starting to struggle

[sm2bnorwich]

Hi all, I'm new to all this but thought there might be someone who can reassure me or provide advice as I feel I have nobody I can talk to and nobody understands.
My OH has 3 kids with his ex and we have been together for 4 1/2 years. Generally the kids are fine and have come to accept me. They don't live with us but they stay 2 nights/ days a week and have their own room and an abundance of toys/clothes here. We have scrimped and saved and finally managed to get on the property ladder but now with a mortgage to pay were finding it harder to make ends meet and go on constant days out. Now OH gives his ex £50 a week for child maintenance (An agreement not statutory) and she also gets paid child tax credits and child disability allowance as 2 of them have T1 diabetes. She's forever having her hair done / nails done, goes out every other night, and very recently bought a new car (not cheap) now I know it's none of my business what she does but I can't help but feel this isn't fair as we provide for those kids when they're with us and buy them new shoes toys and clothes when she lets them run around in embarrassingly worn out shoes until we end up buying new ones. I'm also struggling to find enough cash to replace my old banger for something I can cart the kids round in when needed. Are we not eligable for any of the credits she gets or reduced payments every week. I'm finding it really hard to accept as she takes everything for granted and knows she doesn't have to work and asks more and more of us all the time and through the summer we have ended up having the kids here more often than not so she can go out with her new bf even though we both work full time and me on shift. It's very hard to spend any time with my OH as a couple as every time I'm not at work the kids are here. Please help I'm very tearful and need a shoulder as nobody else understands :(

For god sake just don't get your hair and nails done Surly

Definitely wont be making that mistake!

I actually did my own nails at the weekend (just file and paint) and my sister who gets hers done in a nail place asked where i had them done. She thought they were fake as they are long and slightly squared. Better get rid before anyone tells my exp ive been blowing his cash in nail salons! (nail varnish was a pound in poundland, nail file out of a cheap multipack) Havent had nails professionally done in about 8 years and that was for a wedding.

But hey im blowing it all on trainers for the kids so i'm clearly the devil.

it makes me laugh really. You could bathe in liquid gold if you like, as long as youre taking care of your kids first then who cares. My exp stopped paying child support when he bought a new car, when he got engaged and when he bought his new house. At the idea that he "would be livid that so much money went on dressing a 6 yo for school" he wouldnt even recognise if they had new shoes or not.

"Not sure where you are getting 14 pairs from. There are 12 months in a year. He doesnt lose any of them. He wears through them through playing like children do. They are all between £4 and £10 a pair"

Well, make your mind up - there are 14 on your list and you said there they were at least £15 each:

"in one school year....

4 sets of school shoes £25 each,
5 sets of trainers £15 each,
5 sets of football boots - £20 each. "

(4+5+5=14) No idea what 12 months in the year has to do with it plus you said 'in the school year', which is 11 months.

Heaven forbid you might have been exaggerating for effect and forgot later what you had said of course.....

make your mind up - there are 14 on your list and you said there they were at least £15 each:

What list?

Ah, have your checked your eyes recently? That isnt my post you have quoted. No exaggerating for dramatic effect here.

Oh my lord

A bit dizzy.

No, please, no more of anyone trying to explain stuff to each other, I beg you. Too much cross-purposes chaos already

Yes, sorry!

swing of things - you obviously know everything about bringing up a type 1 diabetic child and your tone is condescending and arrogant in the extreme.

DS2 now aged 6.75yrs, got diagnosed with type 1 DM aged 4 yrs, he was on the 50th centile for height so just average, over the next 18 months he plummeted as he simply did not grow. All put down to the trauma of diagnosis and body adapting - not unreasonable. I accept an unusual year but feel free to check the bills, read his medical records etc!

He started the academic year in size 9 shoes and they were big - he ended the year in Size 1. Now I could be a completely useless mother and just increase the size of his school shoes and ignore the trainers and football boots, let him get sores on his feet and thus teach, or not teach him that diabetics must look after their feet. Or just be such a cow like was for the first two months of the year and tell him to stop whinging about his feet hurting and then die of embarrassment when I get him measured and he is now a 10.5. He ruined one pair of trainers on a very muddy field - allowable. With that increase in foot size, there was an associated increase in overall size - we are cheering, in our house and v happy that his body is settling and rebooting.

And as the diabetic expert round here you will obviously know, pumps are not all wonderful,when they stop working, get blocked, still need to check blood sugars, change kit, remind DC to wear it and no taking it off is not an option, finding it stuffed in his school bag for the day, not going hypo in the night. The cgm sensor is not funded so it costs more monies, hospital visits, illness currently wipes him out - he got norovirus from school - it was chaos for a week getting everything undercontrol again. I get called up to the school if the pump stops working/ gets switched off.

There is no doubt I buy much healthier foods because of DS, so the other 2 benefit and treats are more creative as we try to emphasise the lack of need for sugar for all of them. this is not a bad thing just life in a house with a diabetic child.

Also what the Mum gets in benefits is irrelevant to what the father should be paying for his 3 DCs. He had them with his EX, so obviously thought he could afford their upkeep. That has not changed.

So swingforthings, after 40 yrs of being a type 1 diabetic, I know the odd thing or two and yes it does take more time, more effort and in some cases more monies. I come from a position of knowledge for my DS and I now fully understand how scary it must have been for my parents when I was small. It ahs taken me a long time to not go in and check he is not hypo in his sleep.....

As it happens yes I do know quite a bit about Type 1 diabetes both on a personal and professional basis and I do know that although the diagnosis comes as a shock and it does take time to adjust to the condition most children with the condition will learn to manage it and live a normal life.

All children have growth spurs and still I have never heard of one child requiring that number of footwear and even if somehow this was needed that particular year it is surely exaggeration to infer that it is a normal annual cost for most children.

You consider my post condescending but I thought yours was very much so in response to the OP and that's probably what made me respond as I did.

Yet again patronising - I can only assume you are a diabetic nurse specialist, because those are the condescending comments that I hear every time we go tot he clinic. You really do infer that you plug the pump in and off you go, nothing to it - the reality is so different.

Yes most kids do ( i did - diagnosed age 4) learn to live with and manage with it but to say that life is normal is wrong. Life as a diabetic is different for me, than it is for my friends. It takes more planning, more care and more organisation. I have a normal diabetic life but not a "normal non diabetic life". My son and the OPs step children are young, it takes time. At no point am I saying his growth this past year was normal, it was catch up time - absolutely no exaggeration. His parents are both above the 98th centile So he has had some massive catch up time.

My elder two grow through shoe sizes as well, nothing quite as dramatic but DS8 went from a 1.5 to a 3 last year. We are a v tall family.

I can only hope you deal with your diabetic patients in your professional life, in a better manner than you portray on here.

I think we are diverting from the original point of the thread. I wouldn't insinuate for a second that life as a diabetic is easy what I was trying to say was it is not because one is diabetic that they can't enjoy life like other children, many who will face other difficulties.

The reason why I intervened in support of OP is that I do not believe that most diabetic children cost massively more than non diabetic children yet the mother of these children will receive a significant income from benefit which in addition to maintenance will mean she will be left with more disposable income then a high tax paying family. I can't see how she could be hard done by.

Your post implied (or at least that's how I read it) that spending £600 on one child on school uniforms was normal and I responded to this because in my neck of the wood even those on high income who could afford it would not find this to be an average normal budget even taking into consideration exceptional growth spurs.

Many posters seemed to empathise with the birth mother whereas I can feel more empathy for OP.

If a child with type 1 diabetes has a cgm which is not funded by the nhs it costs approx £250 a month alone for the sensors

Many other things will be covered by the nhs like bg test strips, insulin etc but there are other things not covered for example sometimes glucose tablets/glucojuice, insurance costs for insulin pump or cgm (approx £15 a month to insure both), dressings, sprays etc for if the pump or cgm plasters cause irritation etc etc

Travel costs to appointments as well. It can be really expensive

It can be expensive for some children, it isn't for others. We don't know the circumstances of the OP's SC. Non disabled children can also cost more for various reasons than the 'average' child.

However, going by the OP, the ex's only income is made up of benefits and maintenance. If this is correct AND if the children have additional costs relating to their diabetes that their DLA goes towards to, how is she managing to afford the luxuries OP is referring to?

As said previously, OP could be making things up but as can any other posters on a forum, so have to take what they say at face value.