Do dads that won't pay maintenance care about their children?

[donners312]

Just that really, I have posted a few times about my STBXH.

I would be interested if there is a way to see that men who won't pay do care and love their children as it is very hard to live with the fact that they really just don't seem to care?

And really if someone didn't choose to do it when they were in the relationship and had live in support, the reasons they ask for it after a split are not likely to be about the children's welfare. They are more likely to be about control and possession and I suspect that's why orders in high conflict cases in Australia mainly reverted back to primary carer/NRP.

My dad never paid any child support to my mum for us 3 kids and he kept the house too (it was in his name and he paid the mortgage, but literally nothing else, ever). She was forced to buy a house for us just before the property crash of the 90s and was in negative equity for decades, while working 3 jobs to keep that roof over our heads. But Dad did care about us, he loved us deeply. He didn't see the two things as being related, somehow. I don't know - I hated him for what he did to Mum (she still struggles financially and she's 70), but I loved him too. And they stayed best friends til he passed away 2 years ago. Go figure.

It burns me up when I hear people say "she got the house, why should he pay?".

I left with only our clothes and a couple old sticks of furniture, to move into an empty rented house and work my ass off. Because that's how bad it was living with him. His salary is double mine. But of course it's too much to ask that he contribute to his kid's upbringing. It's more important that he keep 3 vehicles on the road and go shopping for boats.

I know in my case it was my ex wife who couldn't cope with a 4 year old and a baby boy. That why she basically handed them to me and said here. I was not hods gift to parenting but when it's your kids you have to roll your sleaves up, get stuck in, learn and succeed. Because failure is not an option. There is tones of love in our house and although it's nails we are happy and doing well. I think we are all still oppressed by our upbringing, social norms and gender roles. I think we are lead to believe that dad naturaly are not up to it and mums are. I think often this destroys dad's confidence in their abilities and makes them more likely just to handover care to the woman. Likewise I think mums are lead to believe they have to be the best one for the job and there is more pressure on them to take responsibility of the kids. I know alot of people have said things about my ex like how could she walk out on the kids. Almost as if its a million time worse for a woman to leave her kids than a man. I am not defending (I think she let the kids down massively), just pointing out the difference in attitude based on gender. I think mums are just as likely to forget appointments etc, just depends on the person.

I have in my circle 3 single dads who are the rps following their relationship splits and 2 widowers with children. We're all people all adults (assuming no major health issues) are perfectly capable of raising children well. Geez a wee browse on the boards here will show you women don't automatically know exactly the right thing to do in every situation! Clichéd but kids don't come with a manual they're all different and women don't magically know how to raise kids purely due to having a vagina!

The posters who state 'my dp/dh pays more than csa' well whoop de bloody do! If they see their kids eow they only have 1/7 of the costs the RP has! With the possible exception of extra rent of the children have a permanent bedroom at their father's home (I know very few children of separated parents who have this my dd certainly never has! Her brothers bunk up together and she gets to borrow a bedroom, never any point having clothes etc left at her dads as they'd get hardly used).

Mothers who are nrp's should pay maintenance too as the children are half theirs REGARDLESS of their circumstances (the fact CSA works it on % takes account of that). In all 3 of the families I know where the mother's left the mother's behaved as badly as a lot of nrp dads in one case very much worse, yet tried to waltz back into their kids loves when the kids were adults and just pick up where things left off - unsurprisingly none of the kids were very impressed!!

The widowers struggled initially (as much as they were dealing with grief as well as other reasons) but are doing really well now.

I've said many times I wish we had the American stance on this.

"The courts here are also very strict about paying maintenance. Repeatidly not paying results in jail. It's also really looked down upon here to not pay. Non payment means you are a deadbeat parent."

The govt here are fucking spineless at dealing with this!

23 YEARS we've had the CSA and the they're a bloody useless mess!

Single mum's are still demonised, scapegoated and shunned. Deadbeat dad's get very little bad press and basically get away with doing whatever they choose!

I also like that in America you can name and shame deadbeat parents yet we can't here!

Apologies for umpteen typos hopefully still readable.

Because the law allows it quite simply
In other countries the law does not allow it and men go to prison for non payment of maintainance (Barbados for example )
For all the crowing of conservatives about responsibilities and family values they continue to enable men to avoid both those issues
Sexism plain and simple in my mind
no political party has really addressed this issue and I think it's one that could make a massive difference to this country and bring us up a bit more to the higher standards IMO of international law in equalising parental responsibility and taking some of the burden off the state

Obviously it should also work the other way around in cases when men are the main carers as well
People of either sex who sacrifice careers or pension contributions due to child care should be supported by partners or ex partners whether they choose to or not

Why do you bite your tongue and not challenge it, downstairs ? It is the lack of challenge that is allowing the situation to continue. People who do this shouldn't feel comfortable in front of friends, family and colleagues admitting that they are not supporting their children. Please, please challenge and challenge again.

florian. Why should an adult not support themselves? child maintenance is about supporting the child, not the adult. Spousal maintenance is a different thing, is relatively unusual and is only applicable if you were married. I have no expectation my ex supports me cos I can do that myself, but he needs to contribute towards the cost of bringing up his children.

If a man or woman supports someone who benefits career wise from that yes they should pay spousal maintenance as well
But as you say that may be a seperate issue
In any case absent partners should support children and the law should reflect that and currently there is no incentive because there is no punishment for non payment of support or even a proper framework to apply support
It falls to the grandparents, the state and extended family ep while the spouse has no incentive to pay anything whatsoever unless they were married

In my "D"F case, he would have everyone believe that he was god's gift to parenting and nobody could love their kids more than he loved us.

The reality was he didn't pay a penny towards us from the age of 11, quit his job so he didn't have to, then left the country. My DM never pursued him for child maintenance, because she "didn't want his fucking money" and was fortunate that she was always the main earner and didn't need it. The odd Christmas or birthday present from him would have been nice though.

Suffice to say, my relationship with my father isn't a good one. His refusal to support us and his insistence in using us as pawns in his game to punish my mother and make everyone believe that he was the one who was hard done to, proved that he really didn't care about us, or at least not more than he cared about himself. His loss.

Jeez florian, it's not the 1950s. An NRP also has to live following a relationship breakdown, they can't be expected to support an ex indefinitely (there are exceptions - disability, very long marriage where PWC has never worked etc). Most people are ordinary doing ordinary jobs for ordinary money. Not enough to support two households - increasingly difficult to support one household on one very good wage. You do need to take some responsibility for yourself and your future. Marriage/ long term relationship and children are not some kind of life long meal ticket.

Would you say a parent who lets their child live without heating,food or shelter loves and cares for them?

I wouldn't, and by failing to pay maintenance, those parents are doing just that. They should be prosecuted for neglect IMO.

If your parent doesn't provide for you then they don't love you. Choosing yourself over your kids isn't love, choosing a new partner over your kids isn't love, choosing booze over your kids isn't love.

If you have children, you take on a lifetime responsibility, no matter how much of a "bitch" your ex is.

I'm in the thick of this at the moment, it's all very fresh and I have been left gobsmacked by my ex attitude towards maintenance. You think you know someone.....

15% of his salary just about covers half of DC childcare costs. That's it.
So I am left with 50% of the childcare to pay and 100% financial responsibility to house, heat, clothe, feed, generally provide for our child.

DC is coming up to school age, so I'm now looking for a suitable house for us, large enough, a garden for them to play in and most importantly in the catchment of a good school. Which obviously means ££££££mortgage.

He has none of these things to consider when finding a place for him to live, it could be anywhere (within reason) as long as it's suitable for DC.

When I have tried to explain to him how unbalanced the contributions to DC upbringing are, his actual words were: "you need to be contributing to the pot too"

It's like trying to reason with a potato.

Didn't say indefinitely Support a spouse
I said that when a spouse has sacrificed a career to look after a child and suffers financially long term that should be taken into account and it is in divorce courts
But the problem is lots of parents are not married and have no protection from the courts
Men can spend money wooing women half their age on weekends with money they should be spending on feeding and clothing their kids
The state has to intervene to protect the children from abject poverty and then blames the mothers for being feckless!
Complete BS and shouldn't happen in a civilised country

Are people really getting 15% for one child? I'm getting less than 10%, closer to 8% I think This is despite the ex actually being forthcoming with them about his salary. CMS, due to the time of year I had to apply, are constantly working on tax info that's almost a year out of date. They won't recalculate based on his actual salary because it's not 20% higher than the figure HMRC gave them. That and he also upped his pension contributions as high as he could live with while still convincing himself he's well-off Naturally, he won't pay a penny above what he's told he has to.

Oh evil stepmother alert!
Dripping in bitterness!

Second wife's champagne and flowers budget might be infringed upon by children's needs :)
Sexy underwear is not cheap and is essential to ones confidence!
primark is good enough for the wife and exes children, they should know their place!!

Happy people are questioning your assertion that your DP's ex spent all the maintenance on herself and also didn't spend her own money on the children either. This is very obviously not true unless what you're saying is they didn't have a roof over their heads, heating, food, etc. And if that is what you're saying, why on earth did your DP let it continue?