I've never had a formal arrangement with ExH for maintenance. We married and divorced young and had nothing to show for ourselves at the time. I gave ExH some leeway whilst he was finishing Uni but when he got a job I managed to get him to give £100 a month towards DS. Before that he'd just used to pay for DS swimming lessons which I was thankful for.
A little over a year ago, he loaned me some money to have my car fixed since I do all the school runs. He said instead of paying him back he wouldn't pay maintence for 2 years. I had little options at the time so agreed. He has since been promoted big time and is living very lavishly meanwhile, now I struggle to buy DS Contact lenses, fund his school trips and pay for school dinners etc... Despite working nearly fulltime - It's really a struggle for me atm.
I was curious so used the CMS calculator and realized that had I gone through them, I'd be entitled to £400 a month. That means really, I'd have paid off the money he loaned me in 6 months, nevermind 2 years! I know if I did this, he would be really angry with me. We don't have the best relationship anyway, we rarely speak and he only sees DS (He's 12 now) every fortnight for one day (DS doesn't even like to stay over - so he doesn't).
I wonder if I am being unreasonable by thinking I should claim Maintenance via CMS? Or if I should try and negotiate with him (it won't be easy) to sort it out amongst ourselves. I'm scared its going to rock the boat too much but at the sametime, I am paying and struggling for absolutely everything right now and could use the help.
Thoughts? (Sorry for the novella)