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?

He’s right OP because you do currently have shared care, equal time with the child and you’ve also both been contributing equally to the child’s other things as you’ve admitted yourself & he can evidence that through your texts asking for money & his bank transfers.

I don’t know why you say yes thank you . It must surely cover everything you pay for ?

you aren’t on a bad wage .. I think you sound bitter ..

I had to do it all for my Ds . Organise it take him. I could have used the £7 he paid through CMS .. there would have been other ways to do this . Like pay into a joint account for spending hobbies / trips / uniforms .

i think this is one of those posts you will just fight for as much as you can .

just a question if you got £450 a month what would you do with that money ?

CMS only considers the paying parent’s income, not the receiving parent’s income. However, since your child spends equal time with both, no payment is due.

If you put the details in as though he were claiming from you, it shows you owe him £250 per month ..surely these figures are deducted from each other then the higher earner pays the difference to the lower earner? Not exact amounts obviously but surely that’s the starting point?

But they’re not together…you don’t get to benefit indefinitely from an ex partner’s income. Your currently partner obviously if you live together there is an expectation each benefits from the other.

So now you won’t get any money and you’ve potentially destroyed a perfect co parenting arrangement.. well done !

When he has organised and paid for those things did he ask you to contribute your half?

My main worry is that will he now stop paying half of everything? Will the extra maintenance cover those expenses?

Would you also support the ex pursuing the OP for the £60 a week the CMS calculator says that she owes him?

So if the calculator says he owes OP £99pw and she owes him £61pw, she is doing all this for £38pw. Sounds like less than he's paying now.

Shared overnights or shared care..I don't get the difference..is that both saying 50/50? But if cms are taking direct from his wages aren't you getting the payment now?

If you are receiving payment now and court changes the cms you may have to pay it back. CMS stuff up payments all the time or calculate incorrectly...oddly enough they never have to pay up for their mistakes and it's the parents 😅

But that £99 will now have to pay for all the extras that he currently just pays for like the swimming lessons. So OP might find she is actually worse off than her current amicable arrangement.

But how she can claim she has “more of the mental load”. That’s just bollocks.

She has the child for a week, then the child goes to his dad for a week. So she fully parents in her week and he fully parents in his (and she thus has no mental load for 7 days I imagine…)

The odd email from school during his week that she may need to respond to is hardly a mental load. If it’s that onerous then just forward it to him and let him deal with it as it’s his week.

I’m all for absent parents (usually dads ) paying their way and contributing to their children’s upkeep but this really isn’t the case here.

I think that where there is a very large disparity in earnings, and therefore lifestyles, child maintenance can be paid even with a 50/50 contact arrangement.

Yes, but I think the level is more like £156k for the higher earner.

Even if this "proportional paying' thing was reasonable (which it isn't), Its genuinely bizarre to me how many people on mumsnet dont seem to understand that tax exists.

If the child was moving between palace and poverty every other week, I’d see your point. But it seems like that’s not the case here. Unless you think your child is going without anything at their father’s house that he should be providing? Food/clothes/toys/outings/bedroom/transport etc etc?
what has your child got to gain from this that they don’t already have access to?

you realise now he wont be sendingd you half for everything else like swimming lothes extra trips

is it worth it

If you earn 65k do you even get to keep any of the child benefit money? You’ve said he often does the organising of the stuff he pays for and school stuff when DC is with him, you just ‘feel’ like you do more. Honestly I think you are the biggest CF I’ve seen on here in ages. Hopefully he takes you to court

His contribution for half of extra items like hobbies, clothes, school stuff is probably closer to £200, which is why I put the claim in as it comes out at over £400. So I could get the extra money and put it into a pot for our child, for holidays or just general savings.

But you have a proper 50/50 arrangement. So his 99 per week in the calculator, minus your 61 is around 40 per week. So less than £200. Plus you’re getting the child benefit.

Or your hair and nails

So he pays half of what it currently costs to raise your child (in addition to the equal amounts you both pay in time) and yet you want another £200 which you don't need, so your ex can pay for your holidays. Do you have no self-respect? You clearly have no respect for him. Greedy af, and all you'll get from it is ruining your coparenting relationship.

So basically he pays half, and looks after the child half the time including extra curricular activities and you want to throw away co-parenting amicably because occasionally you cant be bothered to get him to sign a form and so you can get a few extra £100 to go on holiday?

I think the court will have a field day with you tbh.

You really are, probably, the most ridiculous woman scoring an absolute scorcher of an own goal. The calculator doesn’t work properly for genuine 50/50 arrangements. CMS will come back and say he owes nothing. If they, for some idiotic reason, side with you, the courts will overrule it.

Congratulations. Such a marvellous job you’ve done.