Is there something on internet explaining, reasoning with a mean/thick deadbeat why he should, morally, pay maintenance?

[LiffeyKidman]

Just wondering?

My x is maggoty rich and doesn't contribute. He genuinely believes that he has no moral obligation to give me money towards the children because I left him, and therefore 'implicity undertook to pay for their upbringing'.

I can't argue or reason with that level of idiocy and denial, and I don't try anymore.

I am just wondering if there is anything on the internet, aimed at deadbeat fathers, to make them understand and face up to the fact that they are in the wrong not to contribute,,,

just wondering, because although for now I'm not persuing x for money, I will next year. (long story, legal issue).

But it is not acceptable. Neither is it part of the issue.

Maintenance for children should be seen as a given just like child benefit and is part of ensuring they have a decent life now.

GF I understand that it is part of the household income and that is what some men object to when the ex moves in with someone else and is seen to be financially better off than themselves.

It was just a thought for a hypothetical question. OK it's not the issue.

I get a meagre amount and put it in DD's account. Mainly use it for luxuries e.g skiing, school trips etc.

It is great if you can use it for luxuries but mine goes on daily life and I have fought for three years to get it on behalf of my children.

My x has tried to abuse the system every way he knows changing jobs, not having a job and then not telling anyone once employed. I only got any kind of resolution when my MP took up my case.

My X not paying has soured his relationship further with my three kids and whilst the two eldest dont see him for other reasons they also deeply resent having jacket potatoes some weeks and lacking trainers because he is not paying whilst he lives with his gf in a three bedroomed barn conversion and has four cars.

He even had the effrontery to write to my 14 year old dd and tell her that he knew things were tight financially but if she didnt see him he wouldnt pay and the consequence was that I would have to cope and suffer.

I have tried to stay away from the personal on this thread but it really is personal when I hear men like N1 and idiotic statements about women being bad as well. Not in my experience!

FWIW abouteve I know you were being gentle and trying to put forward solutions but there are none for this kind of man apart from the law.

I have read (lurked on) this thread with an increasing sense of incredulity. It just beggars belief that so many of you have to struggle with ex-husbands and partners who won't support their children financially. I respect you all greatly for dealing with it every day.

If I may indulge in a little praeteritio, I shall say nothing of N1 who, being a paragon of intellectual virtue, thinks that £40,000 in debts is better than £35 a week...

I noticed 2 articles in the press today, which are all too relevant to this discussion: one in the Daily Mail (so its veracity is doubtful, I acknowledge) stating that the government may take greater measures to penalise absent non-paying parents; the second in the Observer, confirming that women are statistically more likely to be impoverished by divorce, despite what the baying crowds of selfish outraged men who go on about 'gold diggers' may like to fantasise think...

GF how awful for you all. My situation is very different because DD wasn't planned so I thought I should support her by myself. I'm not wealthy and I understand about the Jacket spuds etc. I only get a small amount paid by an attachment from earnings, he didn't volunteer to pay.

For me even a small amount put things on a more normal footing and stopped me feeling resentful of the limited time she sees him. If I forget about it it mounts up over the year.

In your situation I would have done everything you did to get him to support his kids. It's disgraceful but so common.

Thanks abouteve and thanks for the tip about the observer Panthe I will ask mum to keep her cop.

It is not so awful just sounds it. I have realised that I am very very strong and we are all so much happier and better off without him. He is a manipulative bully and not really entitled to the wonderful relationship my little dd gives him but then she really wants a dad no matter what problems that gives her and I think as I have said her wishes are paramount here despite him kicking her and hurting her last year. When she asks to ease off I let her and she takes things very very slowly with him.

In the meantime the CSA is making him pay at last and for how long I dont know but I am enjoying it and the CSA are also giving me compensation for their incompetence which is very welcome. I have had a letter of apology form their head woman which obviously doesnt make up for things but made me feel smug for a day or two!

Just after I separated from my ex, I was paying £100 into an account, with intention to be saved for my son when he got older. Two things ate that money, the legal bills I was incurring to be able to stop my ex arguing that I see my son less and I was told that the CSA would steal the money. Sadly the money got eroded away to nothing.

If I didn't have the CSA thieves lurking, I would gladly pay into an account for my son. I offered this at the start but the ex was demanding money only.

"the ex" is doing what is right N1 and the CSA are certainly not thieves. Mostly they are chasing twats like you who dont pay the minimum towards the upkeep of their child.

gf twat is too good a word for n1 .His poor x to have to have dealt with this mindfuck all these years and still get nowhere.
I feel quite lucky as we settled money for kids (not me) without legal recourse because he didn't want anyone to know he had failed his marriage. It's out now though!

LOL mamas12 I dont think there is a word to be honest!

In your head Dittany in N1s head he is simply paying back his x for leaving him! Obviously treachery like that means you also lose all sense of moral obligation.

Certainly one way to resolve intractable divorce financial negotiations for some couples is a solution which involved direct payments to a child or its school for its private schooling and the like or university costs beyond 18. When people are trying to resolve these things amicablly and in a psychologically mature way that is one solution.

My solution of children with the parents 50.50 so fathers have as much up in the night clearing sick, sorting out school things for the next day, emergency child care because the child is off sick, childminders to collect from schol as mothers which is fairer, both parents work full time and neither pays anything to the other and all child benefit and tax credits for those of you lucky to get them (some of us aren't) split down the middle. A much fairer solution both in terms of contact with the child, time with each parents adn financially and also frees mothers up to work 10 or 12 hour days like pelnty of divorced fathers have to to keep two homes after a divorce.

Xenia change the record and read the thread.

so because my ex screwed around on me and left me for someone else, i also get to lose my children for 50% of the time? I also note how xenia lists the crappy things about bringing up children, but you also lose 50% of the fun.

N1, despite your excuses and attempted justification, you're scum. I've brought up three children with littleor no help form their dad (infrequent timy token payments) I've sent one to school with parcel tape holding his shoes toggether, I used to water down milk for bedtime drinks on the night before i got paid, it's not a bowl of cherries.

N1 is not going to change. He'd rather his child suffered than he saw the error of his ways and paid his ex the maintenance he should do for his child.

He will lose the love and respect of his child. I bet he's already lost the respect of people round him.

I just hope that he doesn't ever start another family, since he has let down his child so terribly and so deliberately.

Problem is that some of these men dont lose that respect they are pillars of the community going to church and helping out but in secret they hide the fact that they are not supporting their kids.

Even when their friends do know they dont shun them but try to keep the peace.

But but but Xenia - my ex doesn't want 50:50 care of DD. He doesn't want to clear up sick, or do school runs, or have a home he can have DD in, or do emergency childcare (in fact he once said to me, "I'm not looking after her for your convenience" ), or take any responsibility for DD at all.

He also doesn't want to pay a penny in maintainance. So we do without.

I'm not sure how your idea works when faced with someone who doesn't want any of the responsibility?

It doesnt/would never work because it is about the parents and not the kids.

What does it take for someone to realise that contact, shared care, child maintenance etc has nothing whatsoever to do with the wishes of the parents or what society thinks is right and everything to do with the kids?

Amen glitterfairy.

It's about what's right for the children, full stop.

Thanks Janos that makes two of us then!

if the state makes it the done thing you do 50%, if that's the ethos after divorce as it is in some countries in Scandinavia, some even require a 50% contruibution in practical ways. ifwe had web sites - with photos of non involved parents saying this afteh does not ofetn see his children etc, if before they divorced they were made to sit down with officials and told they have to do 50% of the care, if they had weekly check ups in the weeks after divorce and compulsory on line time sheets to fll in to say how much of the care they were sharing, if they were obliged to spend 50% then many many more would. Plenty of fathers who are widowed (I know three) manage. If you're forced to you usualyl step up to the plate and do your duty.

I'd really rather not place my child in the care of someone who is only doing it because they were forced to by the courts.

I don't see how that is in her best interests tbh.

If an NRP doesn't want any responsibilty for the care of their children, well fine. So be it. They should not be allowed to escape their financial responsibility so easily though.They can and should be forced to pay their share, without it having the negative effect on the welfare of their child that forcing an unwilling parent to take on their share of childcare would.

I reckon there's more than two glitterfairy

Me too Janos!

Agony not in their best interests at all and it is the lack of control which makes many children so unhappy in these circumstances. Xenia obviously thinks it is up to the state to decide what is best for children and that individual choice is not important. As for naming and shaming LOL that would be the day and they should perhaps start with child maintenance.