If you can't afford one child, you shouldn t have had another one (I quote)

[travispickles]

So as some of you know I have DD of 10 weeks and DP has DS of 10yrs. CM has gone down by 20 quid a month and DP receiving angry texts (see above). She is demanding he makes up the shortfall or she will refuse to bring him into town when she is coming anyway but make us drive the two hour round trip. What she doesn't know is he has just been made redundant so starting Sept he will be sahd looking after baby. CM will go down to minimum. Thing is, I will only just earn enough to keep roof over our heads and she doesn't work although she is a qualified teacher. Do I have right to refuse to pay any of my income to her?

My DSS is like that I feel like a right skiv. Just leaves the table won't clear plates etc. I say no food in your room and it's ignored, when he goes home i'm left to clear all the plates and wrappers. He won't even take his shoes off in the house when i ask. I've given up now other wise it just gets me down. My DH and i work full time doing 12 hour days (including 2 hrs travel a day) I don't want to spend my whole weekend clearing up after a child with an attitude problem that doesn't appreciate me. I'm not going to let DD behave like that when she arrives as i want her to grow up into a nice responsible adult. Maybe DH will realise that he should enforce these things with DSS if he sees it benefitting DD. Although by then it will probably be too late!

i'm just glad i'm not the only one that puts up with it!

My DH pays what he can afford which will be in excess of what his son needs. However as parents don't we aspire to give our children more than their basic needs?

Of course you cannot forsee redundancy etc but I think it is wrong to have a child if that impacts on the children that already exist. Particularly if children have the added difficulty of an absent parent or a divorce. I married my husband knowing that he had a son and that we would never be able to make major decisions without considering him.

My point was that sometimes children do cost extra in rent/heating etc.

However, I don't think that NRP's should pay half the RP's costs, it's not their responsibility to support the RP iyswim.

RhiRhi123 why don't you leave your DH to clean up after his son. It might make him do something about the problem of him not clearing up after himself.

desperatelyseekingsnoozes while your sentiments about it being wrong to have a child if that impacts on children that already exist is, in its way, admirable I don't agree with it. Using your logic then all couples should only have one child because even when a couple stay together the arrival of a second child will impact on the first.

"My DH pays what he can afford which will be in excess of what his son needs. However as parents don't we aspire to give our children more than their basic needs?"

If you can choose how the money is spent - absolutely. But the reality is that when you hand money over to another adult, then once those basis needs are catered for with respect to the children, that adult has absolute discretion as to what to spend the money on.

Allnew - agree totally. We could afford to pay more than we actually do, but it's clear that even that amount we DO pay, doesn't get spent on SS. If we sent any extra money to the ex, it would just get spent on another pedigree dog (long story). So we try and spend extra money on SS when he's with us. That way we can be sure the money gets spent on the intended 'target.'

I also agree with the poster who said that you shouldn't refrain from having a child with a new partner, just because it may disadvantage a child from a first marriage - because as it was pointed out, if a married couple have four children, the amount of money being spent on Child One is diluted with the arrival of each subsequent child.

Thats the main point a LOT of PWC don't actually spend CM on what it's intended for, as others have said if the expendature of a child was worked out and split in half i think many more people would feel happier but as in our case DSS's mother spends the extra money on holidays and going to the hair dressers (which we can't afford ourselves) not on SS. He goes around in second hand clothes that dont fit and doesn't get any extras. We buy all his trainers and school shoes and hair cuts etc on top of CM aswell as everything he needs at ours so why should she have the luxuries out of our hard earned money while the child goes without?

chaotic it has worked in our case. I knew when I met DH that he wanted to continue to support the mother of his child being at home. That meant paying her mortgage and in effect giving her a living wage. I married my DH when his son was 4,I wanted children quite quickly but knew tht would not be possible while he was fully supporting another child. Therefore we waited until our stepson's mother was able to work. However just as I have entered a relatively low paid profession and have been able to do that because my DH is a good earner we also wanted the mother of his child to feel that my DH would be willing to pay a generous amount of child support.

When DH and I have had our own children we have had gaps of about five to six years for economic reasons. We have carefully saved and planned for each child rather than having children on a whim.

Of course each child impacts the other but not in a financial way that could negatively affect each child. All of our children have the freedom to be well fed , dressed, cared for and able to pursue hobbies and interests. Ideally I would love more children but I know our finances could not stretch to another child so we have stopped. Our stepson is included in that equation.

allnewtaketwo we do not lay down conditions on how the money is spent but because there is open communication we know roughly where the money goes. I would not want to be married to a man who paid maintenance and then asked for receipts!

I know that part of DH's maintencance goes on a holiday for his stepson and "ex". We don't care, that is what we give maintenance for in the hope his son will grow up with special memories of family times.There have been years when we have not had a holiday and they have, why on earth would you begrudge a holiday to a child? There will be times when DH's stepson has a holiday with his own mother and then with us as well. My children do not feel hard done by at all. My husband and I strongly feel that his son should have all the advantages that he would have if he lived with us. It would not enter my head to allow something for my biological children and not be willing to the same for Dh's son.

"allnewtaketwo we do not lay down conditions on how the money is spent but because there is open communication we know roughly where the money goes. I would not want to be married to a man who paid maintenance and then asked for receipts!"

Well unlike your situation, there are many PWC NRP relationships where open communication is most definitely not a feature.

And receipts doesn't come into it. But when you're paying out £100s per month and see the children in rags with no holidays ever, you do raise an eyebrow when you see the new 7 seater to cater for her 'new' children

Desperatelyseekingsnoozes - whilst I cannot fault the patience and generosity of you and your husband, I suspect your situation is unusual. A lot of couples do not have sufficient cash to bankroll the ex to be a SAHM, and whilst some may have the cash, there's not always the goodwill, and there are also some ex's who don't deserve to be supported so generously (although I appreciate that some do).

If my DH had told me that we need to make big sacrifices to ensure his ex can be a SAHM, while I'm out working full time, I think that may have been a deal-breaker.

And then there's the time factor. Whilst it may be financially desirable for the 'new wife' to delay a baby until her stepchildren no longer need so much support, what if (a) she doesn't want to wait; and (b) if she's too old to wait? No offence to ladies in their late 30s/early 40s, but we don't always have the luxury of hanging around if our ovaries are slowing down.

I would say that if you don't want to wait and an agreement has been made between your future husband and his ex then you need to look for a different husband.

I actually like the mother of my stepson, perhaps it is easier because there was not relationship there. However that is neither here nor there. I find the idea that some ex's do not deserve supporting as rather offensive. This is not about the adults involved in the situation but the child.

We could only afford to support our stepson's mother as a SAHM by living a frugal life ourselves and delaying our own decision to have children. My DH earns a good wage but we are not rich and certainly were not then. Before we were married my DH lived in a flat, didn't do holidays and any other luxuries. I was also a SAHM to my first child for five years - a similar amount of time as the mother to our stepson. I was able to be a SAHM not only because I had maternity pay and a husband but because our stepson's mother took on more financial responsibility at that stage. It has always been give and take.

Allnewtaketwo I appreciate that must be frustrating. However things have not been amicable between our families by accident. We have worked at it. I would also want to question why my husband had a child with someone incapable of putting their own children first.

Petal02, there is a post of yours on here that has haunted me for days.

It was along the lines of 50% shared care means less / no maintenance. you then go on to talk about "but would you want your stepchild hanging around whilst you have precious new baby time".

This sentence of yours has made me feel ill. The stepchild is the child that has gone through all the changes, the one who was originally the apple of their father's eye. The child whose feelings SHOULD BE MOST taken into account when planning new children.

Just awful.

Desparatelyseekingsnoozes ? when I first read about your patience/funding for the ex, I thought you sounded like a saint. However when I read this:

?We could only afford to support the ex to be a SAHM by living a frugal life and delaying starting a family.?

I changed my mind and now think you sound like a doormat. If the ex HAD NOT been supported to be a SAHM, could you have had a baby sooner? What if you?d waited so long to have a baby, then you found you couldn?t have one?

I agree 100% DCSsunhill which is why I would never get hung up on whether a step child has more or less than your own biological children.

The idea that I am a doormat is laughable. I am not a saint either I just have human compassion for a child who has had a difficult strt in life. I had time to have children. The child that already existed was only going to get one childhood! If you read my post carefully you would have seen that we married when his stepson was 4. His mother started to look for work when the son was settled in primary school. I was hardly waiting years.

There are lots of posters who contribute here, who find it challenging having their step children around while trying to cope with a new baby.

I think that looking at the way your husband treats other significant women in his life can reveal your future. I am secure in the knowledge that if the worst happened and we were to split, my children and I would not be thrown to the dogs.

Petal02, you come across as someone solely out for your own interests. Which is fine, for you. However, children always come first.

Desperatelyseeking sounds like a perfectly reasonable individual who made choices based on what was best at that time for the child. Happy child, happy parents and step parents.

Petal, you come across as grabbing and me me me.

Petal, I don't give a flying fuck about posters who find it challenging whilst having both step children and new babies in the home at the same time.

The step children are part of the package. They deserve the right to bond with new babies as much as the parents do. More so, as it is the child who will find a new presence unsettling and usurping.

Your words, as I said, made me feel ill.

There are often robust opinions expressed on this forum, so if you get ill easily, perhaps you should frequent the Knitting thread?

I just feel strongly that lots of ?second families? seem to get a less favourable deal than ?first families.? I don?t have a personal axe to grind, we don?t have financial problems, and my DH?s ex doesn?t usually cause friction. However I sympathise with posters on here, and friends/acquaintances in real life, whose lives and budgets are dominated by the ex.

"They deserve the right to bond with new babies as much as the parents do. More so, as it is the child who will find a new presence unsettling and usurping"

while I agree that DSCs definitely need time to bond with their new half-sibling, I find it utterly baffling for you to suggest that this right to bond is more important that that between the mother and child

And to be honest, my new born baby really didn't care much for bonding with anyone else for the first while - no-one else was giving him milk. Imagine if I'd handed him over, screaming, due to the DSC's more pressing need to bond

I agree with you petal. Being a SM i find it very difficult and as i'm expeting my first DD i'd like to have some time to bond with her before DSS comes into the picture demanding all of his dads time and treating me like a slave. I'm not talking months just a week or so. I don't think thats unreasonable. He's already said he's not looking foward to having a new sister so i'd like to enjoy the first precious days with my new daughter rather then having them upheaved due to his attention seaking. I show him love and attention and try to teach him boundries when he is with us but he is a very difficult child and tbh i don't want the added pressure at that time.