Men who quit their jobs to avoid CM payments...

[Dweetfidilove]

How do they afford to live? I often read about exes that have quit their jobs to avoid paying CM. Are there that many self-employed/cash in hand/family support set ups that enable them to not work?

How do they pay their other bills? Where do they live? Presumably they're not all on benefits, as if they are, the DWP requires them to find employment at some point and sanctions them if they don't.

Surely you wouldn't just choose a life of struggle, just to spite your ex and children?

If your ex has given up his job to avoid CM payments, how does he support himself?

They work cash in hand or go self employed and fiddle the books like my ex did (until the tax man caught him and dobbed him in to the csa🤣)

My ex had a baby with his new partner, quit his job to be a sahd to save on childcare and maintenance

Let their new partner fund them

What a shitbag! Completely ignoring the fact that he has at least one other child to provide for.

@Dweetfidilove I do think the CMS should apply "deprivation of assets" in these instances.

The same as they do with care for the elderly.

Sadly, the CMS seems incredibly ineffectual and it's the children who suffer rather than the parent trying to evade their responsibility.

My x moved in with his new woman and she finds him

A SAHD I could see a new partner being on board with, but how has he found someone happy to just fund an unemployed man??

DH could give up work and be a SAHD if we wanted to, I would be able to pay the bills especially with childcare savings.

He wouldn’t, but we easily could.

There is a lot of gullible women out there

Excellent! Hope they've collected every penny owed 🤣.

Because a lot of men think CMS gets spent by the mothers on themselves as it doesn't enter their tiny brains that raising a child costs money - food clothes shoes school costs etc and they think we are living the life of luxury

It should be against the law and there should be a block on receiving benefits if you have a CMS claim against you

Are there that many women happy to fund an unemployed man to facilitate him not looking after his children? I'd be terrified of getting pregnant by such a feckless, spiteful dud ☹️.

The child support service in this country is an absolute joke. I have experience of both the American and the Australian system and they simply would not get away with it in either of those for example.
My ex genuinely lost his job. It wasn’t anything malicious on his part. But of course I’m nearly £5000 out of pocket because if he’s not earning it he can’t pay it but funnily enough. The child did not stop costing me money during that period of time so now I’m £5000 in Debt.

In both Australia and America, it wouldn’t be me that would be in Debt. It would be him.
And he had the absolute audacity to pay for a big ticket item while he was unemployed and put it on his credit card which was essential to the child’s well-being. And tried to tell me he was going to deduct that out of future payments. That will not be happening.

I have a young adult daughter and I can completely see how this happens. I really can.
She has been educated. She has been to university. She is a smart woman who deserves an equal partner. But she waste her time with deadbeats. You can already tell their deadbeats at 23.

They’re very clever and manipulative men.

The sob stories they give people are seemingly plausible.

When I worked for CMS briefly I had one woman running to berate us that we were taking “even more” money from her partner when he was “already paying £1000 a week”. It was only when I asked her how he was doing that from his £25k a year job that she stopped her rant and the penny dropped for her that he was an utter bullshitter.

One chap I dealt with screwed his own life up. Worked for new gf’s dad off the books. Put the house in her name. Car in her name. Everything in her name. Plead poverty to CMS. Was royally screwed himself when they split up and nothing was his…

A SAHD dad without the means to otherwise fund the children he's sired? I couldn't be on board with that, no.

There are a lot of women who don’t realise soon enough that the charming manipulative guy with the sob story about his awful ex is a feckless spiteful dud.

I agree. The system is dire ☹️.

SE people can also set up Ltd companies and pay themselves the minimum, to reduce maintenance to a pittance. People will say that they can have the CMS investigate dividends etc but in reality, this take years and mostly goes nowhere.

My exes new wife actively helped him avoid CMS when he could. With her encouragement she he cut down time with out girls to the minimum and expected me to pay for their train travel to visit him.

Then she was genuinely surprised when he did the same after they split up because he’d told her she was different…

The truth is that the CMS doesn't have any teeth and there isn't the legal backing to take people to court for non payment. That could be changed. In some countries no child maintenance/arrears = no driving license or no passport - things that really affect the defaulting parent.

Same way any family unit decides it’s financially “better” for one of them to be SAHP. It will be a combination of not paying CMS and receiving benefits. It’s low aspiration and in the long term it creates a poverty trap unless you are using the time to get qualifications.

We had builders a couple of years ago I sat raging listening to them talk about how they avoided paying CM by working cash in hand and putting everything in the new partner's name. I refused to pay cash for anything. He also kept telling me how terrible it was his ex took everything - realised she probably didn't have to as he had most likely put it all in her name to avoid paying a previous ex or dodging tax.

I don't know much about Australia, but I do like the way the US system operates.

Much more robust than what we have here. I have a friend whose ex was dumped by his new fiance when she realised they'd never be able to purchase a home together. He'd worked cash in hand with hos family for years. Started working 'properly ' when he got engaged so they could get a mortgage. The CMS swooped in immediately and started collecting his arrears (he owed years worth) and she didn't like what they future looked like, so left him 🤣.

I know a few. They're all successful, driven, capable and attractive and could do so much better.

I think it's a funny phenomenon whereby a strong woman is very much in the mindset that she doesn't need a man to provide for her, but still so much wants to be "reasonable" and "fair" that she kind of walks into an exploitative situation. I know there are many men supporting women but I think it's very rare for the women not to be doing SOMETHING in return. They might be SAHMs or even just trophy wives/sugar babies but even then they are fulfilling the purpose the man wants. Obviously there are some excellent SAHDs but I do think it's more common, among couples who do this, for the kept man not to really be doing anything except letting the woman not be single.