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?

Sorry ex wife and children!
Not exes wife!

Well the official figure is 15% but after contact adjustments are made and pension contributions are taken into account it's considerably lower. I'm not suggesting the contact adjustments shouldn't be made however.

The 15% figure is frankly insulting. And the fact that the cms won't recalculate unless the difference is more than 20% is ludicrous. I'm in this situation right now as figures I have been quoted are I know incorrect for previous financial year. My calculations have worked out that the difference could be around 8000 that he should be paying maintenance on, but because it's less than the 20% figure, he's playing by the book. What a charmer.

Happy - you are the only one coming across as bitter IMO.

If your husband has a problem with his ex wife neglecting their children why hasn't he taken some action to prevent that harm coming to them?

Being bitter about paying the money to a mother who you describe as neglectful but not bothered enough by the neglect to actually do anything makes him a bit of a crap parent TBH.

DP pays the CMS minimum. When they were going through their divorce she wanted my assets and income taken into consideration in Court whereas her partner's weren't mentioned. She ended up with 75% of their assets which means DP and I now rent (at £1050 a month) while she lives rent free in her partners mortgage-free house. So she has the best part of £100k sitting in the bank and we have literally nothing left.

On top of that when DP had his accident he was unable to work for 2 years and she put in a claim to get CSA money taken direct from MY incapacity benefit and it was taken out of my money. To say I was fuming was a fucking understatement. We were living on the bones of our arse for two years, literally surviving on charity handouts to feed my DC and yet she was still hounding him for money when she'd already got a lump sum.

Since she's moved in with her partner contact with his DD has practically dwindled to nothing.

So she's got the money, got him out of their lives, alienated the older girl (DPs DD, exes DSD - been in her life since she was 4, now 20) completely so they are now NC and she still wants her pound of flesh.

So we pay the minimum. Because we can't afford to pay anymore. Because quite frankly the Courts awarded her that sum to enable her to 'house her child and care for her until she is 18' and she has her partners income, her own wages and tax credits. I'm not sure how much one 12 year old child is meant to fucking cost.

Just to balance out my other post. I receive £5 a week for DD2. Nothing for DD1 and the CSA told me I'd been overpaid by £125 (£5.50 a week since she was 2 - no increase ever) and they would like it back so they can refund her dad. I laughed so much I nearly peed and told them to take me to Court as there was no way on God's earth I would give that man a penny.

💐 coffee.
What an awful woman.
She makes my DPs ex seem reasonable!!

The balance of the money sounds wrong there coffee but I find it hard to understand a parent that apparently lay down and accepted a reduction in contact to the point he now doesn't see his daughter or a parent who decided not to be equally involved with care during the relationship tbh.

No contact between ex and DD lost so really I'd have expected the figure to be 15% after his pension contributions if the system worked the way it's supposed to. But they acknowledge that he's paying far less than he should be while also refusing to revise their calculation with actual salary figures. All because the difference is less than 20%. Which means he'd need a fucking big pay rise for them to calculate it properly. All the while, DD will soon need to be in full time childcare and his 'contribution' will pay for 2 days per week of that and nothing more. Not food, clothes, shoes, etc. The system sucks.

Funny how a pp said she doesn't know anyone where the kid/'s have their own rooms at the nrp house.

Everyone we know in that situation has a room for the child.
We bought a five bed, three storey house, dss has the top floor, two rooms (bedroom with en suite and sitting/games room) and it was for that reason we bought this particular house. (I also moved over an hour from where I lived so we live within a couple of miles of him and near his school, she moved further away from his school a year later)

Two of dp's mates are divorced. One has a five bed house, lives with his new partner and her dd, his ds and dd also have their own rooms. Other one has 50/50 care, three bed house, each dd has their own room.
Funny how we all seem to only know people who support our own version of the truth, isn't it?

offred Before the divorce hearing we had DSD here EOW, extra time when ex was going away to see her partner and substantial time in the holidays. Before I moved in with him, he had her the same amount of time but me being here meant he didn't need to get her up at stupid o'clock on school mornings to drop her off at another parents house so he could get to work by 7am. He used to do the school runs when they were still married and was very involved with her care.

The contact dwindled when his ex moved away. They used to live two streets away but now live about 90 minutes away instead. And he keeps being told his DD is busy. Or they are going away. She's 12. Courts at this age are pointless as she'd be asked what she wanted and at the moment she won't even talk to him on the phone. We have no idea why and she hasn't given a reason.

DP fought through the Courts for two years to get contact with his oldest and they have a great relationship now. It's not like he's given up on his youngest but is so worn down by his ex just bleeding him dry and the endless criticism and snide comments which are repeated by his DD that it's got to the point where he's said, the door is open, I'm always here. Please understand that in the last two years he's nearly died, gone through a divorce while recovering from horrendous injuries, lost his house and his DD has been moved away.

He's been shit on from a great height and feels aggrieved that his ex has driven a wedge between his DD and him, her sister and all his extended family.

Some of the posts on this thread are shocking.

I receive the bare minimum maintenance from exH. It just, just covers half of the monthly childcare. So nothing towards housing, food, clothes, bills, running a car, clubs, toys, holidays, all the rest of it, nothing. Yet I am a reasonable earner because unlike exH I work hard. The idea that exH should not have to pay maintenance because I work hard and he doesn't is frankly disgusting.

The attitude of the ex's and ex's new partners of 'I'm not funding your lifestyle' etc etc. What do you propose we do? Take the money out of the bank as cash and only spend that money on the children and each time we buy something with it say 'that's from your Dad. He left us all but he just bought you that juice. Isn't he great??'

What a joke.

A few different reasons. Some dads are just plain selfish deadbeats, others cant separate how they feel about the ex from how the feel about their kids.

One aspect I never see discussed in these threads are men who, when a woman falls pregnant to them, just do not want to become a father. That is to say, were they biologically the one who was pregnant and not the woman, they would seek a termination.

For those men your question is answered with 'No, they do not care and they never wanted to care.' Society can expect you to care for something they say you have responsibility to care for, but society cant expect you to want to do it or be surprised or outraged if you neglect duties to something you never wanted in the first place.

Couldn't agree more elderly

I read recently that average weekly childcare bills amount to almost 27% of the average salary.

Quite where they get the 15% figure from when this is the situation most people with young children find themselves in, I have no idea.

Happy(irony?)

"Children are a joint financial responsibility [exactly what I and other pps have said costs of raising the child should be 50/50 and they're NOT IN FAVOUR OF THE NRP!] - and mothers should have their own income assessed ( and indeed that of a new partner if living together). [I asked you of that meant it was fair to include YOUR income then as part of maintenance assessment - only fair if ex wife's new man's income is accounted for YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED]

A failed marriage does not make it the sole responsibility of the father to finance his children as compensation for the mother being the resident parent" NOBODY HAS SAID THAT. Myself and other pps sharing my view have only ever said it should be equal - yea that's really talking shite eh!

"Funny how a pp said she doesn't know anyone where the kid/'s have their own rooms at the nrp house. " that was me I think and we clearly just move on different circles income wise. But my ex made no effort to make my dd feel his home was also hers.

"Funny how we all seem to only know people who support our own version of the truth, isn't it?" I've also said I have friends who are shit at paying maintenance and I've said so to them. I don't doubt other people's experiences in terms of differing wealth and social circumstances. I don't know anyone separated that can afford a 5 bed house either, a few friends could/do but they're on first marriage/relationship and in one couples case are childless.

Dadwashere takes 2 to tango! If a guy doesn't want kids he needs to be responsible for contraception/abstinence same as a woman.

In that case, DadWasHere, they should have taken more care not to make a baby.

They could do that by being celibate or having a vasectomy.

This has to be the most emotive thread I have read in a while. Full of raw emotions and anger. I don't understand the second hand anger. I understand children or parents anger. I can't fathom why random are enraged on behalf of the situation between a man his ex or a child's experience of a parent. It's like watching vultures pick at a fractured family it's sad and quite unhealthy to see second hand odd bods getting into such a state about second hand information.

"As the responsible father it is entirely his right to quibble what the maintainence is going on - if she does not need it in that present situation to clothe and feed the children - then absolutely expect her to save it for the children's future."

Why?

Does it cost less to clothe and feed children if you have an income higher than that needed to clothe and feed them?

Why would a responsible father not want to pay his fair share of clothing and feeding his children?

That's like assuming it's logical to split a restaurant bill by whoever had the most money with them pays the most rather than equally by people or by what you actually ate.

How much money the other parent has left of their own money after the children's expenses have been paid isn't anything to do with it - unless the NRP was actually paying so much that the RP genuinely didn't have to contribute at all.

THEY WON'T PAY. !!!!!!!!!!.
They should be fucking forced to. Imagine if it were the single parent they'd left behind refusing to get a job.

Tabul

The father has a right to question where the maintainence is going as it IS IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILDREN.

Maintainence is not for the mother to squander on new people carriers when she could be putting the maintainence away for uni.

If you read my other posts carefully, the children did not go without. We paid £400 a month on the old system CSA which left us brassic. However the children came first and I often took them shopping for clothes out of my own income.

I have no idea why somebody said Happy - irony?

No it's not irony - my DSC are adults now. We are close as a family and all children have blended well.

Cory im afraid society does give a monkeys . I remember an MNer posting on this very board that SHE was the one called into the school to be asked why the kids were always late on the days their father did the school run.

"The father has a right to question where the maintainence is going as it IS IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILDREN."

Not if they're adequately housed, wearing clothes and fed he doesn't - that's what maintenance is for, if after doing that the RP has their own money left, then it's theirs to do whatever they want with.

Or do you honestly think it costs less than £400 a month to raise a child?...bearing in mind that food alone will take up at least half of that if you include money for school dinners...

Either the RP is meeting their needs or they aren't, if they are it's no business of the NRP what happens to the RP's separate income, whether they buy cars capable of carrying children, save it or donate it to battersea dog's home.

If the RP isn't meeting their basic needs then a responsible NRP wouldn't be bitching about the small (in comparison to the actual cost of raising a child) amount of money they're paying, they should be working with the appropriate agencies to deal with the neglect that's happening to their children in the care of the RP.

Has the Father the right to check the state of his ex's pants too.

In that case,DadWasHere, they should have taken more care not to make a baby. They could do that by being celibate or having a vasectomy.

So what is your point SanityClause, a flavour of sour grapes? The OP asked if fathers cared, I pointed out some do not care simply because they never wanted to be fathers in the first place. Why should they be expected to care? Law can force them to pay but if your argument is those particular fathers are morally flawed because they choose not to care, I think you are plain wrong. Its wrong in much the same way society expected pregnant women, pre reproductive rights, to 'mother up' over their unwanted pregnancies because that’s what society and law deemed should happen.