To think him sending me 1k every month isn’t a solution to making this fair?

[Seeetwap]

Ex is a consultant in the nhs. He earns around 110k. Probably will earn more in future.

He is supposed to send 950 a month based on his salary (thereabouts) but he sends 1,200. He chose a job literally hours away from us after we broke up when dd was 1.

He sees dd once every couple of weeks, sometimes more if he pays for a hotel and stays nearby for some extra days. He’s good with dd when with her but obviously doesn’t do A THING in relation to DD’s care.

I also have a full time job. I work in a competitive industry and I’m struggling so much trying to keep up with everything. I’ve told him that choosing a job so far away and just throwing extra money over isn’t a solution. He point blank refuses to look for another job.

I know I can’t make him do that or make him be in Dd’s life in a fuller way. I also know I can use the money for extra childcare etc. I do know this. But the reality is it doesn’t help much as I’m still doing school runs and bedtimes and taking her to parties etc. The burden of it all on me feels so immense and I often just cry at the end of an evening.

AIBU to feel money doesn’t make up for this in the way he thinks it does? He feels that i ‘get more’ so should shut up and be happy. I am so unhappy and frustrated.

That's not an option realistically- once you finish training you either get a consultant job in your specialty or you are unemployed. At the end of specialty training your contract ends. Moving in order to have a job is very common.

If he has an on-call commitment in his job it is standard for the contract to stipulate he live within a certain drive of the hospital- as consultants are more likely to be on call from home and come in when needed overnight/on a weekend, so have to be within 20 or 30 min drive of place of work.

A job is a job. They come and go. Even big important jobs. Your child is a permanent fixture, or should be. So many men and apparently some posters on here think that they can and should come second to other things. That half arsed twice a month 'parenting' is acceptable. If a relationship that was very unequal.in parenting share ends, neither parent should expect things to stay the same. Both might have to do more or less work in order to have a more even parenting role. Its not easy. And in many cases it won't happen but it feels like they 'cant' but ultimately, they are choosing career over child and thats never ok. I havent progressed to leadership roles because I need to be around for my kids. Its a always a choice.

@fuckeditupbadly Most well paid people do see dc unequally. Courts often order 5/9 in favour of resident parent in a 2 week scenario. So 3 nights every other weekend and 2 nights in the week. This is only manageable if parents can both arrange the school runs. If they cannot, contact with non resident parent is usually less.

Op is worn down by the grunt and grind of daily life and child care. She must enrol dc in after school care and maybe holiday clubs. Ex coukd take dc on holiday. He’s never going to be hands on and many parents pursue a career - of course they do! He’s well paid and can make compensations but not doing his job and working part time are probably not on his agenda but he does work for us in an important role.

Exactly. There was a poster who used to post several times that her partner needed to move for a consultant’s job whereas she wanted to move to be closer to her family. Considering how much that poster posted about the same issue, and has now posted several times about this, I suspect it’s the same person.

Jesus the bar is so damn low for men isn’t it.

All the “well you’re single parent now, you’re lucky you’re not getting less” comments.

You know what, she shouldn’t have to be a SINGLE parent. There’s another adult parent here who also chose to have a child along with everything that entails, he’s not freaking dead, she should be a CO-parent. But she’s not because men get to walk out and just pay a minimal amount for the other parent to sacrifice their career, their financial security, and anything else in their lives they had for themselves in order to do the parenting for both of them.

So he’s paying an extra £300 a month. Whoop-de-doo. Slow handclap. We all know that barely scratches the surface of the career and financial impact of being a single parent.

But be grateful yeah. Others have it worse. 🙄

No, I have no idea, as the poster hasn’t said. All we know is that he moved away from his own he only sees them every 2 weeks and he does the bare minimum of actual parenting. In my option, that makes him a shit dad. And if the OP had moved away from her child and only saw her every 2 weeks, leaving her husband to do all the parenting, I’d think she was a shit mum.
ETA I suspect most people would think she was a shit mum if she did the same, but for some reason the bar is far lower for men than it is for women.

I'm kinda on his side. He sends a decent chunk over? Extra that is needed. And his job is a decent job where he's helping save lives?

So the fact he has a child is irrelevant then! She doesn’t need him in her life for more than a day every 2 weeks?

You are right to feel frustrated but I don’t think you can force somebody to parent more. I often think of men like this when manospere douchebros whine about child support and custody not being 50/50.

I see cases like this as the norm. A lot of separated fathers want access but not equal childcare arrangements.

The bar for fathers is in hell.

I mean it's shitty. I can't fathom why a father would do that, but he's sending extra than needed and isn't CMS payment done by how long you take care of the kid? The less you see , the more you pay?

What a shitty response.

She does not have to be grateful for her ex being a shit dad because other men are even worse fathers.

He is a shit dad. Simply handing over cash why rarely seeing your child and doing zero childcare is being a shitty dad.

Well yes you shoulder most of the load if your ex is a shit parent. Some single parents actually have a co-parent who shares the load fairly.

This. No wonder there are so many terrible husbands and fathers around. So many women’s standards for fathers are in hell. I cannot imagine if OP posted that she sees her child from time to time and instead gives her ex money, that posters here would he calling her a great mother and saying her ex is lucky.

Well partly. His payments would be reduced if he had the child for some overnights. But the issue here is that he’s sending money and not doing any actual parenting. Sending money doesn’t make up for him doing none of the parenting of his own child.

Just use the money to take thr pressure off. I’m kind of with him here, as shitty as he is, he’s giving you money to pay for the child care to take rhe pressure off, so do it. You can’t force him to be more involved, you can afford help, so there is no point sitting weeping and doing it all yourself.

This was my suspicion too

Unfortunately, you can't force a parent to "be a parent" if they don't want to be.

It sounds like your ex has enough of a conscience to realise he's not really offering a whole lot, hence why he pays more than he's required to. But there's really nothing you can do to get him to "do more".

Outsource everything you can, cleaner etc and concentrate your energies on dd. You can’t change the situation, only your attitude to it. Ask for more money to outsource and explain why factually.

Remember op and xh planned a child knowing his work commitments, long hours, weekends, never home at meal times, this isn't your average job 9.5 Monday to Friday, but op was aware from the offset that she would be the default parent here, just due to the hours he has to work,

So of course the child is not irrelevant,

Xh work pattern hasn't changed and won't change, op was always the default parent,

I understand op frustration, but unfortunately unless xh is going to change his job, what can she do,

As advised here, she needs to buy help in to support her, maybe when child is abit older she'll get to stay over, and holiday with X h,

Sorry but he definitely is a shit dad.
your bar is so so low!!!

I’m sorry but “you knew what his job was” is such a bullshit reason as to why he shouldn’t be parenting more.

Sure maybe she would have been the default parent when they were together but you know what else: he still would have been doing a damn sight more than once every two weeks, and she would have been getting much more financial support than she is now.

But regardless, they’re not together now, and you can be damn sure her life has significantly altered in order to parent her kid, why shouldn’t his life alter too?

Eve Rodsky who wrote Fair Play said this “Well, we found in our studies that if a woman is a lawyer and a man’s a doctor, she says her job is more flexible. If you flip it and she’s the doctor and he’s the lawyer, guess what? She says her job is more flexible. There’s just such a different expectation over how women are supposed to use their time that we become so conditioned to spending our time in service of others that we give away our most valuable currency, our time, for free.”

And most don’t. I chose to be a single parent because I slung my first husband out. I knew what I was choosing. I knew he was about to move two hours away because it was part of the reason we split up. As adults we make choices. OP could choose to move to the town/city where her ex works - as a consultant he’s not going anywhere. We have to take responsibility for our choices, not dismiss the other person as “shit” because they won’t dance to our tune.