Lone mum asks "Ex's new wife supports him, why not us?"

[Matrushka]

I lived with my ex for nearly three years and we have a gorgeous 5 year old son.

When we split, three years ago, things were not great but eventually he agreed to a standing order of £200 a month in child maintenance.

A year ago he married, moved 50 miles out of London and has cut the maintenance to less than half, claiming he's earning less than before and that his solicitor has advised him he doesn't need to pay as much as he has a new family to support. Recently he said, in writing, that he revised the payment as I refused him access.

You've probably guessed that none of the above is true.

I didn't refuse ex access but I did insist on meeting his then wife-to-be and her son (he introduced our son to them without telling me). Is this unreasonable? I've since met them and ML sees his father, with them, every second Sunday. His father almost never sees him alone. Fortunately ML adores his stepbrother and gets on with stepmother.

Ex's stepson's father provides more than adequately for his own son.

Ex may not be earning as much, there is a recession going on and he does work in the events and entertainment industry however his wife, when I met her, made it very clear that she soesn't like his line of work. He used to mix with a lot of pretty women... She earns £45k a year working part time. She pays for her family's holidays and ex has recently bought himself a brand new car. Between them they have three properties (his are heavily mortgaged). She doesn't want to know about his maintenance, when I approached her, she said it was sour grapes on my part.

Grapes of financial wrath more like!

Anyone out there know any law that says she in anyway responisble for ML's lost maintenance? I earn a quarter of what she does (hopefully more now ML's in school)but I'm not in any way envious. I just think the system is unfair. Tried the CSA when we first split and they awarded me £16 a month! Ex is self emplyed and has a "creative" accountant.

If you guys tell me to move on, I will - and wait for the new 2011 child maintenance act to come in. It can't be any worse. It's scary to think what kind of justice we have.

Rindercella, I do take ALL your comments on board.But please read my last post and tell me how to deal with the smirking. Honestly, it's getting me down.

Matrushka, sorry I x/posts with you. How to deal with the smirk? Very difficult, I accept. But you are going to have to find some way of overcoming it and making it mean less to you for the sake of your son.

Okay, Rindercella. Also respect to Fruitysunshine for the "that's what being a mother is" post. Still say changes in legislation are well overdue though!

Hi Matrushka
I totally agree with what bibbitybobityhat has said.
From where I'm standing, you've given up a well paid job for a part-time one so you can care for your child properly, and I imagine you pretty much spend every spare penny you have on him.
Ex on the other hand chooses to live off his new wife as this suits him, and do very little in terms of care. Sure that is his perogative but he has a child and although I definately don't think his new wife should pay towards maintenance, he must have his own spending money. Therefore he should pay a decent amount out of that. If he doesn't have enough left over for his boy stuff then he'd have to get off his fat butt and start working again.

As for arguing the toss over how much it costs to raise a child per month - £100 is peanuts on the grand scale of things especially as he's doing very little of the caring either. Accomodation, extra petrol, hot water, loss of her earnings, childcare, books, pens, activities, clothes, food etc etc etc

how tiresome,
op u need to get real
seriously stop wasting your time on canvassing for opinions that may make you feel validated but practically will leave you stood still.

You ignore the smirking.

That's quite early in terms of recovery. Do you think his ability to work more is maybe related to that? Does he maybe have support groups to go to that means he isn't able to work as much and he hasn't told you?

Babyhammock - thanks for seeing what I'm feeling.

Elenor Rigby, I think it has helped seeing everyones opinions, I know I need to move on, if I'd didn't already know that, it's underlined now.

I'll try and ignore the smirking Surfermum. Re support groups - ex always has a million reasons why he can't do things, especially if asked to care for his child. He's been in and out of AA for donkeys years but even while on long periods of recovery, he's never managed to move beyond Step 4, which is writing down the things that contribute to your drinking (put simplisitically). The rest of the steps involve acting on this.

I don't know whether he's attending AA at the moment. But honestly, if I said I couldn't care for my child because I was too busy having therapy via mumsnet - would it wash?

No problem Matrushka
FWIW you sound like you're doing a top job despite everything

I think coming on a forum like this, while immensely helpful, isn't anything like attending a support group when you are in recovery. It's really important to keep those up (I work in that field).

But I didn't mean that it was a reason for him not have his child, but maybe explains why he is working less.

I must admit I am a bit confused as on the one hand you're moaning that he won't have him, but on the other hand won't let him go overnight. Have you told him that you would be happy for him to see him more - I just wondered if he's under the impression that a Sunday is all he can have.

Mrsjammi, while I admire that you are working and bringing up a DSS, there's an awful lot I don't agree with.

I don't see a shred of compassion for the terrible situation DH's ex sounds like she's in. She sounds like she's not managing at all. I didn't understand whether DH was working or not and whether he was paying any maintenance.

And splitting up the children, not sure whether that's so right, particularly when they now have different standards of living. And wanting to leave the mother, on her own? I admit, I know nothing of her but depriving a mother of both her children sounds horrendous to me - unless there are extenuating circumstances.

My son doesn't want to spend nights at his dad's place, I won't have any objection when he's ready. Why on earth should I try to persaude him before that?

He has a good relationship with his grandmother (on father's side) and I haven't prevented his father from seeing him, even at very short notice on occasions. So you got the wrong end of the stick there. I said I objected to him spending time with his stepmother and stepbrother, before I met them, not to spending time with his father. Part of the problem is that his father doesn't seem to want to spend time with him on his own - so them forming a relationship or not has very little do with me.

As to insisting on meeting new wife. I think he should have told me he was introducing our son to them as a common curtesy. Instead I found out from my, then, three year old son.

I think it speaks volumes that you've never met the ex wife, and never wanted to. You've only heard one side of the story. Perhaps you don't want to hear the other side because it would cast harsh light on DH?

Jammi will not doubt reply to that . But the woman you are asking her to defend doesn't pay any maintenance for her child and is supposed to be.

So what is the child living off?

Jammi and her husband do. The child in question lives with them.

But if the father's not paying maintenance, then why should she? And if he is, then surely that should just be reduced and solve the problem. Dunno, maybe I'm missing something.

I think the story is she's is so much in arrears (think it's thousands) that she can't claim from them at the moment.

I think I'm missing something too.
If DSS lives with his dad and DSD lives with her mum, then surely any maintenance gets cancelled out. So why should DH's ex pay him maintenance??

Also I don't see why its so unreasonable to want to meet ex's new partner/wife. After all they're going to be spending a significant amount of time with your child so surely its understandable and would work both ways.

WRT to meeting your ex's new partner, surely it depends how it is done. Expressing a polite interest is one thing, insisting on it is quite another. A mother has to remember that she is only half the parentage of a child - the father is an equal half and will be equally concerned about the welfare of his child. He has to be trusted to look after his own children, and that includes trusting him in his choice of partner.

Yes in an ideal world we would be completely objective and only pick partners that would be a positive influence on our children.

People don't always choose their partners wisely though do they. love is blind and all that. I bet you'd only have to look at some of the ex's past girlfriends to know that LOL

Still the fact remains that when the child's father is with the child, he and not the mother is responsible for them. The mother has absolutely no right to vet the new partner. In all but the worst breakups, I can't imagine the two wouldn't be introduced without requiring any ultimatum's on the mother's part.

I was keen to meet my SDC's birth mother and DH. I naively thought that we could get along like adults. Boy was that a mistake!

"I was keen to meet my SDC's birth mother". Oh boy, I was dreading my first meeting with DSS's mother, which was several years after DH (then DP) and I got together. She had no interest in vetting me at all...she was just interested in having all of her weekends free from her son DH even said to her at one mediation session that he wished, just once, she would call during the week asking if he'd mind not having their son for the weekend just so that he knew that they actually something fun together

How many people who are saying that the mother should 'vet' the ex's new partner would feel the same if their ex insisted on the same thing and vet their new partner? You'd be posting on here asking "IABU to think that ex should not insist on meeting my new boyfriend?". DH never knew who was staying at his ex's house when DSS was there. He hated the fact, but knew that there was little he could do about it. Just recently his ex has had the home number changed and CCTV installed - has not mentioned anything about it to DH. DH asked DSS casually about it, DSS just said that there'd been a bit of a 'nutter' who'd been scratching the cars, causing trouble, etc. Thankfully DSS is now a grown up - 19 years old and a strapping 6'5" so can probably handle himself, but all the same, it's not very nice knowing that there have been some 'issues' and DH not being able to do a thing about it.

That is one of the sad things when parents split up - you have to accept that you can no longer be involved in everything in your child's life and (unless there have been previous problems with DV, etc) you have to trust the other parent to do the best for your child.

Rindercella - it was 11 years ago when I was young and very naive. Now I wish I'd stayed well out of it and had nothing to do with either of them (her and her DH that is, not my DH of course).

Ah yes, meeting the Ex. Over my dead body, I have been in the same room as her and I hope she got a good look. SHE was the one defending her refusal to allow my DH from seeing his child more than 5hours a week, because it was ruining her "family time". Why she would want to meet 'fat, ugly Little Miss Precious who she hopes will die in a plane crash' is totally beyond me. She has insisted in the past that she be allowed to supervise overnights, for the first few, of course I would have to get rid of my cats to facilitate this.

Oh, Little Miss Precious was me when I asked DH to pick me up in my own car, which I had loaned him so that he could make a contact meeting (at that point he was allowed two hours a month). I was at a meeting in an area with no public transport and she cahnged the location of the contact by ten miles, at twenty minutes notice. As a result DH said no as I needed picking up too.

Yes, I'm just dying to meet her.......

(Soory, touched a nerve, no she doesn't get to vet me, unless she publicly retracts on facebook, and even then I'll only think about it)