AIBU to ask ex husband for child maintenance money?

[laurajayneinkent]

My ex husband and I have two children aged 11 & 14 and have been fully separated for 6.5 years. We are very amicable and we co-parent well together.
I have never asked him for any weekly/monthly maintenance money for the children as I have always earnt more than him. I pay the mortgage (small 3-bed terrace) and all bills/food/etc, plus all expenses for the kids except for birthday/Xmas presents, school uniform and school bus pass - he pays me back half of these costs. He rents a small house not far away and obviously has his own bills for that. His rent is cheap as he rents the house from his workplace. He has the kids 1-2 nights per week (at the weekends). Neither of us lives with a partner.
Over the last 5 years I have had 4 redundancies (but luckily always found another job within a month) and worked my way up from £30k to £45k. Over that time he has changed job once and had pay rises and gone from £23k to £27k.
I was made redundant again in October and have got a new job starting in Jan (£46k) - so I have had 2 months without pay which means that almost all of my (meagre) savings will be gone by the time I get paid at end Jan. I think I will have just £1k left by then.
Do I ask him for some maintenance money for the kids' food/electricity for these 2 months when I was jobless? Or possibly even as an ongoing thing (inc for clothes)? How much should I ask for? I have no idea! As I said, we are very amicable and I think he will be reasonable if I ask him for something towards their food etc. I know he has £5k in savings so he isn't living hand to mouth.

Yes of course. I’d run it through a maintenance calculator and ask for that amount to cover the months you have no income.

Why wouldn't you? And why haven't you? The money isn't for you (so your income doesn't actually matter), it's him paying for his children.
You could try and ask him for the few months, only, given that he probably wants to make sure his kids are cared for and you aren't struggling. That depends on your relationship, though, and how you are getting on generally.

I've waited patiently for over a year to file for divorce and have finally done so last week (needed to sort the financials first, because he won't), and my ex will get a bill for unpaid maintenance from my solicitor in the next few weeks. It's close to 12k. Granted, we do not co-parent well together. He's a cheating, selfish twat...

I’ve said that URBU because he should be supporting his children regardless of how much you earn. The maintenance is for them not you.

Yes you should Op.
His kids need to eat

Yes, he needs to pay for his kids. I never asked my ex for maintenance and did regret it. When he got married to a new partner I decided enough was enough as our DD refused to stay at his house as he went to work overseas for a few years and returned with a woman and a teenage boy, the same age as her!

I asked him one Christmas period and he was fuming, even though we had been split maybe 12yrs at that point and he was earning double his salary whilst overseas. I certainly gave him a huge lecture of how much i’d still facilitated his relationship with his kids and fact he was putting money aside for their uni was irrelevant, I was struggling to pay for everything. A few weeks later he showed up and apologised and gave me 15k! It still was no-where near what he should have paid over the years but it was something. DD is 3 months off being 18 (youngest child) and I really wish i’d have pushed for maintenance when they were younger instead of just struggling.

Are you separated or divorced?

You should ask for maintenance.

Yes, 100% ask. He should always have paid. You've been very nice. It's a hard conversation to have as you don't want to rock the boat, understandably, but just remember it is for your kids.

rIts unreasonable you have to ask he is aware he has a child to support and should do it automatically. You don’t need to feel guilty/greedy he should be paying.

My ex walked out and been inconsistent paying he’d try and haggle some money he made from football reffing eg accept £60 in cash…. In summer he got a girlfriend and since then i’ve not received a penny. He’s seen our child for 15mins to give her a few christmas presents which i’m fairly certain he didn’t choose for himself. X2 pairs of shein jeans which far too big for her plus he said before when his mother bought her shein pjamas he thought shein was cheap and nasty and they were an insult…..

CMS let me down when my older children’s dad refused to pay fairly and now i’m back having to make another claim. Ex has sent upsetting messages since receiving contact from CMS and was threatening to take our daughter for christmas day - but hasn’t seen her in months, doesn’t pay and i don’t even know where she lives. Another of his pay days been and gone and nothing. The process is upsetting and draining wish these selfish men would just pay what’s fair and stop dragging things out

Eh? Why wouldn’t you? And more to the point, why haven’t you up to now? They are his kids, of course he should be supporting them. Honestly, I despair sometimes.

This is how much he should pay for 2 kids that stay 1-2 nights per week if he earns £27k. Does he know you’ve no money coming in?

As above, it's based on his income after tax and how many nights he has them, not your income.

Thanks all. I should add that the reason I've not asked him for any maintenance until now is because I'd prefer him to be able to have his own place and be able to have the kids at weekends etc. On his salary he probably wouldn't be able to afford his own rent/bills if I asked him to contribute the amount that the government calculator says (over £1400 a month!)
He's from Italy (settled status here) and his parents (and all his relatives) are in Italy so he can't live with his parents or relatives. The last thing I'd want would be for him to return to Italy because he couldn't afford to rent anywhere (we're in Kent which is quite expensive).
He's very helpful with the kids - he does 2-3 school pickups per week, takes them to piano and swimming, etc, so he is an involved parent, and our arrangements are very amicable so if I have a work trip etc he will have the kids for the duration of that.

Where are you getting £1400 a month for 2 children? It's around 25% of his net income if I recall (15% for one child, not two lots of 15% for 2 children) and if it's coming out at that then he's on a very high net salary

I think you have miscalculated if you think it will be £1400 pcm on £27k pa salary, especially if he has them two nights per week (which it will probably reliably be if you put in a claim).

Put it through the calculator correctly but also look at how much 50% of birthday/Xmas presents, school uniform and school bus passes comes to because you might find that contribution ends.

I’ve just had a quick look on the calculator and for £27k at 1-2 nights per week it’s £307.42 pcm and if he bumps it up slightly to be 2-3 nights per week then it would be £281.77.

The school bus pass for the secondary school in a nearby town that a friend uses works out at £133 pcm so presents and uniform etc might mean that he is already indirectly covering what he would be expected to pay anyway.

You've gone wrong on the calculator somewhere as that's just under 17.5k which in no way would someone on 27k pay.

Is there an error on gross/net pay? Or perhaps put in a monthly/annual salary error?

Sorry I think I typed £27000 and then pressed "per month" instead of "per year"!!! That explains it 😊

I think you've done the calculator wrong. On £27k annual salary his take home after tax would be around £1600 therefore he wouldn't be paying anything like your figures. To give you a rough idea , my ex paid £325 a month for 1 child when he had DS every other weekend and a couple of weeks during the school holidays, BUT he flatly refused to pay anything else at all and was on a £75k salary. He set this amount during financial arrangements so it never went anywhere other than incorporated into the final financial agreement.

Can you ask him to pay for more things like their phone contracts and a very nominal amount towards food.

If he were paying maintenance then he may not contribute 50% of the various things he currently does.

£300 a month and half on presents, school uniform and bus passes is more than reasonable.

If you're on £46k it's not like you're a high earner rolling in it!

You should ask him to start paying regularl maintenance. I can just about afford to support my kids on my own, but as my ex only has them EOW and earns well I do ask him to pay maintenance, he doesn't pay as much as the calculator says he should as he argued he would be on the breadline if he did . It must have been so stressful being made redundant he should have asked if you were managing.