Is this true? WARNING DM link "Fathers to be hit by rise in maintenance..."

[TotalBummer]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244303/Fathers-hit-rise-maintenance-children-following-sweeping-new-reforms.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

If it is, we are going to be in the sh!t AGAIN. Merry Christmas to all those Fathers who actually pay through the nose and can't afford to look after the family they have living with them AND we have our Child Tax credits taken off us to give to his ex who never let him see his DD in the first place.

I know there will be Mums out there who are shafted by their exes but it is ones like my DP and my kids who are being destroyed by the CSA. Bankruptcy looms.

Sorry - It just never ends. Money, money, money. They will take our house and our kids will be on the street and they DON'T CARE!

[OptimisticPessimist]

allnew, my kids are 3, 5 and 9. My 3 year old is at nursery in the mornings, my 5 year old has just started school and my 9 year old has Asperger's. The fact that I have three (which I know is my decision and was based on other factors as detailed above) means childcare is hard - I can basically afford 30 hours of childcare and that has to include travelling time and breaks at work, plus DS1's ASD can cause difficulties. I'm doing an OU degree while I'm on Income Support and I'm hoping to learn to drive next year - the public transport here is crap and basically limits me to one town (and obviously the longer the travel time the less I can actually work) so if I can get my licence I'll have all the smaller towns and villages open to me as well, plus less travelling time. My kids' school has a good breakfast club, so once DD starts school I can hopefully work at least part time and use most of the childcare credit (or whatever it's called by then) to cover holiday care. I honestly don't want to be on benefits any longer than I need to be, I miss working terribly. I was working full time previously and my parents basically ended up paying my childcare bill which was completely unsustainable anyway, but then my nanny left and I couldn't find anyone to do the irregular hours I needed. That's why I quit my job, which was gutting for me after struggling for a year to keep working. My XP has none of the constraints to working that I do, does none of the parenting by his choice and yet doesn't support them financially either. I don't think he and I are equally bad in our lack of financial support for them, but maybe I'm wrong there, I don't know.

[SantaIAmSoFuckingRock]

i fucking hate the way these threads always end up with people on benefits justifying themselves. you dont have to do that optimistic it just feeds them. they aren't entitled to know.

[allnewtaketwo]

Who had to justify themselves? I simply asked if her children were at school yet. Hardly an intrusive question

[Xenia]

I think it's really important that when people choose to do so they explain their situations. It gives understanding, just as second wives who are very cross their husband has to pay so much to first families help all of us understand both points of view.

OpP is obviously trying very hard. The answers I suppose partly lie in encouraging our daughters into careers which pay very well so they can afford childcare and that involves talking to them as teenagers, giving them good role models, showing them female accountants, actuaries, surgeons, women in business and whole gamut of opportunities out there for girls so that they ensure they pick a career which means they are likely to be able to afford child care and work and live. It is certainly not easy. Also if you can afford it getting children through a driving test at 17 is good. We had one doing a driving theory test on the 17th birthday itself and then day after day after day in 4 years that 3 of them turned 17 gritting teeth whilst said child drives you (very scary) but that hopefully means later in life they will have that test behind them. I realise not all families have a car etc of course.

When the OpP youngest is in school even a live in au pair might work out as would cover odd hours and the times out of school perhaps even if it means children sharing. My children share a room but obviously it depends on size of place where you live.

Of course if fathers were forced to have children 50% of the time then she would know every other week she was 100% free and no childcare costs to pay for so could find things easier. Couples I know who both work full time and live near will often share one nanny between them who rotates from mother's to father's house in alternate weeks to give the chidlren continuity and then the bill is split down the middle. I agree a nanny can be cheapest for a lot of children than say 3 nursery places. We have 5 children and she could collect the other 3 from school having had the twins at home all day and then cook dinner for all 5 etc.

My description of Hakim's views on how women make money and are kept are not derogatory. 4 in 5 women marry up and all the research shows that the reason we have more women then men under 40 who are millioanires in the UK is because women earn their money in two ways - divorce settlements./ from men and work. Men just have one route. It's not derogatory. It's stating facts. Many a second wife has wrested a relatively rich man from a first wife with the aim of feathering her own nest. I have not invented the concept of gold digger on this thread. Some women (and a very few men) almost make it a career. A friend who had divorced met a woman who was getting £3m on her first divorce then going through , never worked for 20 years, children away at boarding school, hooked into him - sensibly he did not marry her, she was lovely to him until he had sold his country house to buy her a bigger country house and she put funds in and then she was awful and he had to go to court to get his money back. Thankfully they had a written agreement before he put in the funds and she didn't sell it and pay him.. no... she found victim number 3, another rich man, who bought out the person I know's share.

[swallowedAfly]

As for think carefully before having DC's with a man who already supports his DC's from a previous relationship I would pick a man who pays for his DC's, rather than a deadbeat who doesn't, as the better father of my own child. Why wouldn't you?

eh? where's that strawman run off to?

of course the one who pays is a better bet than the one who doesn't - who said otherwise? but the fact remains you are choosing someone who has prior financial commitments that will (or should) place restrictions on whether you can afford children or the size of the family you can have.

as to the personal question i'm asked here i personally wouldn't choose either man. i don't want to be with a man who is divorced and living separately from his children and i wouldn't want my son to be in that kind of family unit either. i wouldn't want to have children with a man who had already had children and wasn't a full, proper parent to them.

maybe controversial but that's my personal choice and feelings. i find men who live separately to their children and have an 'ex' who has the children to be unappealing and to have particular attitudes and behaviours i find unattractive and problematic.

i might consider a relationship with a man who has 50% genuine shared parenting with the mother of his children as i could respect that and see it as being a 'real' parent and not coming with the attendant attitudes of a weekend dad. i'd also be able to respect that he and his ex had managed to fairly and harmoniously deal with splitting up and being adult parents. such men are shrinkingly rare though.

i tend to be with people (friends, partners whatever) who i have shared values and ethics with. i don't find myself to have those with men who hate their ex's, make out she's a psycho bitch yet they chose to have children with her and leave those children in her care. too alien for me.

[Arisbottle]

As you say though it is quite possible to be divorced and fully involved in your children's lives and having a very amicable relationship with your ex.

My stepson and his mother are part of our lives, we are all part of end family. We spend Christmas, birthdays and special times together . Our lives are bound together by our shared love for our son ( my stepson)

[swallowedAfly]

absolutely arisbottle! i'd have no problems with a man who had a set up like that and i could see was a responsible, caring adult who took his responsibilities seriously and had amicably dealt with a failed relationship.

my sister is divorced and despite it being entirely through his infidelity and shocking behaviour when the children were born he is welcome in all of our homes and at the christmas table etc because he is the children's father and we are all adults who put children first. the relationship yay or nay is about shared values - i wouldn't have shared values with someone who hated his ex and slagged her off and claimed she was a she devil yet had somehow managed to choose to marry her and have kids with her ffs.

[Arisbottle]

I agree, I have never heard my husband talk negatively of his ex and if I did I would think worse of him. I could not build my life with someone who was consumed with bitterness about a woman whom he loved enough at one time to make a child . I would feel a similar way about a man who was trying to minimise his financial, emotional or practical input into the lives of his children.

[swallowedAfly]

i'm afraid men slagging off their ex's to me is a massive red flag that sends me running for the hills.

[swallowedAfly]

and YAY for a woman coming on and proving that some women are able to view their husband's ex in a realistic light as a whole person rather than a character in a pantomime.

[allnewtaketwo]

Some separated men are unable to share true parenting of a child simply because their ex will not let them and courts tend to trot out the every other weekend rota.

[Arisbottle]

I would not want to get involved with a man who was in such circumstances . I would be forced to question his judgement in becoming involved with such a woman ( and ask questions about the fact that such a man with that level of judgement would then want me) or to ask what he had done to her to prompt such a reaction .

[swallowedAfly]

likewise.

if this ex is so crazy and selfish and deranged and irrational and blah blah blah then why did he choose to be with her? why have children with her? why not take the children with him when he left and fight outright for them that way? i know i wouldn't leave my child with a psycho.

[swallowedAfly]

the 'not allowed' and 'the courts always say...' type stuff would make me think of a weak and passive creature who was happy to blame his choices and life on external forces. again not that attractive and definitely not someone i'd want in my children's lives.

[Daddelion]

So if a woman had a relationship or a child with an abusive man would it be her fault?

[swallowedAfly]

it wouldn't be her 'fault' obviously but if i was a man getting involved with her i'd want to know she'd gotten help, addressed any personal issues that led to her choosing and staying with such a man and had moved on and processed the experience and grown from it. wouldn't you?

[Arisbottle]

I quite carefully said that it could be a matter if poor judgement rather than fault.

It is not always the case that there is one good partner and one bad one either . Both my husband and I come from homes filed with domestic violence and children . In both cases, both partners were at fault . I have been in short relationships in the past, again both of us were to blame . I accept that is not always the case, but it is not always black and white.

If I am planning to marry someone and have children with them, I would have concerns if the mother of their previous children was abusive because that would impact my children.

That makes me quite selfish, but raising children is tough enough without adding abusive exes int the equation.

I am not a believer that falling in love is some mystical process, over which you have no control. I love my husband but he was a rational choice. In the last I have dated people who were OK for a little fun, but never husband or father material.

[Arisbottle]

Not short relationships - although they were - I meant shitty abusive

[swallowedAfly]

exactly. it's the lack of emotional intelligence and maturity that would concern me in such a black and white and pantomimesque portrayal of one's relationship with the mother of your children.

mature, rational adults process and learn from and acknowledge levels of responsibility in their failed relationships - especially ones as important as those with the other parent of your children.

[allnewtaketwo]

Swallowed I believe it was a failed condom. They lasted a good few years after that though. The divorce was on the grounds of her adultery actually. I realise you find it impossible to believe that a woman or a mother can just be nasty or vindictive just for the hell of it, but it's true, just as it is for men. She actually told DH once why she hated him so much, her reason being that he brought he to court to get access to the children. I have read all the court papers, seen all the evidence, in fact still see the evidence years later as she lives the bitterness through her children. She controls their every movement and they are not allowed to see friends outside of school, aren't allowed to do anything actually despite her say so, despite one if them being 17. I know it because I've seen it.

[allnewtaketwo]

Swallowed do you go onto relationships boards and berate battered wives for their lack of emotional intelligence in choosing such a partner? Or do you reserve this smug vitriol just for men?

[swallowedAfly]

try re reading what i wrote

[swallowedAfly]

14.38 post covers it

[allnewtaketwo]

I did

[allnewtaketwo]

Gotten help for a split condom?