My exes and finances

[Exandstress]

New poster here.
I have 2 DDs aged 15 and 7, they have different dads. My eldest sees her dad every other weekend Saturday and Sunday and he pays me just over £550 a month in maintenance. My other DD sees her dad every Friday after school until Monday morning when he drops her off at school. Until 18 months ago he used to pay me £250 a month as he has 2 children from his new wife at home as well which meant what my daughter gets went down.

His wife has a great job and is the breadwinner in the home. 18 months ago he decided to stop working and instead is staying at home with the kids meaning I was getting nothing. I spoke to his wife about this and she said that they already pay for her gymnastics and art class and thinks that more than covers an acceptable amount. They were already paying these though and I was getting £250 a month on top.

I have just found out that he has won some form of claim against his ex employer and is about to receive £190,000. I messaged him saying some of that money is mine for his daughter and he can’t just ignore her. He has responded saying that the money is not for that and I am not entitled to anything. I told him that I am out £4500 over the last 18 months through no fault of my own and should be entitled to some money. I asked if he is planning on going back to work soon and he said it looks unlikely. I personally think if he can’t work then he shouldn’t be looking after my DD but he wasn’t happy with me saying this.

AIBU to think that I should be entitled to some of the payout from his ex employer. This is money for lost earnings and I lost earnings whilst he wasn’t working.

This will be a bit controversial but women like the OP are why the 2 child benefit cap should stay, because with the age of her youngest you can bet your boots there would be another on the way if the cap wasn’t there

Yes he should pay you the back pay he owe’s you, as that compensation is to cover lost earnings, and some of those earnings went to you. He clearly isn’t going to though.

You say you can’t work full time but her father is around and can go and pick her up from school given he won’t be working anymore. Get him to do some of the running around for gymnastics etc. If he won’t pay towards his DD then your next option is to increase your household income via full time work and make him do his bit. Lots of us are single mums and work full time. I’ve got 3 kids, almost all grown up now but they went to a nursery, and then wrap around care, plus holiday clubs. You will be a low earner so you’d get financial help with this.

In 3yrs your maintenance for eldest will stop and you’ll be down a lot. 11yrs any UC you get for kids will go too. Whilst UC topping up part time wages might seem like a luxury now so you can work part time, you won’t be building much of a pension or savings towards the future when benefits stop or reduce. Which they will be in just 3yrs time. You need to reframe your thinking.

my children were 6 and 10 when I split from their dad - I worked full time I had no choice. He also never had them Overnight.

He lost use of the right side of his body. However, just because he can no longer work manual labour there’s other work out there.

Crikey!! Now that is one heck of a drip feed. Especially from someone who works 15 hours a week

@Zanzara sorry - I hadn't seen your post but have basically repeated it 😄

This.

But I do have some sympathy for you and your child OP though as he should want to be spending a chunk of that on his kid even if it’s sticking it in trust for her.

Maybe he will do so.

Well that’s a big drip feed.

Do you claim UC too?

You choose to only work 15 hours. This is what is wrong with the benefits system in the UK.

You only have less than 3 years left from your first DD’s maintenance stopping do you have a plan to replace this money yourself to keep you able to work part time?

I think that your ex should give you some of his compensation money towards your child maintenance. However, I also think that it is possible for you to work more hours even though you are a single parent to two children. I worked full-time as a single parent to three children and a lot of single parents do.

I’m amazed by the responses here.

Children aren’t free to house, clothe, feed etc. And maintenance is intended to help balance out the costs of those needs between the two homes.

There are situations where the law doesn’t enforce maintenance payments - where the non resident parent isn’t working is one of them - but that doesn’t stop the child’s costs existing. If a resident parent who had lost their job just stopped paying for their child social services would be called.

If my ex lost his job but still had a good household income, and received a significant payout from his ex employer then I would expect him to continue paying maintenance from a moral, if not a legal, standpoint.

Going forward I don’t think it’s reasonable to insist he works if he is significantly disabled, but I am surprised that they aren’t paying some sort of maintenance as a couple even if the law doesn’t oblige them to.

I do agree with pp that it is probably time to look for a better job, so that you are more self sufficient. ….

Yabu to keep referring to maintenance payments for your DC as ‘earnings’.

So your ex has lost use of half his body and legitimately unlikely can work and yet you refuse to work full time even though you have a teenager in a year who can vote and a 7 year old! Please you are so entitled and lazy

Going forward I don’t think it’s reasonable to insist he works if he significantly disabled, but I am surprised that they aren’t paying some sort of maintenance as a couple even if the law doesn’t oblige them to

By ‘as a couple’ I presume you mean his wife. I had the same request from DH’s ex years ago when he was temporarily out of a job. She thought I would want to contribute to their children. My 9 month old DC was in FT nursery, I worked FT, she didn’t work at all, and their children were similar ages to OP here. I said no. You can’t demand money from the new wife so you can continue to not work (or work 15 hours, which is basically the same thing). Maximise your own income before you go demanding anyone else’s

Why can’t you work full time? Not many of us love full time, stressful jobs but - here we are- we do it anyway.
I can’t imagine asking others for money and moaning, and working so little hours.
Nobody seems to want to pay their way and set an example anymore!

Have you read all the responses from the op?

Surely she has a responsibility to earn enough to support her dc as much as he does? She has an old teenager, and both in school and the younger one with her dad every weekend, but can only work 15 hours a week. Come on!

I don’t really understand why OP is getting such a hard time here. There are countless threads about shitty men getting out of paying CMS and everyone is outraged. Of course it’s her maintenance it’s to pay for the costs of her having their child more than him, hearing, school uniform etc. Those costs haven’t gone away even though his contribution has. Ultimately he couldn’t afford to not work as it meant he couldn’t afford to be responsible for all his children. So no he should not have become a stay at home dad and expected OP to pick up the tab.

Either from his wife’s earnings (family money presumably) if they have jointly agreed that he will be a stay at home dad. Or from his settlement which is presumably being used to house, feed, clothe his other kids. Or from his benefits.

I agree with all this but UC should stop or be reduced if maintenance is paid. Plus UC shouldn't be a tool to be used so people can relax all weekend because they need a rest from working 15 hours and looking after their own children. This is just wrong. I worked full time and weekends to support my family as did my DH.

This is what is wrong with the benefits system in the UK. Everyone wants to do the bare minimum to maximise their entitlement. I can’t believe my taxes are paying for people like OP to choose a lifestyle of part time work because she needs a rest from parenting her own children.

I’d be speaking to him about his contact days. It’s not fair for you to shoulder the burden of all school pick ups and drop offs and him to get all the fun weekend time. Maybe he should have her Sunday - Weds drop off instead. Should give you chance to work a bit more to make up shortfall if you can’t cope without it too.

I do think people are being unfair saying you aren’t a single mum. I count myself as one. I’ve got a DP, but he has a house and I have a house. He spends a lot of time at mine, but I have to run my house on my income alone. My child’s dad sees her for 5 hours once a week, and it’s me that does probably 80% of everything for her (my mum does the rest). Unless you’ve got someone with you actively sharing the load I don’t think it stops you being a single mum.

I think you’re seeing £190k and thinking it’s a huge amount of money but your ex has been significantly disabled and as a result is no lo longer able to work. That money is to compensate for his loss of future earnings as well as the costs he has incurred to date. I’m guessing he’s around 40 years old, so 28 years to retirement at the most basic calculation that’s £6785 a year that this money allows him as an annual income.

He hasn’t had a lucky win, and he hasn’t done a runner and left you to raise your child alone. Despite a significant and debilitating accident he has continued to be an active parent and has her in his care 43% of the time.

It is completely unreasonable for you to expect his new wife to work to pay and subsidise your child.

I agree with this in theory but the reason it’s not like that is because it doesn’t work in practice.

I know so many single mums whose exes don’t pay maintenance; or who pay it late; or who deduct money from it because they paid for one jumper; or who refuse to pay because she got her nails done etc etc.

I would love to see CMS have and use the power to really properly enforce maintenance agreements including for parents who are self employed, working illegally, change jobs all the time etc. I’d love it to be free for the collecting parent if they have proof the paying parent wasn’t paying on a private agreement. And I would love the rules to change so that wealth - savings, inheritance, assets etc - are looked at if someone says they can’t pay due to lack of income. And I’d love for cms debts to be considered priority debts with debt collectors etc etc if they’re not paid.

And then I’d be 100 percent supportive of it being counted as income for universal credit.

Maybe he isn't working during the week because he needs to "unwind" from looking after his daughter all weekend (which frankly, is harder than school runs and 15hr work a week, even if you ignore the significant new onset disability!)

PS if a trust has been set up for his daughter, he can't easily change it into his wife's name, it's quite a long winded affair. What he's probably done is changed who oversees the release/spending of it, and based on your attitude to money I can see why!

@EnglishRain is your or your DC’s fathers income supplemented by UC benefits?

There's a lot of talk of what you're entitled to, and how much you're down. You realise it isn't your income, yeah? Its for your child?

If he isn't working then he has no income and therefore there isn't any money to give you. What his partner earns is irrelevant as she has no financial responsibility for your child.

I am a lone parent OP. Have been for 15 years. No maintenance or contact with ex. I worked full time and my DD16 just did her GCSEs and is now at 6th form college.

I have never had the luxury of time or days off not for 16 years.

It sucks that he can’t or won’t pay maintenance yes but honestly you need to reframe this a bit and start focussing on what you can do instead.

Many of us don’t have a co-parenting situation, we work hard, we save and we bring our kids up.

It’s not his wife’s job to substitute here, your DD has two capable parents.