DH Resident in UK - his ex wife and children living in RSA ...

[Loosemo]

Since my DH divorced in 2002 & agreed to pay child maintenance for his 2 children, living with their mum in South Africa both his and his ex-wife's circumstances have changed dramatically.

My DH is now a UK resident, married (to me, natch!) and we now have 4 children together.

Ex wife is now working full time, living with another man and has re-married too.

My DH has a voluntary court order, dating back to 2002 stating that he should pay R6000 per month for both the children plus reasonable private school fees, plus yearly increase according to the consumer price index. Ex-wife's right to Spousal Maintenance was waived.

This was okay to begin with but has become increasingly difficult to meet with the arrival of each of our subsequent children. My DH, not wishing to short change his children in South Africa continued to pay, but we now find it increasingly difficult to meet the payments.

Ex-wife is not open to negotiation.

Where does my DH stand legally? Surely we don't have to go back to court in South Africa to resolve this issue? Is this something that we can resolve via a solicitor in the UK? My DH still wants to pay maintenance for his children in South Africa, but needs his new circumstances to be taken into consideration.

Can anyone out there help or at least point us in the right direction?

Thanks in advance,

Loosemo

All sounds great in hindsight folks, but we don't know the circumstances behind it all. Thousands of other families at the moment are thinking "Blimey we didn't think things would get this bad". We've all misjudged big issues, and made mistakes, but what is OP supposed to do right now? That's the question she has posed.

I'm sure she didn't mean to sound so flippant with the "natch" comment, I think she was just trying to make sure we all knew he and she were married, as opposed to him being married to someone else - that's how it sounded to me. I didn't detect any "gloating".

She has a problem, that's why she came here seeking some advice to try to find a solution. It's a little late in the day to advise her she shouldn't have had her kids. She can't undo her life, even if she wanted to. None of us can.

Well on some of these theories no one should have children in case they get ill or lose their job. You never know what's round the corner ask the labour government.

I find it funny because right at this moment in time dh and I have 2 dc. I would like another one as I am from a larger family. Dh not bothered really but think he would prefer to stick to 2. So lets see what happens Right now we can afford 3, not 3 in private school or actually even 2 in private school but we can afford to bring up 3 children. If dh and I lost our jobs tomorrow, both of us, we wouldn't be able to afford the 2 we have! Or if we decide to go for no3 and have 4 - would make money far tighter.

THE POINT HERE is that no one has a crystal ball, if I did I would make far better use of it, and the bigger point is that the OP asked for advice as to what course of action if any she should take. And got told clearly that they should have thought about that before having more children. This is not AIBU or even chat this is in Legal and that is what she was asking about. And yet we as a coven have got together and judged the op for having children or more than 2.4 children. That being said, mnet is going down the bitchy route at the moment, must be boring bill january to blame

There are so many factors here, its hard to know where to start. Is there even such a thing as a public (i.e. Non-fee paying school) in RSA?

I've done a (very quick) google and the maintenance calculation in RSA is way more complex that over here in the UK, taking into account full disclosure of both parents incomes and expenditure (including allowances for the gardener and housemaid!)

The 'disposable' amount of each is then calculated and an acceptable amount decided by the court.

It seems to me that the op's DH has gone way above and beyond to continue paying and now is completely incapable of continuing to pay the level he was. This can happen to any of us, in any situation. The op came here looking for help.