My husband wants me to pay his ex’s share of school fees

[CheeseSheep]

DH thinks I should contribute towards his eldest daughter’s school fees and I’m really not sure if I’m being unreasonable here.

We’ve been together eight years, married for six. We have two DDs together, aged 7 and 5, and he has a daughter from his previous marriage who is now 13. She was five when we got together so I’ve known her most of her life really. We get on fine, she’s a nice enough girl and I have never had any issue with her being part of our family, but we’re not particularly mother and daughter if that makes sense.

His eldest currently goes to a state school, because her mum has never been particularly keen on private education. Our two girls go to an independent school, which is the one DH has now suggested his eldest should move to. The fees for DD1 are £22,140 a year and DD2’s are £19,080 as she’s in a younger year group. The fee for DSD would be £31,500 but could possibly get a 10% sibling discount, so it’s not even exactly the same amount as the girls.

Apparently she’s been having a difficult time socially at her current school and has been asking about moving. I don’t know all the ins and outs as obviously I’m not involved in the day to day school stuff, but DH thinks a fresh start would be good for her. I haven’t disagreed with that at all.

The problem is he’s now decided that the school our girls attend would be the best option. He spoke to his ex about it and she’s apparently not against her moving, but she doesn’t want to pay private school fees and says she can’t afford them anyway. DH says he can cover most of it but there would still be a shortfall and has suggested I pay towards that. He hasn’t actually said an exact figure yet, but from what I can work out it would be around £10,000 a year after what he says he can pay.

I was a bit taken aback if I’m honest. I work full time in property management and earn a good salary. DH earns considerably more than me through his business. We have a joint account for household expenses but keep our own savings separate. I’ve always been quite careful about having my own money and I don’t think that’s particularly unusual. I have no problem with DH spending his money on his daughter, he’s always done that and I wouldn’t expect anything different. But I don’t see why my savings should now be used to pay her school fees.

DH says I’m looking at this completely the wrong way. His argument is that our girls benefit from his income and that because we’re married, all three children should be treated equally. He said he doesn’t understand how I can be happy paying for our girls’ education but suddenly have an issue when it’s his eldest. I said that’s not the same thing as I’m their mother and their education is something we decided on together. He thinks that’s a horrible distinction to make.

What has made it more awkward is that his daughter apparently knows about the possible move and I don’t want her thinking she’s somehow less important or that I don’t want her at the same school. I’d be perfectly happy for her to come here if DH and her mum can sort out the fees. I’m not trying to exclude her.

But equally I don’t think it’s fair for DH to decide on a private school and then expect me to make up the difference because her mum doesn’t want to pay for one. Surely that’s something he needs to work out himself?

He’s now saying I’m being selfish and making a distinction between the children that he would never make. Am I being unreasonable to refuse to contribute? I feel like I’ve been put in a really uncomfortable position.

He wouldn’t make the distinction because all three children are his - funny how he made a massive distinction when he decided that his eldest could attend a state school but his younger DCs should go to fee paying schools.

Then if I was your dh, I would absolutely be telling you that ‘from now on I will be contributing 50% to the pot so that I can treat all my children fairly.’ This drip feed is huge.

Its not your place to pay for her education. She has 2 parents to do this.

Okay he wants to pool money as a family then pool money as a family tell him all wages go into one pot, all school fees come out of that and any left over after all expenses get split equally between you both into your personal savings. Problem solved. Fair and square. Otherwise he can pay the lot out of his considerable larger pot.

This is the way forward!

I think he's being unreasonable to ask you to cover your DSD's fees from your savings.
I don't think it's as unreasonable to ask if you could cover a larger % of your DD's fees so he can split his income more fairly across all 3 of his children. But only you know how manageable that is with your finances. I would also expect their bio mum to be contributing at least something if I agreed to this.

It a very difficult situation and I can absolutely see where you're coming from as he's basically completely moving the goal posts of your financial and education plans for the whole family.

And not only could this potentially ruin his relationship with his eldest it could ruin your two DD’s relationship with their older half sister.

from her pov her half sisters get her/their dad all the time and she only sees him (I assume) part time. And they get to go to the fancy school while she struggles at a state school. That sort of image will also make her resent them.

i do think decisions like these are best made with the children’s/child’s interests at the heart of the decision. What’s best for her? It’s not being treated so unequally.

It’s all very well saying her mother should contribute…..can she afford it? Is she a single parent with one income? Because her relationship broke down for whatever reason. Obviously if her ex walked out on her that would have affected her finances. If she’s remarried herself maybe there’s two involves but may her new partner refuses to pay for a kid that’s not his, maybe their household income isn’t as much as the OPs. There’s lots of nuances behind the circumstances and it’s not black and white.

but ultimately there needs to be fairness and parity for the siblings so I stand by my earlier point of all in private or all in state.

I've read this post,or a very similar one, before.

She is, proportionate to their incomes. That's perfectly fair.

This would be the way I would feel too. And I think of the post was a mum who had a husband refusing to send her child from a previous relationship to private school, but paying for the joint children, the answers would be a lot different.

And just doing the maths, you'll be paying £6,060 a MONTH in schools fees. This seems fucking WILD to me. And I am in no way poor.

"We get on fine, she’s a nice enough girl and I have never had any issue with her being part of our family"

What odd phrasing. How kind of you to not have an issue with her being part of the family when you married her dad

So your title and opening post were incorrect and disingenuous then. He doesn’t want you to pay for his dd, he wants you to contribute more fairly for your own.

For me it woud be a no brainer. Either they all have the opportunity to have a private education or none of them do.

Does his ex have a partner who would be willing to pay the fees? Same difference as asking you to pay.

Are there grandparents who would be willing to chip in?

If he only needs 10k and these are the kinds of budgets that you are dealing with he can probably cut something else. Would canceling the holiday budget be sufficient?

He’s now saying I’m being selfish and making a distinction between the children that he would never make.

This is ridiculous. Of course he wouldn't make a distinction between the children because they're all his children. They are not yours, and dsd has her own mother. I assume that he doesn't expect his ex to treat your dc exactly the same as her own daughter?

Having said that, if he is currently contributing to your dc's school fees, then you might have to accept that he may decide to reduce or withdraw his contribution if he cannot provide the same opportunities to his eldest dc. This would potentially mean you having to step up and pay the shortfall or move them to a state school. So that might be worth factoring into your decision-making. You can't force him to pay fees for your own dc he decides that he can't stretch to supporting all three. So maybe have a think about the outcome that you really want.

I think when you marry someone who already has dc, you do need to accept that there will have to be some compromises.

I thought that too. Surely she is family! Not part of the family. Maybe it wasn’t meant how it sounds.

I don’t understand why so many posters are saying that fees for the shared children should be split 50/50.

in every other case I’ve seen on MN, bills are split in direct proportion to income.

Obviously, this is until the ‘wicked step mother’ enters stage right… 🙄

Substitute ‘new house’, ‘new car’, ‘new pony’ and so on for ‘school fees’ and I would imagine the answers would be different.

Im not convinced the OP isn’t already paying more than her fair proportion due to the extra-curricular activites and I’d place a large bet that she picks up uniform, stationery essentials etc without counting it as part of her contribution.

If the mother wants the private school, the mother pays. It’s not the OP’s responsibility here.

That's a bit different then. If he paid less for your DC e.g. 50 percent could he cover his eldest fees? Her mother could pay lunches and clubs like you.

He should really contribute fairly towards the education of all three of his children. This may mean he has to reduce his contribution towards your joint children’s schooling to make it fair. This might mean none of them having a private education. I assume you split your children’s education costs between you or does he currently pay more than you. If so you should step up your contribution towards your two. He would be able to afford his daughter’s schooling if he hadn’t started a new family and that’s no fault of his first child. I feel sorry for her struggles. It would also be good if her mum could help a bit even if she can’t manage much.

What if the OP earns £20K and DH earns £150K pa net? If the household expenses total £40K per year how does that work? She hands over all her income and he gets to keep £110K? Sure.

My gut feel on this is that you shouldn't be expected to pay, but maybe doing so anyway would be the best thing to do? Feels like it is only fair to treat them equally. Do you pay half of the fees for each of your two, or does he pay a bigger share?

Yeah and I completely understand that. I think because the other two are already in private school and we don’t know whether the mum is saying she can’t afford or won’t afford is making the solution harder to see.

I just know from my perspective that I would rather not see one miss out even if she wasn’t mine. But it’s pretty easy for me to say considering I will never have step children, or enough money to pay for private education.

It also helped that it’s only a few more years, the step daughter isn’t young anymore so has far fewer years to pay that the OPs children. I would want to support, I couldn’t look at it as she isn’t mine so I won’t help.

I don’t like to be a contrarian, but when I married DH I recognised that I was also making a commitment to his DCs, as well as to him. All our DCs are treated the same.

If I wasn’t prepared to treat them as my own, I never would have married him.