dress scruffy he has no idea I’m in a professional job. I bet my ex husband never gets asked how he affords to buy things.

I earn more than him as I managed to build my career around the children and he resents it. I consider myself a reasonable person and don’t expect him to cover 50% of costs but it would be nice if I could rely on a bit more than him saying he will “try and contribute” like sometimes he will contribute nothing towards swimming lessons etc and sometimes he’ll pay half and the next time it will probably be a quarter because he’s just got back off holiday.

But no, as the single mother I am the utter scourge on society. I can’t see things changing any time soon. Even on MN the recommendation to struggling new mums is often to get their own mum or sister to help, no need for the Important Man to take time off work and god forbid he loses an hour of sleep.

Well I would absolutely be asking them to investigate his benefit claims since I believe 16k is the limit allowed in savings. Ridiculous and just yet another example.