When your waste of space ex doesn't pay maintenance

[Pebbledashery]

How do you deal with getting through the whole month until next pay day supporting a house, all the bills, food shopping, and providing 100% financial support for a child???
My ex, wannabe Disney dad....Point blank refuses to pay a single penny of child maintenance towards our child because he's not allowed to see her. I logged into my account on CMS yesterday and he's £4k in arrears.. Ex is a higher earner and earns in excess of £75k from his day job.. The line of work he's in he also earns a lot on the side doing private work.
I mean, how do you cope financially? I will never learn to rely on this money once it starts being paid. He would rather be forced to pay then put himself through the pain of having to pay it into my bank account...that money is for her and only her and he can't bring himself to do it.

@schoolcook I feel like that too - I couldn't ever imagining allowing another man into our lives!! he would have to be something ridiculously special! and even then, the fear of being in another abusive relationship just puts me off!
I'm just happy me, and my little one :)

@Pebbledashery I'm exactly the same. If anything I'm stronger and know exactly what I want as well as what I don't. I like being in charge of me
It's just sad that there are so many poor excuses for fathers out there.
And all this free school meals arguing in the media brings out the "feckless mothers can't feed their kids" crowd with not a thought to the fathers who walk away without so much as a backward glance and in many cases do the same thing over and over. It's pure cruelty.

@schoolcook I agree. You must feel relief in some way he cannot bother you or be in your children's life.. I still have all that yet to come with the courts. God forbid you should mention maintenance in court either. I've been told its frowned upon... So he just gets away with it.

Absolutely.
Court was 14 years ago now and nearly all my children are adults.
I will say it does get easier !
Yes how dare us mothers actually need money to raise our children
I wish you luck it's not a nice process to go through.

pebbledashery my little one is also 2 so the court will decide if he takes it that far. I don’t live with him but I had to leave so he kept the family home and has all our stuff.

It sounds like you have good evidence so should be ok. I have some but less. Not paying maintenance is recognised as a form of financial abuse.

@siablue that's awful :( my ex is claiming I am the abusive one :( which is really awful because I am not capable of being. All those years I put up with what he did and now he's reversing everything and saying he's the victim.
I would say if I was in a position where the abuse was just me then he would probably be getting 50/50 - which utterly makes me sick, because he isn't capable of looking after an ant let alone a child..
He's claiming Disney Dad status (I am sure your ex is too) yet he hasn't done ONE single thing to show he cares about her, even on his Court application, it was a COMPLETE attack on me. I sort of hope that's his stance in Court though, because they'll be able to see quickly he has no interest in DD and she's unfortunately just an accessory to him :( which is especially sad because she is my entire universe.
These men, I don't know how they do it.
Is your little one having contact with your ex at the moment?
x

@Pebbledashery - that is such a textbook defence of the abusive ex, most judges laught at that one. Especially when you have evidence to prove otherwise and that they haven’t been contributing financially to the upkeep of their kids. Judges don’t dig that at all. Just keep plugging away at holding your head high and being the reasonable one.

@justilou1 you know, I regularly hope to myself that we get a Judge or magistrate that will completely rip him to shreds. I don't know whether to mention the fact he doesn't pay maintenance to cafcass. I have no great desire or need for his money. But that money is for our daughter. Surely he should actually want to provide for her.

I would caution against mentioning to cafcass unless they ask.

Maintenance and contact are legally separate and doing so can with some cafcass people paint you in a bad light, that's what happened to me and I wasn't dealing with an abusive ex just an absent one who took me to court for contact not because he was actually interested in contact but due to pressure from his parents

I'd stopped contact because he was being irresponsible regarding contact. From turning up hours late or at all to turning up pissed or hungover but still likely unfit to drive and expecting me to let him drive dd on motorway to take dd to his parents - whereupon he'd fuck off with ow and leave dd in his parents care.

I had no issue with dd seeing her grandparents more than happy and even took her myself sometimes but he was not spending time with his daughter on his contact days and with the driving side putting her at risk.

There were also things like he'd "forget" to feed her or change her nappy or put warm clothes on her in cold/rainy weather which a few times resulted in her getting chills/sick

Unfortunately such low level neglect barely registers with courts.

I can understand why to an extent when they are dealing with people like your ex op, which is absolutely more important, but it's still unacceptable as far as I'm concerned

I wish I'd known of mn back then as I'm sure I would have been advised not to goad him into seeking legal contact but instead to be unavailable when he was late/failed to show, not tell dd daddy was coming and have her be broken hearted, though I'm not sure what the advice on the rest would have been

And there's no way to mitigate unprofessional people like the cafcass officer I had who spent hours with ex when it was supposed to be a relatively short interview and who clearly developed some kind of crush on him! She mentioned his "beautiful eyes" in the report ffs! And made me out to be using dd as a pawn to get a good divorce settlement which was utter bollocks cos he had sod all money anyway and that side was all but sorted by the time she was involved!

Be canny, and factual and focus on the danger he presents and that your main focus is protection, wishing you so much luck

Our society has such low expectations of men - it really is embarrassing & pathetic.

@TheClitterati I would love to know a country when men treat women like absolutely goddesses.
Abusers are everywhere. There so good at hiding it to the outside world. I told my solicitor that only I know what both my daughter and I have suffered and I will take that to my grave.. No judge, no cafcass officer, no barrister would have walked a mile in my shoes.

@Graphista urgh beautiful eyes!!!! That's so unprofessional. Honestly.
Can I ask what contact your ex got? Was it 50/50?
Just so full for sh*t aren't they.. I really hope we have a cafcass officer who actually wants to safeguard children.
I know it's luck of the draw really.

Can I ask what contact your ex got? Was it 50/50?

No, one day, no overnights eow to be reviewed when dd was older - which he never bothered to pursue and in reality he saw her more like every 6 weeks at that point. He genuinely didn't actually care about seeing dd he just didn't like me not jumping when he clicked his fingers to see her and not letting him drive her drunk!

It's a whole saga that's too identifying to get into really but it wasn't just one hearing but several as he repeatedly cocked up.

Cafcass officer was admonished in the 1st hearing for the unprofessional report - judge saw right through that! Think he may have known her "of old" as it were

Judges (yep plural) saw right through ex, though that wasn't hard as ex kept blurting out angry comments throughout every hearing including at one point saying to a judge with over 30 years family court service that they didn't know what they were talking about! You can imagine how well THAT went down!

He STILL moans about how much it cost him (partly as he wasn't eligible for legal aid whereas I was - this was a long time ago) but also because he went through several lawyers and others trying to prove he wasn't doing what he was and getting annoyed at them when they refused to do things that were unethical or otherwise against their professional code of conduct and he'd pitch a fit and sack them!

Total farce!

But yes, ultimately every judge we were before saw right through him and recognised him for what he was. I was even given unusual "advice" as in they could also see I was flogging a dead horse which I didn't see myself at the time.

They're not generally daft the judges in my experience.

You have my sympathies OP it's so tough. My son's dad doesn't pay and my stepsons mum doesn't pay either and we have 90% care of them both. We just have to manage same as when I was single.

@Graphista thank you for taking the time to tell me. He sounds like a delight!!! Waste of bloody oxygen.. These men don't want to be supervised.. Their actors but not that good. Has he not bothered to keep up with contact then?
I must admit I got to the end of what you wrote and felt slightly reassured.. I'm worried about my ex getting any kind of direct contact.. He's been proven to be a violent abuser.. And as hard as it is to write this.. There is evidence of his awful abuse of DD which I sent the SW.. She said I absolutely must get that evidence played in court and it has to be included in my statement.. The SW we had was very concerned about him having direct contact because of severe safeguarding risks.

@WaterOffADucksCrack that's tough.. Financially supporting a child who isn't related by blood.. :( but you sound amazing :) I just go without now.. When I fled I let pretty much all my clothes behind and took about 3 pairs of leggings and some other bits, I can't afford to buy myself any clothes because I pay nursery fees and rent and bills and everything else.. But I've learnt the true meaning of sacrifice.. As long as my DD is clothed, warm and her belly is full then I'll wear leggings every day of my life!

Utterly heartbreaking to read all you and dd have been through op I'm
So so sorry

Judges vary but in my experience they mostly seem to have their heads on straight in family court - there are anomalies of course there are, I've a few horror stories I've heard which I won't scare you with as they're RARE.

Happy to pm if you'd like to chat further as I'm wary of putting anything too identifying here

@Pebbledashery same! I have one meal a day so the children eat well. No new clothes or anything. I had to buy new shoes when mine had holes in though and I felt so guilty! Ex raped me repeatedly so that's how my son was conceived so I've never expected maintenance. He lives with his mother and doesn't claim specifically to get out of paying. I've ummed and ahhd about contacting her but I don't want him to gain access.

You feel as if no one understands. Then you get the friends who say "I know what you've been through because my husband has been away for a week". It's lonely. But I promise you you will look back and be in awe of yourself. Single parents are so strong and most of them don't know it.

Dss has been in my life since 10 months old so it's just the same as my own children. His mum has never really been bothered. Unless it's his birthday or Christmas and then she wants him all day!

@WaterOffADucksCrack :( it's so sad isn't it - but we're good mothers that's what good mothers do - they sacrifice everything to keep their children safe, I wouldn't think twice about it. I am so sorry that happened to you :( did you ever report him to the Police? your son is a complete blessing to you though