AIBU or my ex? Child maintenance

[MoneyWoe]

Me and my ex share our child equally, half the time each. He pays for some things, like our child’s weekly swimming sessions, I pay for others, like dinner money. So this part is equal but I would say I do most of the organising for things. Example, I will organise our child’s school trips like filling in the forms and he will give me half the money. This has worked but recently I have got fed up of having to message him asking for half of the money for things all the time, so I put in an application for child maintenance. I didn’t realise this at the time but he is on a very large salary and the money it says he owes is hundreds a month, way more than when he was just paying half of things. He is saying he is going to argue this with them as we share our child equally, and according to him, in these sorts of equal cases he doesn’t need to pay any maintenance. He said he will take it to court if he has to. He’s also said I might have to pay any money back if the child maintenance service agrees with him.

AIBU to expect him to pay the maintenance and is he correct in that he won’t need to pay any maintenance in our situation?

Wonder how much damage you’ve done to your coparenting arrangement during this period. Hopefully he continues as he has been but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he didn’t now you’ve done this.

I'm hoping for OP's sake that none of this came as a surprise to him as presumably he already knows her pretty well, and the reason the coparenting relationship has been good has more to do with him doing the best thing for his child than genuine good will towards her. The best thing for everyone is if he rolls his eyes and says "Classic MoneyWoe, hopefully she won't try anything like that again for a while," and everything goes back to normal.

I Don't think you are being unreasonable if you don't want to keep asking for half of everything, it can cause friction and make you feel as though you haven't separated.
How I understand it works though from friends who share 50/50 arrangements is that
he needs to do a counter claim against you so that you can work out the difference( if there is any) for one to pay the other because you have your child 50/50 so for example if he has to pay you £400 a month but you have to pay him £300 a month, he would only then need to give you the difference of £100 . Be prepared that he wouldn't be liable to pay for anything extra on top of what he gives you if it works out that way though.

These queries make me want to scream. You were in a relationship and you broke up. That would have been traumatic for your child however harmonious you were with your ex. So please please think first about your child and whether demanding maintenance is going to ultimately be good for them. Nothing else matters much. Put the needs of your child first. For goodness sake try and resolve it amicably with the Dad without involving the CMS.

Yes you’re unreasonable. He has his child half the time so has to pay for the child while it’s there. He pays for half of evening.

you are being greedy because you’ve found out that he has money.

I think by being greedy you have spoiled a good arrangement which was working and the only person to suffer is your DC.

I’ve got to agree. Looks like you’ve caused unnecessary drama between you both which could affect your co parenting relationship

As someone who does 100% of the parenting & only gets £29 a month from my ex (and that’s only after going to CMS!), I think you’ve been greedy & unreasonable. Most Mums would kill for an ex that is a decent Dad who shares parental responsibility and pays half of everything, with what you’ve done you’ve potentially now ruined a decent coparenting situation you had. Madness…::

Clearly you have never been in a situation of this nature. 'Couldn't be bothered' is a bit strong here.
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I’m shocked at the “you’re being greedy” comments around here. This is your child’s money, you’ve not put on an application for yourself but for your child. And your child’s life is due the same level of quality that he or she has at their father’s house (or should have). The CMS calculation is never wrong, there’s nothing he can do about it.

The CMS calculation is never wrong, there’s nothing he can do about it.

Maybe read all the OP’s posts…,

Except that’s not the case at all, OP has already said quite clearly that they have 50/50 care, and they split all of the child’s expenses equally too. OP was also very explicitly clear about the facf she wanted the extra money as payment for filling out a few forms for school- absolutely nothing to do with whats best for the child.

OP has also already now found out she’s not able to claim.

OP, I'm glad you got some good advice. Unfortunately the CMS calculator is rather limited in 50/50 arrangements and I do think the site should have more visible, warnings about that and links to additional information.

It sounds like dropping the claim is the right step, but that doesn't mean that you need to just be grateful and shut up if there are parts of your arrangements with your ex that you think could be more fair or efficient. I'd consider apoligizing to your ex for going straight to making a claim and then explain that it was driven by some frustration about admin tasks. If there are some responsibilties you think it would be fair for him to take on, say so. Maybe he could be in charge of signing up for swimming and other athletics and your role with that is to confirm a particular schedule will work on your weeks and get half. Maybe there are some more things he can be the point of contact for. Schools and extra-curriculars tend to default to contacting the mother (I'm very familiar with this - my DH is the "daytime parent"/primary contact in our family and it can feel like swimming upstream to maintain that). If there's are frequent low-amount transfers of money happening, suggest you both keep a ledger for amounts spent on activities and school expenses and then do one even-out payment at the end of each month.

Just ask him to step up to organise things? It sounds like he does his fair share and is happy to contribute financially. I don’t really see the issue filling out a couple of trip forms 2x a year tbh.

Re the income disparity and "lifestyle" of the child... If you were low-income or he was extremely high income this would be a different conversation and the CMS guidance would be different. You both make a good wage and presumably aren't struggling to provide for your DC's basic needs.

But there is an income disparity, and this can be a fair thing to raise when you feel there are specific opportunities your DC will miss because you can't afford half. Lifestyle isn't really the best word for this and I'd stay away from it because it's associated with household spending and "buying posh stuff." It's less about you getting additional money from him to spend during your time at your home and more about the things that are separate from each household. Things like school trips, extra-curriculars, tutoring, private medical care... these are the types of things where parent income can offer significant advantages and they're not specific to whose house they're at when. So while you can't legally demand it, it's not at all unreasonable to ask your DC's dad to contribute more than 50% to some of these specific expenses. That's different from wanting money from him for you to use on holidays and savings at your discretion and it's far more likely to be received well. You will probably need to re-build a little goodwill before asking for this, though.

That’s not what I’ve been told. I’m going through a divorce, husband earns ~£100k more than me and is only earning that much because I sacrificed my career for his, thinking we’d be together. As we’ll have the kids 50:50 he doesn’t have to pay maintenance.

If it’s the child’s money, where is the rule about it being the mother that has to spend it? She wants to put it in savings or go on holiday, but there’s no reason why the other parent, who does an equal amount of care can’t do that for the child.

BUT op isn't 'how many mums'

The mental load op is carrying researching, organising, signing off and registering DC and then have to contact her ex... while her ex just has to send her half... Sign me up! I don't want to carry the whole mental load, I'd love to just send money/show up and everything is organised for me!

Or he could just do this.

I think you're just being grabby here. He has as much caring responsibilities as you, he shouldn't have to pay you as well.

It seems you're pretty amicable re the children. Why didn't you ask him about this first. He might have sent you money without government interference. You might have stirred up a hornets nest for both of you. Not to mention ongoing hostility.

But he does seem to deal with what comes up in his week. Some things do need one parent to take the lead or DC could be signed up to the school trip twice. If she's wanting the additional cash to handle the extra load then ex could step back and let her buy clothes for his week as well, provide dinner money and all the bits and bobs that he does. All he'd do would look after DD making sure she got to school and after school clubs etc.

Day to day care means who has the most input for activities, nursery/child care fees, clothing, who is the primary contact for Dr, dentist, school etc.
Is there a court order?
If it's all equal, case should close as neither one parent nor the other can be deemed the primary carer.

She isn't carrying it all. Read her posts.