Hello, I'm a lone parent to two amazing kids, dh and I separated amicablely just over two years ago and life has been one continuous adjustment ever since. My post however is not really about me, it's about a close friend of mine, and I really want to get your advice as I don't know how to handle things with her, if there's anything to handle that is.
So, the short and long of it is that I think she feigning being a single parent in order to claim benefits, I may be totally off the mark thinking this way and I realise that every ex couple do things differently and have their own unique arrangement that benefits them and their kids but something doesn't seem right with my friend and her ex partner.
I agree that if a separated couple can be grown up and stay friendly for the sake of their children then it's win win all round and that's exactly what I have with my ex but that's as far is it goes. He sees our children on set days, he picks them up from school Monday and Tuesday and takes them to his house for tea as then brings them back at seven when I get home from work. He then had them Saturday all day and overnight and will sometimes have them more in the school holidays if he can get time off work. We still get on really well and he will occasionally stop for a cuppa when he drops the kids off, usually when we need to discuss the kids and he will obviously see them on their birthdays, Christmas, come to school plays, parents evening etc.
Now this is our own personal set up, it works for us but I know that what works for one wouldn't necessarily work for another.
So my friend, she has her own, very unique set up with her ex partner and for the last few months ths or so I can't help but think that she's falsified the whole thing and she has in fact set up this arrangement in order to qualify for benefits. The top ad bottom of it is that her and her ex act as though they are very much still involved. She started to rent privately after they split up and he moved in with his grandad who lives a couple of streets away. She subsequently started to claim income support, tax credits, housing benefit etc, that I'm not entirely sure she's actually entitled to claim. You see he is at her house everyday, he sleeps over a few nights a week despite his gran dad's house being a two minute walk away. They spend their evenings ordering take away and watching films together, he takes baths at her Josue, he does diy throughout the house, they drive each other's car, Cook each other meals and pretty much to look at them most people would assume they are still in a loving relationship.
I'm prepared to be flamed for saying what I have but I genuinely don't think that these are the actions of genuinely separated couple or a genuinely single mother. I love my friend to bits and have always had her back when she's got herself into sticky situations and despite never lying to me in the last I feel that she is now, and I don't know how to handle it.