2 questions really but related. This is a bit of a brain dump too.
A few years ago DH and I took his 2 children to a family wedding abroad. Both children were in the wedding party. It was DH's family member and the wedding was in a far away tropical kind of place. They were 7 and 11 at the time.
It cost us £5k (AI) to go as a family of 4. We/DH paid for the DSC's wedding outfits and bought them clothes to wear on holiday (everything, their mum didn't buy them any summer clothes that year because we'd got them all). We gave them spending money while we were away and paid for extras like meals out and food that was additional to the all inc deal.
It was a 2 week holiday and DH spoke to his ex and said he was planning to pay her half the usual maintenance that month because they would be with us on holiday for just over 2 weeks of the month and we had bought all their clothes etc. (It's a private arrangement, not through CSA - she wouldn't get nearly as much as she does from CSA)
She threw a fit about this and demanded the full amount. Told him he was a terrible dad and he got a voicemail from her (she didn't realise she hadn't hung up) and heard her telling someone that 'that no good cunt hasn't even paid me this month AND he's expecting me to just roll over and take it', which was a total lie. From what I recall he stood firm and in the end she took the half. I think when she realised just how many clothes we had bought for them she worked out she was quids in!
I'm not sure why I'm asking this now, just waned to know if we did the right thing really...I've seen some posts about 'treats' or 'pocket money' coming from the maintenance money, but we've never done that. Anything to pay when they're with us comes from our 'family' money / DH pays for. ON TOP of the maintenance.
Have we been doing this wrong the whole time?!
I'm 6 months pregnant with our first child together at the moment and I'm starting to worry about us not having enough money to support our child as well as support his 2 and pay for all the extras. They are now 11 and 14, so the things they want are getting more expensive. Every pair of new trainers is upwards of £70 and DH doesn't want to change how he treats them. I don't want him too either but I worry we're really going to struggle to maintain this level of financial outlay AND bring up our baby. Christmas and birthday's they get SO much. He spends hundreds and so does their mum. Would it be wrong of me to suggest he cuts it down?
How do others deal with this when another child is thrown into the mix? I hadn't really thought about it before, but as someone pointed out on another thread, when it comes to birthday's Christmas etc the DSC will get double (from mum and from dad) whereas my DS will only have one. I hadn't really considered it before and its now making me worry my DS will miss out / think he's getting less.
Thanks for reading if you got this far!