To not contribute to DH child maintenance

[Redbean667]

So DH is self employed and gets paid weekly he has 1 DS and pays maintenance to his mum weekly and has child EOW as works away. I have 2 DS and work 12.5 hour shifts and my mum helps me with school pick up and drop offs (both teenagers) when I am working- DSS school is around 1 hour from us as his mums is 40 mins away and it’s 20 mins further from her house.
we had DSS last weekend when his mum rings Sunday late afternoon to say she forgot to say she is on holiday and was already at the airport so DSS will be with us for the week. Due to my shifts and own children I could not work school runs that late notice so DH had to take the week off- unfortunately was a vital week for his work before they finish one job and move to the next so he was let go as had let them down last minute.
He has told ex he lost job and maintenance will not commence until he finds another and he will let her know when this is- she has sent text saying I have to pay it and it’s my responsibility.
I have said absolutely not as I am now trying to find money for our home and bills because she decided to not give adequate notice for her holiday and I actually don’t have enough to cover everything at my home and pay her. Texts from ex are getting increasingly angry as she is in holiday and ‘needed that money while away’ saying what I disgrace I am letting her son go without- I pointed out he hasn’t gone without as is our home.
so AIBU for not paying her

Firstly the child is not with her so she should be paying him maintenance as the parent with the child all week. Second she abandoned her child with no care for the impact it would have. Third he should look at his contract as most employees have a claus about emergency leave for dependants and your children. Look at taking to tribunal for unfair dismissal. Your not responsible for maintenance but I would be considering reporting her to social services as these actions are not OK. You cannot just dump your child without notice even if it is the other parent. Actions have consequences and now she has to learn that giving no notice means he had to take unpaid leave, that cost him his job which means she no longer receives payments. If using CMS notify them immediately to stop payments and if she works see if he can claim for when child is with him.

That won't work on a self employed contract

Schools have 13 weeks off a year. One of those weeks with advance agreement would probably be a suitable week for her to have a break.
So hes not trying to juggle work and school runs, which is impossible if he works away and Op can't do the school run.
For most people with kids they'd rather use annual leave to get quality time with kids, not to do the school run.

But needless to say that wouldn't suit the Mum as that means peek holiday prices.

Hes not an employee - hes self employed.
Therefore very little in the way of employment rights. He didn't rock up for the last week of the project
He wasn't offered a contract on the next project.

My husbands ex used to say the same. He lost his job (redundancy), and so did I within weeks of each other about 10 years ago. she called us both every name under the sun. I may of also reminded her then that if the children were no longer in full time education, that the claims should have ended too (as should claims for child benefit).

she used to threaten my DH with not being allowed to see the children whenever she needed extra money. We bailed out missed mortgage payments for her and other debts (never saw any of it again) until it got so bad that the bank took repossession of her house (she would always say we were allowing the kids to not have a roof over their head). We took them on holiday, paid for all school trips, phones, clubs, clothes allowance etc on top of maintenance.

At the time we both lost our jobs within months of each other, our own DS was 2 years old, and had our own mortgage to keep up. One call to CSS and they stopped all payments once of of job loss received. As both DSS’s by then were both in apprenticeships, she was made to pay back child benefit she had been fraudulently claiming still - got to love a bit of karma!

Your DH pays CM weekly. CM is based on who the resident parent is. The resident parent while she’s on holiday is your DH, so there’s no maintenance to be paid for the week you both have him. Even if he were liable, if the arrangement was made through the Child Maintenance Service while he’s unemployed he would owe about £7 or something ridiculous like that. Poor child’s mum clearly did this intentionally, who goes on holiday without telling their child?

Child maintenance, is for the child,not for her to use on her holiday for herself?????????

Technically because the father has been given custody of the child for the week, regardless if it was last moment,for that week he actually owes nothing. Infact it could be argued that the mother owes the maintenance for that week. It's called child maintenance, so she shouldn't be needing it for a holiday,its for her child.

There’s a couple of things here. Firstly calling from the airport to say she’s going on holiday is unacceptable. I feel really sorry for the child. If she does this sort of thing regularly you need to start logging it. Now the maintenance, if it was set up legally through a divorce or it went to court then your partner is bound by a court order to pay that money. Him losing his job doesn’t automatically mean he can stop paying. He needs to apply to the court to make his case for ceasing payments. The court will look at ALL his finances. So if there are any savings or other assets they may make him use those. They can also take your income into consideration because you are a joint household. Thats legally how it works. If your partner doesn’t apply to the court and just stops paying then it won’t look good for him and she can take him to court to enforce the order. However bearing in mind her behaviour directly contributed to his loss of work it won’t look good for her either. The only reason I know this is because my ex husband is marrying his mistress and has lost his job so thinks he can stop paying my maintenance. Which he can’t.

So let me get this straight; a mum abandons her child to go on holiday and neither you nor your husband contacted social services about that? And you couldn’t work out a situation where your husband did not lose his job? This whole post is rage bait and made up

The airport phone call was clearly a control thing as last time she gave 1 weeks notice and DH asked her how long ago she book that break and she replied ‘months ago’ so the asked in future if she would just tell him as soon as she books something so arrangements can be made she said she can do what she wants so I assume this is the reason for the last second phone call this time.
after gently checking with DSS this weekend he knew his mum was going away again and packed all his school stuff for him- he often brings lots of bags between houses as has lots of hobbies and sensory stuff so we don’t think anything of the bags when he arrives which he took straight to his room (again perfectly normal)

Why on earth would you contact SS?
What are they going to do, Sorry about your job op but we can't take children into care homes because your ex has buggered off for a week and you need to get to work.

The kids school is an hour away I can see how its not possible to get them there.

Heaven forbid a father would have to face work and school runs 😳😂

I don't think the idea was to take him into care but to highlight the mums behaviour for a custody case

Would be easier with more than an hour to rearrange their lives - with a couple of months notice (that they could have had since it was booked) it would have been straight forward

They wouldn’t normally be dealing with school runs of an hour each way if the child lived with them though - or if they did they would have a long term plan in place.

Having to work out a plan the last minute is the issue here.

Could your husband have applied for emergency parental leave rather than losing his job?

He would be eligible as the child is autistic and your husband needs to care for him. I would be focusing on unfair dismissal under the disability discrimination act.

She didn't abandon him, she left him with what we can assume is a capable father.....although if he only sees him eow and can't financially survive without a weeks pay, then yeah he's crap.

Child maintenance doesn't change week to week!

I can’t believe this mum has intentionally dumped her son with no notice to teach the dad a lesson, and you think this is on him. No maintenance, no to op contributing to maintenance, this is a case of fuck around and find out. His only crime was asking for some notice and this pissed her off so much that despite her having moved an hour away she thought she’d teach him a lesson by giving him zero notice. You should report the dumping to social services as logged evidence in case you need it.
I hope your dh finds another job very soon op. Don’t tell his ex as she can work out how to manage without maintenance for as long as possible frankly. I’m usually team dads should pay a fair share which is much more than the minimum but not for this kind of fuckery.

He can’t financially survive without a JOB. Like most of us. And he lost his job for taking a key week off at the very last minute because of his ex.

Hi op she can’t just do what she wants she is a mother. if she has a child at home it’s her responsibility to put plans in place before she goes the airport. How many parents who both live together would just go away without discussing it to put arrangements in place. She thinks she can just fuck up your lives when it suits her tell dh to go back to her if she does it again he won’t be accountable for his actions she is being a total selfish entitled bitch. Does she even care about her child because it doesn’t look like from these posts. Your dh can’t afford to stop a job because she’s a selfish individual. It’s not about putting a child into care it’s about her leaving him behind without any pre planned childcare. She doesn’t deserve this child. Definitely don’t pay any maintenance.

She said he can't survive for a WEEK. I'm on a low wage and could manage for a few months if I lost my JOB for any reason. Also he is self employed, so should be able to find work, if he can't then he is doubly useless. It's a cop out.

Well she's shit in her own next there hasn't she. Not giving you enough notice to get things sorted work wise resulted in your DH losing his job & she'll now not get any maintenance from him. You're not responsible for her Son so don't be paying her anything. While the child is at yours you're providing for him it's on her to provide for him when he's at his Mums.

I'd be using the week trying to find some free legal advice now he's unemployed and looking into applying for full custody.

I'd also email his school explaining exactly what has happened and he asking if they have any previous safeguarding concerns.

Absolutely wouldn't be paying her a penny.