My ex who was incredibly abusivr throughout our relationship ship left a few years ago after being in an out for years a lot of which was during my pregnancies. This with the drinking and shouting was obviously a blessing in disguise although it’s very tough some days.
He has the DC on weekends except when he’s travelling for work / holidays when I will have them or a lot of the time his parents help out.
In the years we’ve been separated he’s not contributed a penny towards maintencr and I pay the majority of childcare as I have them during the week.
He threatens me with court over money I spent during our relationship and says because he has them in the weekends it’s about equal hours so shouldn’t have to pay.
He is very verbally abusive if I bring this up.
His girlfriend obviously has no idea what a prick he is which although a non issue as it’s made him less included to drunkenly call and rant at what a shit I am but it still irritates as he treated me like shit and had told everyone that I am completely batshit.
As we were never married and don’t have a court order in place can I still claim maintenance as practically this is a necessity. I am expecting him to contest it if course and refuse although the current contact set up is what he demanded when he left.
I am exhausted by him obviously and communicating with him always ends up feeling like an assault. The relationship was traumatic so I am dreading have to sort this out with him.
Any advice would be helpful.