What's your opinion on maintenance?

[Mamamc123]

Nothing wrong here and not asking for advice as such, just a difference in opinion during a discussion tonight and I wondered what everyone else's views are on how maintenance money is used and what it's expected to cover?
My friend and I are both mothers to our own bio kids and I am also SM to my DPs kids.
Friend was moaning how her ExH doesn't contribute enough financially to her daughter's expenses - he pays well above what the CSA calculator suggests and his daughter wants for nothing whilst she's with him.
She expects him on top of that to buy half of the children's clothes, school uniforms, shoes, activities/ clubs, extra childcare etc - which is exactly what my DP does for my DSDs.
However I think it's unreasonable to expect this much when a regular and fair amount of maintence is being paid and custody is split.
My ExH pays maintence for our children but in my opinion it is for all of those things and I don't expect him to "top-up" anywhere else. I don't think it's fair for a father to be paying for the mother to look after her own children when they are with her if that makes sense? I don't pay my ExH for the kids food etc when they are there.
If something like an expensive school trip or one off big expense then I think it's fair to go 50/50 on that, but in general if you're receiving 100s in maintence every month then you shouldn't always expect more.
Ps: I'm not talking about men who shirk their responsibilities or don't pay - I mean honest good dad's who pay their fair percentage of income and see their kids regularly.
What do you all think?

swing - I did once send him the annual child care costs - it got posted on facebook by his DP and dissected by her harpies as to what a bad mother I was !

Refuse to give them anymore ammunition, he knows my weekly timetable down to the minute and has no problem telling me I am neglecting the DCS if I am not home on time and he can not speak to them when he phones - trains and traffic are not apparently an excuse, I should leave work earlier to ensure I get home when he thinks I should be. He phones the CM to check if she has them when he can not get hold of them. eg, she had them so I could attend a gynae hospital appt! That hit facebook aswell.

Hell will freeze over before I give him any more information!
Sad thing he was a fab dad for the first five years, kind, generous, thoughtful caring and is now a class A1 twunt - who I do not recognise in any shape or form, do not respect and consider him weak and pathetic

What a spiteful thing to do. It sounds like there is a lot of animosity that goes beyond a disagreement on maintenance. He sounds like bully.

I refuse to engage - will not argue in front of the DCS ever.

He recently left his DP and the change for the better, is phenomenal. However, i am sure he will go back, so no surplus info to him that he can use. The lovely elements are re appearing but if he thinks I am fooled he has another think coming! However, monies have not yet been raised - that will be interesting!

I have lovely new partner, not living together but just moving along slowly - am just happy with the improved communications. I can live with the maintenance situation - this is better for the DCS, in 4 months they have seen their father more times than in the previous 2 years - shutting up about maintenance to see them happy may not be morally right but if it is better for them - I will continue to suck it up!

One day I will get my say!

I sacked up for years. It's hard but worth it in the end. My two are now 14 and 17 and very happy and balanced teenagers.

Their dad has acted in a self centred way all his life. It is the way he is and I accepted that he won't ever change. It is always all about him. However I've also accepted that this very frustrating trait doesn't alone make him a bad father and he does have some good traits too and he can offer some qualities to our children that I can't myself. He does bring them what is the most important thing to give children and that is to know that they are deeply loved by him.

He hasn't paid a penny towards them expect for a few months after we separated. First I battled on and that brought on much stress. I always avoided the CSA because I knew he wouldn't cope with the bureaucracy of it and or would tip over the age. Then he lost one job after another before working as self employed so it was pointless anyway.

I really hoped that when he settled into a secure regular job he would suggest paying something, anything. He hasn't. He's taken the coward approach that if I didn't pester him he could burry his head in the sand. Not only he doesn't pay a penny for anything, no pocket money, no extras, I even still pay for their transport every weekend to go and see him! I do it for them.

I can't deny that being happy with my husband for 8 years have made it all a lot easier to deal with. I still get angry at times that I am solely contributing to all their needs but that's how it is.

One day they will have children themselves and I hope they will have learnt how important it is to put your children first.

swing - I feel your pain - although mine does contribute something.

The rest of what you said is so true - he was happy, he deserved happiness, how could I deny him a holiday with his family( not his DCS), he deserved a weekend off ( could not have DCs!) etc etc

Like you I see a global bigger picture and only once have my DCs seen me lose it and cry over his actions - and that was when my Mum died and his DP faked a pregnancy and "bleeding" on the day of the funeral, so he could not look after his DCs.

Like you I hope my DCs realise and understand as they get older - mine are still young. I am aiming for kind caring, well adjusted thoughtful adults - my tongue is hurting from the amount of biting to stop me saying something but it will be worth it!

Workingmums - how did you know the pregnancy was fake?

Because - she faked being pregnant and had a miscarriage to get Ex to leave, when something monumentally bad was happening in my life and he had told her he was staying with me.
6 months later as things were going from bad to worse in my life and he made moves again to come back, she did the same and 5 months later when my parent died she did it again.

None of these "miscarriages" at 10+ weeks required her to go to the hospital and get checked out. Ex has admitted to a few things recently surrounding this and when she did get properly pregnant he noticed that the numbers they put by your age indicating how many pregnancies you have and live births said 3+2, when it should have said 6+2 , if all the miscarriages actually happened.

I think on depends on the individual family and the expectations/ lifestyle they has when married. My husband was the high earner with his Ex and there was an Expectation that she would be a SAHP and be free of money worries. Their son would also have had a high standard of living if they have stayed married. As my husband could afford it he has stuck to this understanding. He provided a home for his ex and son, fully covered bills and paid for school trips, clothes etc. In that case £350 would not have been adequate.

In a marriage with less money and with different expectations a smaller amount would be fine.

My dp has to pay his ex 2400 euro a month for 3 kids!!!! (We are not in UK) & she still expects him to fork out for extras!!!
Irish law totally screws the dads in most situations.

What does everyone on this thread think about the RP being means tested on the maintenance? In my situation, the RP is taking home more per month than the NRP, but the NRP is still paying £650 per month on maintenance. Now unable to afford to buy things for the children, and RP didn't spend much at all on the children, so they just miss out left right and centre.

I think the income of the RP is mostly irrelevant.

I do think it is healthy for the child to have a similar standard of living in both home. Not exactly the same but it would seem wrong to be living in poverty in one house and in affluence in the other - so to that extent the income of both parents is relevant I guess

When my mum and dad split. My dad didn't give my mum any financial support at all. When we spent weekends with him he paid for stuff.

Mum shipped us off to boarding school from a young age.

I feel a lot closer to my dad, my mum is never happy she hates my relationship with my dad and feels that as he didn't contribute then I shouldn't be talking to him.

Phils - exactly that, if the RP has a disproportionately high salary and yet the NRP is contributing a significant portion of their salary, then the children just get less in one house than the other, i don't see the benefit to the children of that

Tobolsk - argghhh money always causes issues, right? Your mother shouldn't bring you into the argument between her and her ex. Having less money shouldn't have meant she had to ship you off anywhere, that was her choice

But I do think that the NRP should give a significant proportion of their salary and should want to tbh

My ex pays me the CSA amount monthly, and I use that for everything. Childcare, clothes, mortgage etc. It just all goes in the pot.
The only exception is if they have an expensive trip, in the hundreds, when I'll ask him to put in half.
He has them EOW and feeds them and pays for any days out while they are there.

What does everyone on this thread think about the RP being means tested on the maintenance?

children have two parents and should be supported by both. If you aroe not careful, it turns into 'she has enough money to support them so he doesn't have to'.

I should say that I personally have more than enough money to support my children and my ex has no intention whatsoever of supporting them. It has nothing at all to do with what I have and everything to do with his decision that it's not his responsibility. It is as much his responsibility as it is mine and as far as I'm concerned, even if I were a millionaire in my own right, my ex would still have an obligation to provide financial support for his children.

On a (kind of) related note to this as well is, what if the RP is preventing more access to the children to get to a 50/50 shared care arrangement, and the reason behind that is that they don't want to lose the child maintenance money? What are people's views on that?

50/50 in terms of rarely means 50/50 financially in my experience. You certainly wouldn't do 50/50 if the parents were living together, particularly where there is a discrepancy in salaries. In fact, if you posted in 'relationships', my partner earns twice what I do but expects me to pay for childcare, there would be screams of abuse and LTB.

I think that unless parents earn exactly the same, 50/50 is very complicated and requires a good degree of openess and a quality relationship between parents.

refusing 50/50 to still receive maintenance? Could that not be turned around to say 'he only wants 50/50 so that he doesn't have to pay maintenance'? How about a sensible discussion which ensures that the child had what it needs and both parents have the best possible standard of living?

Very true, and it is a complex area for the government (hence CSA) to make broad generalisations about (which they have to do in order to get anything in place that works).

"sensible discussion" is often something that doesn't happen between the split parties unfortunately, probably to the detriment to both parties if anything - still finding it weird that you can be married/in a LTR with someone for years and years, then the next day you make it your mission not to speak to them anymore. Just a human strangeness I guess.

You're right in the split of the expenses when together, in your example of even if I were a millionaire in my own right, my ex would still have an obligation to provide financial support for his children. then clearly living together the millionaire would likely take care of all costs if the other party was on a low income, and yet when split the other party could be paying money.

The trouble is there will always be extremes and the CSA is trying to take the lowest common denominator approach

gomez - on that argument my EXs new Ex DP should get all the CSA allocated maintenance for her one DC over my two DCs. ( all have the same father ) because I earn a decent wage and she had lain back and shagged her way to her monies - sorry that makes my blood boil as this attitude is what I am currently fighting.

Unlike her I work my arse off to provide for my DCs but that does not mean their father should not contribute. Does not make me wealthy - I drive a 10yr old car, hers is 2016, my holidays are a memory, she went to Greece, Tenerife and Barbados last year, she shops at Waitrose i shop in Sainsburys, she has Jimmy Choos in her cupboard - I have dockers - get the picture....

She on the other hand never got a training, has wrecked three marriages has three kids by three different fathers, gets maximum benefits and maintenance off all fathers. Because her benefits and maintenance are not taxed, her actual annual income is more than mine after tax etc. However, she is perceived as the poor one .

Perhaps if she got off her arse and worked for her monies rather than expecting the govt to support a lifestyle, she can not afford then she may understand what working hard means as a single mother.She has no clue how to budget, work and save.

I struggle to see how the CSA minimum makes someone struggle to afford to live. Kids need paying for by both parents .

this attitude make my blood boil.-

workingmums that is a shocking way to talk about the mother of your husband's children. If I ever spoke about my stepson's mother in that fashion my husband would be furious and we probably wouldn't be married. I had to work for years when she didn't because my husband had an existing financial obligation to his first child. It wouldn't be right if he went back on that obligation because he had overstretched his finances.

Phils - i read it that is her ex Husband who has 2 DCs with his new partner who is now an ex as well therefore he has 2 lots of maintenance to pay.

A cynical view could be that having DCs with multiple fathers enables a load of tax free income.... It would work.... I can see there would be people who could do that...

Phil - apologies if you are offended but the truth is often painful and in my Exs now EX DPs case this is true.( and only a fraction of what i would call her) I never voice my opinion in public and never to my DCs, this is after all the mother of their sib. On here I can say what is painfully the the truth, she likes her sugar daddies ( all men in their late 30s when she got them)
However, my now 11yr old has asked why all the children have different fathers, it will not be long before he works a few more things out, he has already asked if Y trapped his Daddy and i have had to tell him that Daddy made his own decision to live with her.!!!
His response was - well he really messed that one up-didn't he - even told his father !

1st Marriage she wrecked: 2DCs affected - both his, one hers and one his wifes. Income from that wreckage: £500pcm and more. After he split with his wife, they lived together for 4 yrs - high life until DC came along them the cracks appeared. ( she was 18 when that affair started)

2nd Marriage: 1 DC affected hers and his, lived together for 5 yrs - gets £600pcm maintenance. ( The original couple are now back together!)

3rd Marriage: 3 DCS affected my 2 and her and EXs 1. She is demanding £1200 pcm from my EX, on the basis of his salary and suggesting that as I earn enough, he should not give me any. This having been her argument for the 4 years they were together. Even allowing for the paltry amount he gives for his 2DCs _£450pcm on his salary - she refuses to split his overall assessment 3 ways and as he looks after their DC more than he does my 2, it should strictly be 75:25 in my favour but for peace I am prepared to go 3 ways.

So here we are and gom the reason why I see red on this issue:
She works about 6 days pcm, her own income
£900
£1200
£600
£400

So far £3100 but because her maintenance is not taken into account - she gets
housing benefit
working tax credits
child benefit etc - which total about £1100 pcm

£4200pcm does not make her poor, hard done by or anything else. Even if my EX does drop to a more reasonable £500pcm she will still have £3500pcm to live off.

I earn £55K per year which is a bloody good salary - after pensions I take home £2900pcm - add in maintenance £450pcm - £3350. I work damn hard for that.

She has never worked full time, has no intention of ever working full time and expects men to keep her. Sucker no 4 is no doubt in line. Oh forgot, she expects EX to provide a suitable (highend SUV)vehicle ot transport her 3 DCs around in, pay his DCS whole cost of a holiday etc etc.

Phil - this woman was never my DCs SM she was the SM from hell, she emotionally abused them for 4 yrs, excluded them from their fathers life ( not a bad thing considering how she treated them on the few occasions they went to his house) and the best thing he did was leave her - my DCs have such a better relationship with their father see him on a weekly basis, run round his house like it it their home, have their own beds, stuff in his house and they love their other sibling, who they now get to see and have a relationship.

(Also - no chance of us getting back together - I am v happy in a 1 yr relationship - just pleased for my DCS that they have their father back in their lives)

So gomez - no I do not think the RPs income should be taken into account for the above reasons!