to expect that my ex husband will continue to pay me

[cutupmum]

£600 pm as per court order when one of my two children has chosen to live with him - he stopped the money for both children 4 days after I asked him to have my daughter when my dad was admitted to hospital -i found out when i went to do the weekly shop

he is supposed to have them for at least 6 weeks in the year anyway ( he doesnt) I am really upset . Of course he has bought my daughter expensive clothes and when I asked him on the phone he suggested I ought to pay him money(!)when they both lilved with me they always saw him once a week and we kept him upt to date with school happenings. Now I never see my daughter and only found out she was in a school concert on the day by chance
so its two things really: the money and: my daughter (who is going to be 17 next week and considers herself to have been thrown out)

I agree. £600 a month is twice our monthly family food budget. It's a huge amount of money simply for 2 DCs. For one DC it is absolutely unbelievable.

Personally I think there should be a limit. I don't believe that people who earn loads necessarily spend proportionately more on their kids the more they earn, once it gets beyond a certain level. Surely there is a natural limit to how much two children can consume in terms of food, clothes, electricity, etc.?

Mind you we can only dream of spending anything like that amount on our DCs, so I suppose I wouldn't really know.

. gready.

Agreed. She also hasn't answered any questions which is odd. If I start a thread I hang around for a fair while waiting for responses.

lucky you getting some money is all I can say

the CSA just told me they miscalculated and my ex actually owes me 2 thousand which is more than they thought, not sure whether to be pleased or not

Sounds a bit unfair on your ex if they miscalculated, especially since they'll probably demand he pays it in one go on a credit card.

Troll alert (have I been using this site long enough to say that ) I spotted this earlier but was waiting to see what op said but come on, op hasn't even bothered to repost and explain herself. Unless Troll's dh earns some serious money then £600 a month has to be at least if not nearly half his wage. There is no way this is a real story!

I don't know if it's a troll or not, but just to add that I know a few people that pay much more than that - and for only one child too. To answer another poster, yes it is capped but at £1300/month for one child.

Personally I'm at a loss to understand how anyone could spend that much on a child in one month, but then I've never had a penny from ex-H for our daughter so perhaps I've just learnt to be more frugal!

If the money was to provide a safe and comfortable haven for 2 kids then not all costs cut in half if one leaves, do they?

I'd suggest a reassessment in the full knowledge that the money will go down. (and when the daughter gets to 18 it would have anyway, surely?)

You don't mention whether either of you works, but if the child is living with him, then he has sole custody and should get the child benefit for the child, as well as any tax credits etc that he might be entitled to as a single parent.

If he has one child, and you have the other, then you are equal positions. If you are working and he is not, then you might have to pay him maintenance!

I also post on a forum for divorced dads, in the role of supportive partner of one who is going through hell with his ex-wife, and so many of the men on there consider women as nothing more than money-grabbing witches who are happy to take their funds, but deny their children the right to see their father, or make it as difficult as possible for them. It's tough reading sometimes as some of them tend to generalise and tar us all with the same brush, but I can sometimes see their point.

gaelicsheep unfair is not a word I would use to describe a man who only had to pay me 23 pound a week, and has totted this up by not paying a penny! The CSA are sending in the bailiffs as he's had 2 years to pay something, anything.

They got an attachment of earnings and he promptly gave his job up so you and I are paying his benefits now!

I watch it every morning whilst working from home

OK, in those circumstances I take your point. My DH was paying, exactly what was asked, then they decided to "uncancel" the arrears that they'd cancelled because it was their fault and he was immediately threatened with court action unless he paid the entire amount in one go.

Actually it really really pisses me off to hear of men who are not paying assessments in today's system. The assessments are not onerous (assuming they're correct) and there is no excuse at all. I actually thought that enforcement was supposed to be kicking in well before 2 years had gone past so that arrears don't build up. Perhaps they're still too busy harassing decent men who are aready meeting their obligations.

Men like your ex ought to try the system we had to deal with - CSA1 - the system that treated absent parents worse than criminals.

Nothing is capped if it's a private arrangement, Noel Gallagher is paying £3,000 a month and moans about it a lot.
Personally If I was in charge this would be the first area I'd tackle, it must cost a fortune all these children not being maintained by their own working parents.
And as for giving up work rather than pay, I'd say he made himself unemployed = no benefits ever let the bugger starve.
I also wonder if people wouldn't give more thought to who they have children with if they knew they were relying on them for support should it go tits up.

the CSA don't do anything unless you call them every week and chase it, and even then they don't like to use their powers straight away.

I eventually made a complaint and it went to a different deparment, who were slightly better and I had one person to talk to.

It's still taken a long time, and they only noticed the arrears was incorrect when I asked for a breakdown of the payments made.

MillyMollyMoo my crystal ball wasn't working when I married him - if I'd known what an abusive, self centred, lazy, absent twat of a parent he'd be I would have run for the hills

can I just take issue with the idea that child maintenance should be 'capped' as children only cost a certain amount to raise?

Why the Hell should a child with one extremely rich parent have to be relatively modestly provided for? Does that happen when the parent still lives at home? No! If the parent with the mahoosive income still lives at home, he/she generally shells out a fair whack to giving the child the best he/she can afford, such as extracurricular activities, nice holidays, fun days out and good quality food and clothes. Why should that stop just because Daddy/Mummy has an affair and fucks off?

We bear no responsibility to a wife or husband we have chosen to leave, but the same is NOT true of our children. We should give our children the best we can afford, not the minimum to survive, so fuck no, it should not be capped.

I'm sure you didn't Grumpy, it's just a shame people don't get to know each other better before having kids though in a lot of cases, had they been living together for 12 months first I suspect my brothers girlfriend wouldn't have landed herself with his 2 kids and bugger all maintenance for a start.

*sorry ex girlfriend obviously