To think I deserve more money from him

[Sssettt]

Ex is a consultant in NHS. I have a professional job and could have recently taken a job that out earned him but instead took one circa 30k less than his income because I do literally everything for our three year old

He never has our child overnight as he says it’s impossible with his work. He does see them at weekends but again turns up after going to see his patients and leaves by bedtime. Our child adores him. I don’t want to ruin that or affect it.

BUT I am getting so sick of being the dogs body. Ex has never done a nursery run. He’s never compromised his career. I recognise that I could have got a nanny or extended nursery for dc to allow me to have taken the higher paid job I was offered but I couldn’t do that to dc. Yes that’s my choice but also I don’t know how I would have managed given all domestic duties and childcare fall to me.

So here’s the financial part. Ex should pay me £900 a month via cms. He pays 1,200 instead. He will buy dc bits and pieces alongside this and will get some bigger bits like recently a new bed for him.

I feel hard done by because I’ve lost out financially while he hasn’t. His refusal to co parent fairly means I can’t progress like I otherwise would have and I’m paying less into pension etc.

Please no comments about greed, I know he pays far more than other fathers but that’s not the question here. The fact is he is earning lots and has lots of progression and lots in his pension while I cannot, as a result of his failure to do his share of parenting. I feel 1,500 would be fair from him so I can also save.

I agree that it's unfair on DC and on you, but I'm not sure how much you can expect when he's already paying more than the CMS calculation (which is a joke in general, I'm not saying you should be grateful for what you get). The fact that he's paying more sounds like you can have a conversation about it anyway? There's no harm in you asking for more!

You are so ungrateful. The money he pays you is for the children, not you to live your life or to put into savings!
so he pays you £300 a month more than he is entitled to??
you should be very grateful for that.

wouldn’t it be interesting if he only paid you what he should? What would you do then…?

Im not going to read through pages and pages, why did you split up? Before i cast a comment that may be uneducated, why did you split up?

Unfortunately, as the law stands now, if you have a child outside marriage then you have no rights to anything at the end of the relationship but what you've paid for and CM. A lot of women who've posted on MN have found out the same thing, you may not like the idea of marriage but if you want a DC it's a necessary evil. Your Ex needs to pay for his DC but your finances are nothing to do with him anymore

@Sssettt Bloody hell. You are SO not being unreasonable!!!

Some of the responses here are mind blowing.

I got a similar level of child maintenance but do 100% of the parenting. Even when my ex husband had my child EOW I still did all the day to day parenting, all the responsible bits. All of it.

I cannot work ft. I just couldn’t make it work as a ft single parent. School days are short. School holidays are long. It was financially too hard to pay for all the wrap around childcare but also my child REALLY couldn’t have coped with weeks and weeks of full time holiday camps in the holidays.

It is massively unfair. I am a really great Mum but my pension is miniscule as a result and my earning power once my child is at secondary school is diminished because I’ve been part time for so long.

OP, it’s not fair. I’d ask your ex partner to contribute more either by way of childcare costs (or actual childcare!) or more maintenance to reflect the salary discrepancy.

Sometimes I feel on here that if the father pays more than a couple of hundred pounds the mother is deemed utterly grasping for wanting more. It’s not a race to the bottom and I wonder where the sisterhood are on this.

OP, ask him. However you think might work best. A letter, an email, a face to face.

Maybe you could explain that as you’re both working 8-6 (or whatever) that the child care costs are £x and you’d like him to pay half. Ditto holiday camp/holiday nanny costs. Put it in black and white.

The father is able to spend a few fun hours with his child at weekends. The mother does everything else. Takes fulll responsibility for the child’s emotional, social and physical well being. Deals with bedtimes and night wakings and meals and nursery and vaccinations and the dentist and play dates and friendships and the 10001 other things. How ungrateful the father is not to acknowledge this according to his own time and earning potential.

That’s great! I do every single day, every hour. Egg donor decided to sod off and what can I claim?!
£7 a week….
i would rather struggle than have any money off her.

the point is, the dad pays £300 a month more than he has to, surely should be grateful for that?

I agree that he should be doing his share, money only compensates to a small extent. You will be working harder than him, parenting much more, your career won't maybe thrive so much in the early years. BUT you have self esteem because you are being a generous and loving mother and your child will benefit. My ex was a nightmare, agreed to pay school fees but no maintenance and threatened to leave the country if I didn't accept this deal and was a highly unreliable and useless father. I had to decide to make the most of it and to try not to bad mouth him too much. I was in therapy to help manage the immense strains and my therapist said - in time, your children will show you know they know who did what. And so it proved. They're all grown up and daughter has a child. I'm really close to all of them. They have a distant relationship with ex who remarried and is exactly the same second time round. She rang me to ask if he'd been as lazy and useless with me - I said yes.
It's tough on you but maybe it's marginally better than these awful men who pretend they want 50/50 child care just to avoid paying. That can be an awful situation for a child.

For me it wouldn’t be about money, he needs to do better. Of course he can have your child overnight despite his job. He is making up for guilt perhaps with money. No it’s not ok that men can carry on when in most situations mums have to pick up the pieces. I have a ex dh who cut his hours so he didn’t have to give me more money. Uc have to make up the difference as I am also parenting 95% of the time. I always think what’s the best scenario for the child and by working less for now you are doing that as frustrating as it is.

If you think about it you’re already getting an extra £300. He has to pay £900 through cms and he pays you £1200, £300 more than he has to pay

I totally understand the frustration. But most of this would be similar even if you were a happily married couple. In most of the families I know one parent has a less all-consuming job and picks up much more of the childcare. The tradeoff here is that the high earner enables the family to maintain a good quality of life, which is what's presumably happening in your case. You had a kid with a consultant, so presumably you went into things knowing something about the intensity of his working hours, and expecting that during the early childhood years you would not be able to take an equally intense job - this is part of the decision making of having a child with someone. I think it might be wortth framing this as the frustration felt by many women (who often end up being the one who "stalls" for a few years).

However, I think you're also a bit negative/whiny about your situation and career prospects. I'm a single mum by choice with a reasonably senior/intense job. My job did take a backseat for four or five years, but I've been able to return to "full speed" pretty quickly now that kid is school age. Yes, I don't have the same hours to invest in my job as I did before kid, but neither do any of the parents I know.

Yes - and if you are a good parent that should have dividends in the long term in your relationship with your child if you want to look for your "reward". I struggle to imagine your son will have an equally close relationship with you and his father who sees him a coupe of hours a week.

Remember that some single parents get NO maintenance at all.
OP needs to change her mindset.
I am not being insensitive or dismissive of her feelings but she has no reframe her thoughts to acknowledge the maintenance she receives.

But single parents getting no maintenance is also wrong. This OP is not getting a fair deal. The fact that other people get a worse deal doesn’t detract from the unfairness in the OP’s situation.

In what way is it unfair. The absent parent is responsible for paying 50% of the cost of raising the child, it doesn’t cost more than £2.4k a month to raise a three year old.

It’s unfair for the very reasonable reasons the OP has explained.

She could have returned to work after maternity leave like most people do. A child isn’t an 18 year meal ticket.

Mealticket 😂😂😂

Returning to work full time as a single parent means long, long hours for small children and a huge amount of paid for childcare. That’s not easy. Not everyone can work super flexibly.

When two parents both work ft at least they have double the annual leave and double the salary to PAY for childcare.

Come on… She’s just wanting the best for her child.

Being on your own is hard in so many ways.

It’s not remotely unfair, this is what she is chosing, she’s not saying she wants him to take the child more. She’s saying she wants paying for her choices,

I know it’s hard. I did it for years. Which is why I have very little sympathy for OP.

@Wildgoat have you even read my posts?! Firstly, I work full time. Secondly, as I said pages ago, it would suit me perfectly if he did his share of parenting. That would be fair.

Sounds like your career is more important to you than raising your child.

So He pays you well over the cms - lucky you.

I get £27.50 a month - yes not a race to the bottom as the saying goes - but I don’t think you reliese how lucky you are

£900 is a huge whack and he’s be earns well but he pays 30% over that

you chose to not had a higher paid job /career. You could have got a nanny

and if dc is a toddler you haven’t lost out on years of pension

I didn’t say you didn’t work, did you quote the wrong poster?

@Wildgoat possibly. But the point remains that i’d love it if he did his share. He won’t. So I pick up the pieces.