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?

Actually CMS have swathes of powers they could use.

The don’t use the powers they don’t need to go to court for remotely regularly enough.

They can also go to court for an even wider variety of things. There is simply no political will to use them.

when I did my training when I worked there I asked when we’d be trained on a couple of things that were missed (I knew about them as I’d had to use them with my ex). The trainer didn’t even know about them.

Excellent karma 👌🏾

My Dad put his business in the OW's name with himself as an employee earning about £1k a month (early 80s). The 4 bedroom detached house, private school for my half brother and couple of luxury holidays a year would suggest they were doing rather better than he made out 🙄

If you own your own house and have either savings or own a company (even self employed tradie) this is very easy to do.

I'm currently living off savings as due to an accident I can't work. My "income" is very low (interest on the savings) but I don't have to pay mortgage or rent so my savings aren't going down quickly as you might think.

The company might own the van and tools he uses. He doesn't have to pay himself much - he can leave the money in the company.

My friend's ex simply left the country. He was from another country (in Europe), and when they split he quit his job to prevent her getting CMS, did a bit of freelance/cash in hand work for a while, then moved back home. No idea what he's doing now, she hasn't heard from him in years. I don't understand how a man who previously seemed like a fairly good dad could just abandon his children like that.

@Dweetfidilove My X, quit his job got voluntary redundancy (big payout), set up a private business then went back to university and did a masters and PHD after. All the time claiming grants got NIL assessment and then when i could no longer claims earns a ton in his new career.

He pisses me off but is very creative and cleaver at same time.

I’m in Australia. A woman in a group I’m a member of had an XH who left the country to avoid paying CM. He returned after the kids had left school, thinking he was safe. He was stopped at the airport on the way in and hit with a bill for the total amount plus interest - in the hundreds of thousands. Passport seized and bank account frozen. Kids now have a house deposit each. Oh how we laughed!

I think some men are able to play on/manipulate whatever maternal Instinct a woman may have. They become like another child rather than a grown man.

They find a new and gullible partner who believes all their nonsense about an evil ex/their sudden calling to go back to university etc

There are lots of new female partners who complain constantly about the money and time their male partners give their previous children because they are desperate to have children with him cause 'the clocks ticking love'

🤣🤣🤣👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
OMG! I would've helped her laugh too .

We badly need the UK to switch to this system. And to have a fixed amount that is payable (or accrues as debt) if the partner is not earning (whether they are earning cash in hand or felt a sudden urgent need to go back to university/ have a new child and become a SAHD)

I think a lot of them are self-employed and probably scamming the taxman as well.

If it were up to me, a sudden big change of circumstance seemingly to avoid CMS payments would trigger a full HMRC tax investigation.

My exh has £150k in savings. I know this as we had to sell the house in the divorce and that was his share. I informed CMS and they were not interested as they only count income not savings. He’s got plenty of money but he pleads poverty.

Christ, he is clever but it must take so much mental energy to be so malicious and spiteful towards your own children.

I know many of these men think they're spiting the mothers of their children, but the children suffer more from not only the lack of financial contribution, but the likely lack of a relationship with that parent.

What a waste!

I think most of the time they quit their actual job and then start up cash in hand/self employed/off the books so they are never actually without money, it just doesn’t go through HMRC so as far as CMS are concerned they owe £0.

I have a friend who is in this situation with her child’s dad, owes £0 in child maintenance because he’s “unemployed” yet is driving around in an expensive car, multiple holidays/weekends away etc every year.

It is awful though, I think a lot of the time dad’s take the “I’m not giving HER my money” and fail to realise that actually it’s their children they are hurting. I always find it absolute madness to see so many dad’s slagging off the mother of their children, while not paying CMS, when it is only because of the mother that those kids are fed, clothed, warm, have a roof over their head. They always have something to say and never want to contribute or do anything to help, vile.

So is his plan to just work his way through all that savings and not find a job?

Isn't that counterproductive if he'll have to start again from scratch when it's done?

Maybe he's the sort who'll actually attach himself to some woman who's happy to fund him being home. How tragic 😥.

The only part about the Australian system that I don’t like is that it calculate both parents income.
So if Mum was earning $200,000 and Dad was earning $100,000, the child-support would be based on her not needing as much money because she’s earning more.
Which then traps Mum in the position that she’s no better off earning 200,000 than she is earning 100,000 but of course there’s lots of other progression that comes with the 200,000.

I also really like the fact that once you’ve been living together for six months in Australia, you are de facto and therefore there’s none of this we weren’t married. We’re not splitting the assets nonsense.

The answer to that of course is if he doesn’t want to give her money is that she gives him the kids and I think that will happen more and more.

It's ridiculous as not only is it bad for their families but these deadbeat dads cost the taxpayer money as the mum ends up having to claim Universal Credit/a lot more UC than she would if the men just paid up.

Governments always want to go after single mothers and carers working and earning 50p more than they are allowed to while claiming benefits but never pursue these men.

I hear this often, and usually what they're paying can barely cover the child's expense let alone the mother's . Absolute idiots that are too wrapped up inbtheir stupidity to realise what the mother does for their children ☹️

Mine works cash in hand, is self employed & has a girlfriend who tells him how to dodge CMS while making both her children’s fathers pay.
Ive told him if he doesn’t start paying he can tell the kids why they can’t do swimming, gymnastics, any of the clubs as I cannot afford that & to feed them.

I get all the excuses under the book but it’s excuses I myself have, like running a car & a house.
Its called being a parent.

I know many of these men think they're spiting the mothers of their children, but the children suffer more from not only the lack of financial contribution, but the likely lack of a relationship with that parent.

They know this but they don't care. If they really, truly felt that the mother would only refuse the kids the benefit of the money by spending it all
on manicures and facials while the kids go without, they could fiddle the CMS but still get the benefits to their kids by buying them clothes etc directly and making sure they get time with them. They don't, because they don't care. This kind of man sees his family as possessions and auxiliaries to his own life.

You only have to spend half an hour on mumsnet to get a glimpse of the amount of women out there willing to put up with twats. Let’s assume the real number is X 1000.
It’s bloody depressing. My heart sings every time a woman posts that she genuinely isn’t putting up with a crap arsehole of a man anymore (I wonder how many of them are genuine though rather than too embarrassed to admit they never LTB).