To think DH should pay for DSC school fees

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Just wanted to get your thoughts on this: would you expect your husband to pay school fees for your children / his step children?

If yes, would you expect his to continue to pay school fees if you separated?

My response would be yes to both.

Youre a family, and therefore everything should be shared equally. If you did separate, you should continue to pay the fees the same way you would for your biological children.

Edit: the same would apply if the genders were reversed.

As someone who has three step sisters. It really pisses me off when my grabby step mother insists that all children are equal to my dad and deserve the same. It really devalues my relationship with my father. They only came into our lives when they were teens, young adults so he didn't even raise them.

Unless they have adopted the children, no.

I just don’t understand the logic of people who post in AIBU, get an overwhelming result against them, and still don’t agree or listen! 🤔

Yeah I always think this when these threads come up and posters get insistent that step and bio children must be considered the same. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for children to expect to feel uniquely special to their parents, and this not to be dependent on whether one or both of said parents are in a relationship with someone that has children.

“you’re my child that I birthed and raised, but now I’m dating someone with children those kids are just as special to me, for as long as I’m together with their mother/father anyway”. Yeah, sounds great.

Slightly different scenario but I do wonder sometimes with "ours" babies, when they have half siblings who get the same from their parents as they do and then has the same from another parent too. For example, kids getting equal presents at Christmas. Say SK turns up on Xmas Eve with £200 worth of toys and gifts from their Mum and shows them to ours baby. The next morning, SK wakes up to £200 worth of toys and gifts from their Dad and ours baby also gets £200 worth of toys but that's everything from their Mum and Dad. That doesn't feel equal at all to me.

I imagine that would feel even worse with inheritance, if SK inherits say £50k from Mum and £50k from Dad and ours baby inherits £50k from Dad and Mum and that's it. As though their other parent (that isn't SK's parent) hasn't contributed anything above what they've contributed to SK, but SK's parent (that isn't their parent) has contributed the same as their shared parent.

When I've said this before it's explained as some sort of payback to the SK because of the trauma of divorce and being part of a blended family. But that seems like a really weak argument to me, first off that every child must necessarily be traumatised if their parents are not together, and secondly that this trauma can be healed by throwing presents and money at it.

Honestly I don't think people think enough about this stuff before blending families. It's very hard to make everything exactly fair, impossible almost, since you can't control how much money a child gets from their other parents side.

I don't think the stepfather has an obligation unless he's legally adopted the child. In this case, he's no longer a stepparent and just a parent.

If he didn't adopt the child... either he didn't want to, the child was already an adult human when he met them or the child has an existing biological father who wants to stay the father. I don't see why he should pay in any of those scenarios.

Stepparents can be useful, helpful parental figures, but they're not parents.

I mean, there’s a few things to consider. Is the children’s dad present in their lives? Did mum and dad decide the school before separation? Or was school decided by mum and step-dad, and the dad didn’t really have a say?

Unless the step dad was pushing for private school, he absolutely should not have to pay a penny towards it. It’s all fine and well saying “we’re a family and everyone is equal” but so often it doesn’t work that way - you can’t decide to be equal when you financially benefit, but then decide that their dad actually has the final say on something else.

This is blatantly not a hypothetical either.

"AIBU To think DH should pay for DSC school fees"

That's the title. Not "an ex partner, an ex husband" etc.

DH.

Her DH.

It only became "ohhhh, I'm just being....errrrr....hypothetical" when OP got her arse handed to her on a plate at the batshit crazy entitlement she was showing.

Is he paying child maintenance for DSC now you’ve split?

Absolutely not at all to both. I’m a step mum!! Quick burn the witch but I wouldn’t pay for my step son to go to private school that’s a decision between the mum and dad and my husband would only agree if we had more then enough money that it wouldn’t affect me or our daughters lifestyle. He wouldn’t even ask me to contribute (I am the bread winner btw) I already pay way over and above for my step son more than his mum ever could. When it came to our wills my husband left 50/50 of his side of the estate and I left 10/40 between my step child and my daughter. My SS will get 100% of his mums estate as she is unlikely to marry or have any more children. I had no obligation to give that 10% but I chose to.

You're loopy. Huge no to both. He's your husband, not a cash cow. Poor guy.

😂😂😂😂. You’re joking surely !

I actually agree on you re you are all one family. Though with the caveat that you may decide as a family to have a certain standard of living beyond the means of the biological father, but the DH does not replace the biological father so should not have full responsibility for all costs.

But I voted YABU because you are only one family as long as you are in the relationship. If you break up, the DExH has no rights over their past DSC, so it would be ridiculous that they would continue to be responsible for costs associated with them when they don’t have a right to even see them!

I know this is true and so unfair, I have my daughter with my Ex and she will be going to Uni in 2 years time, I have an okish income but it is my DH who earns a lot more than me so his income will be used but he won’t be contributing as she is his DSC so means I will have to find a lot of money for her as her actual dad/my ex is useless and won’t help

God I've heard some shit in my time. Thanks for a laugh on Friday evening though.

You should consult the stepparents group and you will see that parents and step-parents are not the same thing. And children dont treat their parents and their step-parents the same way.

If a step-parents WANTS to pay, its fine. For that, they must have extra money (contrarily to parents who might sacrify themselves to pay for their kids) and be connected with the kids.

If an ex step-parent is so connected with the kids that he WANTS to pay for them after divorce, its their choice, not an obligation and I would say you, as a mother, should be VERY grateful if it happens. He owes you nothing and you would make your kids feel grateful that he does it for them.

Wrong on so many levels - no step parets hould not have to pay privte school fees for step chiildren If they offer fine but only if actual parents can maintian in event of a split.

OP you are bonkers in your opinion

That’s because it’s equal in each of their parents house though isn’t it.

So with mum, child gets the same as any of their siblings in that house.

with dad, child should also get the same as what dad spends on any new children he has.

The parent treating their own children equal to each other.

Imagine going to visit dad in his new home with his new child and that child gets a Xbox one X at £430 whole dad gives you a £40 Nike hoody. Ouch. Birthday new children gets a top range mountain bike, you get a pair of £50 trainers. You’d think you’d dad didn’t love/like you as much as their new child and that he had replaced you.

This is what happened to my DC. One Christmas their step siblings got brand new, top of the phone iPods (it was a few years ago). They got the old ones which were so old they couldn't be updated and basically did nothing.
The younger half-siblings got the equivalent cost of the new ipods in toys.

My dc could do nothing but assume their Dad loved them less.

What? No and no!

It’s horrible. So sad for the children and when they are older they realise it had nothing to actually do with the step/half siblings and love it was all about keeping the women he was sharing a bed with happy to share the bed.

She wanted her children to have X Y Z and he went with it. Easy life if it’s a happy wife. Probably used the argument but their muuuuum so it’s not faiiiiir.

Well, when my daughter came along, I was chatting to SD about Christmas gifts and she said something to the effect of that DD was getting more money spent on her. I said yes, because we get half of your presents and your Mum gets the other half, whereas we get all of DD's presents. She said, "Oh yeh, that makes sense, so we still get the same amount of presents overall."

She didn't assume her Dad loved her less, she understood that it wouldn't be fair for DD to always get half the amount of birthday and Xmas presents.

It's not as if DD is getting brand new iPads and SD is getting socks though, SD makes a list of things she wants and gives half of the list to her Mum and half the list to us, and DD can't write yet but she gets all of her metaphorical "list" from us. The only time we've said no to either of them was when SD asked for £400 trainers, but normally their tastes are not that expensive.

That's great if it does work out equal overall. I assume your DH has discussed this with his ex?

My ex refuses to discuss it with me, won't contribute to "big" purchases. I don't have a huge budget, so my DC did get less overall. It's also all part of a bigger picture. Their dad would cancel his contact, often after he was due to pick them up, for reasons such as "we've gone on a family holiday/day trip" making it clear they weren't part of the family.

No, I don't think that they should pay for step children. But, if they decide to, they should keep paying. It's not the children's fault the relationship broke down.