Thinking of Abandoning your Wife and Child? Here’s what you need to know.

[Adviceshop]

1 – will I have to pay maintenance to my ex?
A: Yes – you will have to pay 16% of your gross salary (after pension deductions)
2 – So if I increase my pension contributions my maintenance will go down?
A: Yes.

1. My child is in nursery as we both work – will I have to pay half towards childcare?

A: No, not at all. If your ex wishes to continue working she will have to pay it all.

1. But won’t I have to have the child half the time and pay for my half when I have them?

A: Not if you don’t want to, no. You can just see the child at weekends and explain you can’t have them in the week because you work.

1. Is there a minimum amount of time I will need to see my child?

A: Again, no, you can see your child as little as you wish.

1. What if my ex won’t let me see my child?

A: You can take her to court to force her to allow you to see the child

1. Can my ex take me to court to force me to see the child more regularly?

A: Not at all, no, this is not available as an option.

1. Can I move away from my ex and child?

A: Certainly. In fact, if you move a long distance away you can apply for a “variation” to your child maintenance so that you pay less. You can say this is because you are incurring costs in visiting your child.

1. So I would have to prove that I was incurring these costs to get the variation?

A: Not really no. Keep the receipts from one trip and say that you’re making that same trip every month, even if you’re not. 10. Can my ex move away with my child? A: Yes, but you can apply for a court order to stop her. 11. Can she apply for a court order to stop me moving away? A: No, of course not. 12. Won’t my leaving have an adverse effect on my child? A: Probably, but your ex will probably do everything in her power to minimise the ill effects. 13. How can I be sure my child will be looked after? A: If your ex neglects your child she will be punished by the state. If it gets really bad your child will be taken into care and looked after by the state. 14. Can the state make me take my child back? A: No, not at all. 15. Won’t society think badly of me for doing this? A: Possibly at first. Explain how unhappy you were. If you see your child a few times a year and pay the minimum maintenance then eventually you will be called “A Good Dad”.

You need to give us the stats on how many men want more than EOW and fail to get more.

In my experience, NRPs seek sympathy for how infrequently they see their children, lie about it - claiming that it's the crazy ex's fault yet are mysteriously unable to find much time that they can commit to their children when a judge asks them about it. And people close to them are unaware of the true facts because NRP lies about it.

If NRP wants to be more involved with their children's lives, they have the right to apply to court to seek that and there would need to be a good reason to prevent them. (Although CAFCASS's failure to protect children in such situations is a whole different thread...)

It's just very convenient to claim to be prevented from caring for your own children.

If NRP wants to be more involved with their children's lives, they have the right to apply to court to seek that and there would need to be a good reason to prevent them

It’s the same as maintenance though. They can go to court, but it isn’t enforced.

Dbro wanted RP. Was told no by solicitors as mum is default. So he saw the kids every weekend, one weekday evening, and for substantial chunks of time in the holidays.

To start. While the ex was in her honeymoon phase with OM.

Then he found the above was conditional on him behaving like a childminder, not a parent. He had to seek legal advice on multiple occasions as she kept taking him off communications lists at school, GP, dentist etc so he had to a) prove PR, and b) get a solicitors letter to say he had equal right to make decisions on behalf of the child. He missed letters about parents eve, vaccinations (she’s anti vax so he had to again get a sol letter to force the gp to tell him if his own kids had been vaccinated.

The more he tried to be involved in decisions the more his ex objected, as they didn’t always agree.

The endless rounds of solicitors and threats etc started to break down their co-parenting relationship and affect the kids. As well as drain a lot of money. He’d get his access only to find it stopped again because he’d asked about school applications or the necessity of a medical procedure.

I am very aware this is only one anecdote. But this thread seems determined to villify all nrp. Dbro’s ex was a good mum, she just wanted control over the kids lives. She also found it very hard emotionally when the kids started choosing to spend time at their dads, and would often stop them going.

So I guess my question is how far does a nrp go on the court merry go round, when every time he gets a decision it isn’t followed, and the only option is to repeatedly go back to court. Especially for relatively minor stuff like the above where the negative impact on the children is going to far outweigh the positives. It’s a parenting style difference, rather than a major issue which will affect the kids.

If one parent is determined to not pay/shirk responsibility, or prevent the other parent doing so, there isn’t much to be done unless you have a lot if spare cash for solicitors.

Spot on OP. And let’s not forget:
If the mother of the kids moved from her home country to yours, don’t worry, she will be legally obliged to stay there with no support network, even if she doesn’t speak the language, because she needs your permission to take her kids out of the country for more than a few weeks. Win win!

" If NRP wants to be more involved with their children's lives, they have the right to apply to court to seek that and there would need to be a good reason to prevent them."

You are wrong. NRP is the one who needs to explain why he should have more time with the kids. You can't just say I want 50/50. They're going to say no.

Totallynotsosure, I'm not being "goady". I'm just sharing my viewpoint here. Grow up.

If your pesky ex actually seems to expect you to share the parenting be sure to make contact plans you don't turn up for interspersed with last minute cancellations, turning up drunk or hungover and of course endangering your children by neglecting basic safety just to hammer the point home. This will allow you to repeatedly grab the sympathy vote from friends and family about how meany ex won't allow contact at the same time bypassing any need to curtail nights out or lie ins. Win-Win

BigDudeDog - exactly that. And then you wonder why the mother of your children, who started out expecting to co-parent with you, now wants to protect those children from you. So sad, that any man chooses to behave like this - so unnecessary yet, it seems, accepted by society and not illegal.

...but he is paying minimum child maintenance so that means he's a good father.

Make sure to take out plenty of loans, this means you an appeal any amount set for CM and can also use it to negotiate your equity in the family home you never pay for. All this whilst living rent free in one of your mothers houses, after taking a minimum wage job. Really the only one you're hurting is the RP, they waste the money on themselves anyway.

Don't forget to tell the kids what a horrible parent RP is , on the rare occasion you do see them. For kicks turn up late (or not at all) or drop them back early. If RP complains or isn't available at 5mins notice use this time to tell the kids how RP doesn't care about them and is looking to replace them with the fictitious family you've made up.

Thanks OP, the start of the thread is terrifyingly familiar and resonates with a large amount of parents here. It's sad to see some posters trying to derail. There is no doubt there are horrible nasty parents of both sexes, but it cannot be ignored that the vast majority of those who suffer are women.

I don't know of any couple that separated or divorced simply because they fell out of love, there was always tension and a build up. I have no doubt there are couples who maturely sat down and said, this isn't working, what can we do to make this work for all of us. For the vast majority leaving a marriage or a long term relationship, especially where kids are concerned, is the result of one or both partners ignorance of the others needs. There is a massive scale for how bad this can be. Affairs, abuse, neglect, etc. The courts try to take all feeling out of this in an attempt to make it fair for both parties, but there is a cost. DV is not a feeling, emotional abuse and manipulation of children is not a feeling, and it's a disgrace these are not taken into consideration when splitting assets or directing access.

There are so many scenarios, the woman who withholds access because her children are being emotionally abused and lied to, and the woman who withholds access because she enjoys the control. They both exist, the general assumption by most people is a woman who withholds access is a bitch and does it for kicks. The system is not fit for purpose, the courts need to take each case as an individual case. No one is going to solve anything on one thread on mumsnet.

And to those crying that NRP are being ignored or villainised on this thread, ODFOD, this thread was started for a particular audience, to share common experiences, stop hijacking and make your own thread if you honestly feel that way. It's not a pie, having empathy for one set of circumstances does not negate or leave less empathy for any other. No one wins when families separate, but fuck, there are some people out there who try.

I have no words for this thread because i can't believe how true it is. It is my ex literally to a T. He's even gone in this order and followed it by the book!!! The amount of sympathy and attention he gets is why he carries it on and he's recently reduced contact with our DS from once a week to once a month because he "doesn't spend enough time with his gf and their DS" WHO HE LIVES WITH.

He'll tell Anyone and everyone who will listen that it's my fault etc but at least we know the truth!!!

Who are all these NRPs making mortgage payments? When my ex left he made a token monthly payment which was 4% of the total repayment needed - for reasons I can’t fathom he thought this was his “half”. I paid the rest. I then had to pay him 55% of total assets as a lump sum. He is outraged he has to pay CMS money which is not, of course, half the cost of raising his kids.

@NotBeingRobbed my ex does to be fair but that's only cause his credit rating and debt he's got himself into is so bad he doesn't want to screw it up any more so he still pays (just under) half the mortgage on our jointly owned flat. He was paying just over the legal minimum for child maintenance even when his second child was born but during an argument told me he was lowering it to the minimum amount but he does remind me of ALL () the payments he makes to me and how he's not legally obliged to etc so it's so much fun!!

Yes they use the money and the whingeing about it as a means of control. My ex has actually received far more money from me. It’s massively unfair but that’s the legal system! He does like to threaten that he might not be able to pay. What the hell. We can manage without but that’s not the point, is it?

@NotBeingRobbed no definitely not! When my ex's second son was born he told me "I could put your maintenance down now cause I have 2 kids - but I won't cause I don't wanna take money away from DS" so he realised then that the money was for him, but suddenly this month he's doing it cause he thinks it will hurt me.... no, it won't it's your child you're taking money from! And I'll pick up the pieces and make everything ok like I always do! Grrrr

@Boysmomma thank you for your post. It frustrates me so much that people cannot see that admitting that systemic biases exist and discussing them is not tantamount to saying all people who benefit from those biases are bad and evil, i.e. Accepting that the system often disadvantages RPs is not necessarily demonising all NRPs. It's like these people feel threatened in some way and have to derail the discussion or reduce it to a slanging match. Which totally gets away from the point of the thread which should be a place for support.