Dads unfairly punished

[Dadsareok1]

My husband separated from his wife 4 years ago (I met him 6 months later). They have three children and he did the difficult but honourable thing and left the family home as he knew she wouldn’t give up custody without a fight, and he wasn’t prepared to put the children through a nasty court case. From the very start he has paid way over the recommended CSA minimum to her and he has received absolutely no thanks, and in fact, only continuous abuse and threats of not seeing the kids. She has also somehow managed to brainwash the children into thinking that her actions are acceptable, and they passionately defend her and pretty much blackmail my husband into doing what she wants. Last year she managed to get the children to force my husband to hand over the house entirely to her. My husband has therefore come out of this relationship with nothing, and to add insult to injury, he has to pay her more than most people earn in a month for the privilege of not seeing his children grow up. Now our circumstances have changed and he is unable to continue to pay the same extortionate amount to her each month, so has informed her that he needs to drop payments to the CSA minimum. This has prompted her to threaten legal action and stop him seeing the children. My husband is a kind and caring man, and has done nothing but try to look after his children and do the right thing. It is extremely wrong and upsetting that women like his ex, hold so much power and are legally entitled to completely screw their ex husbands over both for money, and in denying access to children. She has made it perfectly clear that she is putting her needs before her children, she is just using them in her sick game and blames any upset and stress that they suffer on my husband. On top of all this, she ‘accidentally’ got pregnant by another man after only 2 months of seeing him, and no doubt has money coming in from him too. She now has a new baby and expects my husband to continue to pay for her as she is on maternity leave. This is consequently causing a lot of stress for both myself and my husband. We have been together for 3 and a half years now and have taken our time with our relationship to ensure that his children are happy, and we finally got married 4 months ago with their full blessing. All we want to do is live a peaceful and happy life, with his children fully included but this woman will clearly stop at nothing to cause any kind of upset. Mothers are NOT all innocent and deserving of keeping their children plus extremely unfair maintenance payments, and Fathers are NOT all bad and deserving of the treatment they get from their ex’s, which is seemingly condoned by the CSA. Of all you decent mothers out there, if anyone has any help and advice for how to deal with this situation it would be gratefully received. Can someone tell me what benefits (and roughly how much they would total) a single mother of three would get? Are there any Solicitors out there who could give us legal advice?

Her income is irrelevant. Doesn't matter.

He is legally only obliged to pay the csa minimum. All she can do is report him, but if he's paying the correct amount set by them they can't force him to pay more.

When they divorced did she get a spousal support payment set?

If he's not seeing the children at the moment there's nothing to lose from paying the minimum statutory amount.

"Mothers are NOT all innocent and deserving of keeping their children"

Neither sex has the monopoly for unreasonable behaviour. Whatever gender/role it isn't a question of whether or not a parent "deserves" to keep their children. Generally it's recognised that children "need" continuity of care and although all parents have their faults the criteria for the authorities to intervene is evidence that children aren't surviving satisfactorily and parenting fails to meet the threshold of "good enough."

It isn't pay per view. Child maintenance and arrangements for children are dealt with separately under different bits of legislation. The courts expect parents to try to sort out arrangements between themselves or with the help of mediation when possible. It is deemed unreasonable for a parent to withhold contact because of a dispute about child maintenance. Try googling "What the Family Court Expects of Parents" at the Ministry of Justice website.

"Can someone tell me what benefits (and roughly how much they would total) a single mother of three would get?"

Single parents aren't automatically entitled to benefits. State benefits depend on the level of incomes and as some of us can testify some single parents don't qualify for any benefits at all.

The Child Maintenance Service rather than the CSA handles all new child maintenance applications. Unfortunately the statutory system is rather a blunt instrument. The CMS/CSA staff have to apply the rules and regulations imposed by Parliament and have very little discretion. There is useful information including strategies for managing conflict, a calculator and tools to assist parents with Child Maintenance at the CM Options website.

In a nutshell parents can come to voluntary family based arrangement between themselves or child maintenance can be agreed in a legally binding consent order. Alternatively parents may use the CMS Direct Pay or Collect & Pay service. With Direct Pay the CMS calculates the amount of child maintenance and it's paid directly to the recipient and with Collect & Pay the CMS will collect the money from the paying parent and pay the recipient. There is an application fee of £20 and fees for using the Collect & Pay Service. The paying parent pays an additional 20% and the recipient 4% of of the amount paid. So there is every incentive to reach agreement.

sadly the family courts are not fit for purpose at the moment and have no real power to enforce judgements (for dads the mother can near enough forever block access if she really wanted too and the court can do basically nothing as they cannot really impose fines / jail time on the mother) and for the mother there is no real incentives for fathers to actully pay child maintance (yes i know thats more CSA or what ever its called now) but the entire system is just not fit for purpose in any respect.

Judging by the fact you said the kids pressured your husband into handing the house over suggested that they are old enough to make their own minds up. Her income is irrevalant and none of your bussiness. Your hubby should maintain his csa payments he fathered them and has a finicial duty of care regardless if they dont want to see him. Her new baby has no relevance to this post the comment you made was extremely catty. Reading through the lines i believe their fault in both parties. Try mediation with children

Why do you think she should 'thank him' for providing for his own children? And no, she can't 'legally' keep the children from him or screw him over, whatever that means, he needs to sort access through the courts if she's playing games. Sorry but it sounds like your DH needs to grow a backbone if he's allowed his children to convince him to hand over financial assets.

Adelecarberry sorry I disagree, this Father did not have to hand his half of the family property to his ex he could have said that when his children reach 18 the house is sold so he has his share back. Bohemianraptor I totally agree a lot of Mothers think they can dictate and be unreasonable the truth is its the children who have the rights to access and if the mother wants to stop access then she has to prove that her children are in real physical or emotional danger before access can be legally stopped. A very long process but necessary when parents use their children as weapons.

Typical OW rubbish. I read nothing in those OW words above putting the needs on those children first, only bitter words from an unrelated person who resents their partner HAVING to continue to pay for THEIR children, HAVING to continue to house THEIR children.

I have not found the English legal system to be unfair to children, I've found it hugely inefficient and frustrating to deal with, but inside judge's chamber, it has been exemplary.

Parents don't always get what they want. Some parents, like your husband you say, resent having to house and pay for THEIR children. Tough. Children need to be housed, fed and loved. That adults who come along later resent this is just too bad.

So a pregnant, single mum to three children - who is dependant on state benefits to raise her family. I actually feel very sorry for her.

How on earth did children persuade him to hand over the house - and then in a blink of an eye you say they are happy with your marriage? If he wants to see them and is being stopped then take her to court. And if he chose to pay too much maintenance than why did he, nobody forced him to? And she has to be grateful for maintenance which prob doesn't even halfway feed and house and clothe his children?

Her income and circumstances are none of your business quite frankly.

yep those great CSA/CMS rates.... I'm a very frugal and prudent person, yet it still costs 30k a year to house and feed the 4 kids. From the father, he won't pay what the courts have told him to pay, instead he argues he should only pay the £30 a week per child he claims CSA would tell him to pay. That's 6k per year he offers as a contribution towards the 30k costs. Guess who provides the other 24k? Yes that's called mum, who earns the same as their dad. It costs me 4 the costs for the children. Who decided to involve the courts? Well of course the dad did!!!!! But then he didn't like their decision. So instead he keeps the rest of his income to spend on himself and his OW and her kids by 2 dads - and one dad pays £125 to this OW for his kids, he earns again the same amount as my husband, yet he puts his kids first and pays for them at a decent amount... pity there seems so few dads like this.

Seems like the dad mentioned by the OP has the same attitude to see the kids as a financial burden and not a gift. Children are for life, not just for good times.

Tell your husband not to worry, keep all correspondence from her to your husband and when the children grow up show them ,otherwise she the ex will make them hate him anyway CMS are full of s... They tell you to pay and bully the paying parent and when over pay they tell you we will ask it back which is a joke needs to be closed down or run properly

How much if a reduction are we talking about? There's a big difference from dropping from say £2k to £1.5K and dropping from £500 to £50 a month. The reason for the change of circumstances is also meaningful. Quite a difference from being made redundant and having suffered health issue leading to taking on any job that pays much less to opting to make his new wife Director of his company and paying her a fortune whilst taking almost nothing himself.

How old are the kids? The whole 'the kids forced him to leave the house to mum' is hard to believe. Much more likely that they agreed she kept the house and he kept his pension.

I get a uneasy vibe that your new husband might not be totally honest with you about the situation and you are choosing to believe everything he tells you.

This is 8 years old.

Dadsareok1 - you really posted in the wrong place. Apart from a handful, many can’t see the wood from the trees and this mumsnet post is obviously full of biased bitter women who can’t or don’t wish to see both sides. I’m a hair stylist and regularly hear stories about women who want to have babies for themselves and as a future source of income, knowing that when their ex partner salaries increase, so does their payments. One lady spends the bare minimum on their child whilst the rest of her income goes on whatever pleases her. It’s too inconvenient to allow their ex’s to have open access to their child. I have sympathy. Not all women are the same, like me, but many dads ARE unfairly punished / abused by the system.

I pay csa every month, for my child i don't see, there is no reason why I can't see her, just her mum dissappeared and ive not seen them again I don't know where they are so if I went to court its useless as there is no contact, i don't have a problem paying the money, but if I don't see my child I should be able to choose what I want to do for my child. myself I beleive i should be able open a bank account for my daughter and pay money every month so she can have it when she's 18/21 instead of paying csa, system is outdated and very unfair, but yet I have 2 children i brought up on my own, and there mother chose not to see them off her own back and doesn't pay a penny how does this work. System is shocking

This is a very old thread but what I would say is that it is still worth going to court to get an order to have contact with the children. Once you have that, stop paying the child maintenance until the evil cow reveals herself.

To the writer of the initial post, I know you don’t ask dads but I will give my brief two pennies worth. Some women on this thread have been honest and have given you an accurate description. The female when it comes to family matters, in many cases, are spiteful and greedy individuals who care not to damage the minds of their own offspring in order to furnish their own lavish and pretentious lifestyles. To talk about the dad as having to pay for his own children and so on, and that he shouldn’t moan about having to pay, they are clearly only giving you a very narrow scope of the story. Dads often want to be involved, the female keeps the child for greedy and spiteful reasons. She gets access to all the free legal aid because she inevitably accuses the dad of some form of domestic abuse. Dad has to defend himself in court against solicitors, probably having to pay for his own, pay for his own life and paying when he looks after his children. The female gets access to copious amounts of benefits and then the government dictates that dad also gives what amounts to a huge chunk of his wage after to tax to her. He still wants to spend on his children from himself because he loves them but even on a decent wage, he is almost financially destitute getting no support and only ridicule from evil people like some of those in this forum. The female having all the funds then is in a position to further alienate dad and the children believe that she is golden and dad is nothing because he cannot afford the life she is giving them. The story goes on and on and my heart goes out to the dads goi g through it. I am absolutely disgusted by the system as I went through it and got a favourable outcome. I seek to support men through this and make the system fairer which focuses on the welfare of both parents and not just the mother. Keep safe

Based on what you have written, your husband is a emotional fool and needs to grow a backbone.

I was initally a fool myself but some people including my solicitor put me straight.