Messed up Ex Family

[ArtfulDoddger]

Dad is refusing to contribute to eldest child’s first school trip.

I made him aware back in November 25. He said at that stage it was too expensive and was going off on a foreign holiday at that stage.

Back story is that his elderly father was on palliative care, he couldn’t take the children as arranged because his father was dying but left to go on a foreign holiday with his mates whilst his father passed away at home.

Fast forward 4-5 months, our daughter is due to go on this trip. I’ve paid £500, £200 is outstanding. He’s off on a cruise next week and said he can’t afford to contribute. Apparently this has been the case from the offset. He earns £56k per annum and pays £500 child maintenance per month.

Am I in the wrong for asking him to contribute?

i only included the issue with his father as it’s important to me, his family were, my children never gof the opportunity to speak to their grandfather before he passed, his mother is still alive but I’m not allowed to take the children to see her.

You're not unreasonable to ask him to contribute but you can't actually force him to if he doesn't want to, especially as he's already said back in November that the trip was too expensive. Unfortunately, it sounds like he is prioritising his own needs over those of his child.

Yeah I agree with po - you can ask but you can’t force him to pay anything more than CMS. Morally he perhaps should, although it sounds like he has already said he wasn’t going to and legally he doesn’t have to.

Agree with this, it does sound like he told you from the start that he wasn’t prepared to pay towards this. It’s one of the tricky parts of coparenting, all families have some kind of chat about whether a trip is affordable but your chat happens across two households, if he said it wasn’t but you decided it was then that becomes your cost to pay really.

I think the issue here is he made it clear before booking he didn’t agree and didn’t want to contribute. You made the choice to sign her up anyway therefore it falls on you to pay.

Why are the children denied access to their grandmother, that is not right.

Seems to me your ex is still controlling you.

He gets to flash his cash on holidays while you are struggling.

I think he’s wrong but he did tell you he wasn’t going to pay and you agreed to the trip anyway

does he have a history of changing his mind?

You asked, which is fair enough. But he clearly said that it was too expensive and would not be paying. It was your choice to book the trip when you knew he wouldn't contribute.

He is paying child maintenance that I assume is calculated by CMS, so it's entirely fair for him to stick to what has been agreed as his fair contribution.

She’s clearly not struggling if she’s sending her kid on £700 school trips.

It sounds like he didn’t agree to the trip in the first place though? You can’t dictate what the other parent must contribute to, it needs to be a joint decision if you expect them to pay.

As for him taking the kids to see his dying father, that’s really his call not yours. Not everyone wants to involve children in the very end of life, it can be unpleasant for adults to process seeing close family members dying in a hospital bed, not all kids could cope with it.