Ex and I have been separated almost 3 years.
initially I didn’t take maintenance from him as it was amicable and he saw the kids a lot and helped whenever I asked him to. But then a year in he met someone else, dropped the kids, turned up when he felt like it, I spend the best part of a year fighting him to be consistent and ended up going through the maintenance service to get him to pay as he wasn’t doing his share anymore. He’s a high earner so his maintenance payments were high (in his defence, he never reduced my payments when he had more children, I’m not sure if that was out of the kindness of his heart or too stupid to realise, i imagine the latter)
he’s since had 2 children with his girlfriend and she’s now left him and obviously claiming maintenance from him.
so my maintenance will significantly reduce because it will now be split between 4 children, not 2. He’ll pay slightly more a month but ultimately the majority of her share will come from me.
he also, can’t cope with the 4 kids alone so he wants to completely rehaul the schedule to have each set of kids once a month with one Saturday a month all together.. because apparently he also needs his own time to have a life outside of being a father.
so my kids see their dad less, he pays less towards their upbringing and I just have to suck it up. I have no issue with her claiming, she deserves the money and he should pay for all his children but it’s not really impacting him, mostly me. How is it fair?