Paying CMS over 18 years old

[Ron1984]

Afternoon! My DH has three DC from a previous girlfriend. Eldest is 18, he hasn’t had contact for over 8 years. Doesn’t even know where they live. The CMS are asking DH to continue paying but fully admit they do not have to have proof the dc is in full time education, they have been told by his ex only. DH more than happy to pay if he is still at college etc but surely proof is required?

Yes. 18-year-olds still need to eat, be housed and clothed and almost all of them can only afford to live with parents! Still this “dad” can cut off the money. I’m sure you’re really proud of the man you married.

Wow some very judgy comments and assumptions that your husband has "abandoned" his child.
I know where you are coming from OP as me and my husband have been banned from contact of his DS for the last 2 years.
Mother has refused all access and the child doesn't want to see us, he's 10 nearly 11 so courts go with what the child wants.
We used to have to pay her £30 to pick him up every other weekend or we weren't allowed to see him, she had another child and wanted £50 everytime we collected him (on top of maintenance, clothes, shoes, uniform, dinner money and school trips) so she had money to do something with her baby while the other child was with us or it wouldn't be fair 😂 obviously we said no and told her we weren't paying her a hire fee for a child and then things changed and she told DSS we wouldn't pay to see him and then that's where it all went downhill.
We have very little contact, we send weekly texts that don't get answered, birthday/Xmas/Easter cards and money and never hear anything back. We've been to the house numerous times (she moved 100miles away) and they've locked the door and refused to come out and threatened to phone the police.
So unfortunately there are dads who do everything they can to see their children and it's the spiteful mothers who stop it and poison the children.
There is nothing you can do about not having contact but I'd try and contact a family member to get DSS details and give him money directly and now he's an adult he may want a relationship.

I think the point is the OP’s OH doesn’t want to pay anything to the DSS and doesn’t seem to want a relationship either.

@catspyjamas123 OP clearly says DH is happy to still pay

If he was at college this year (very likely) then child benefit (and thus maintenance) is paid until the end of August. It's reasonable to ask his ex for proof of being still in sixth form as it's unusual past 18 (unless they did retakes). If he's at university it's reasonable to pay maintenance but that goes directly to the son, which means he needs to contact his dad.

3 children
Made a decision to have no relationship whatsoever with their father

And they have never moved from that decision

OP - They would not have done that and continue to do that if there wasn’t a reason. And no - it won’t simply be because of the ex. Not at their ages and current age

Thanks for being understanding @LRHRN and to the other posters that have been constructively helpful. I haven’t added all the details here as I don’t have the time, but as I’ve said DH and family are devastated without contact. The ex didn’t want the breakup and has been vindictive and manipulative since. There have been 4 court appearances, they never married. This all adds to the complexity of the situation. I don’t need to defend him as he has acted completely reasonably and with care and respect and I commend him for it. Please look into parental alienation before you judge, it’s horrifying. My question was not about not wanting to pay but simply the process whereby it can be checked if the DC is now not in full time education. A lot of 18 year olds work and don’t have to be fully supported any longer.

An 8 year absence in and of itself serves to create a significant amount of alienation. If they have been to court at least 4 times during this period, your partner has had opportunity to both find out the location of his children and to request court ordered visitation.

Generally, courts will consider the wants of teenage children as to custody and visitation, but in this case as the children were ages 10 and under, the court would , absent some seriously mitigating circumstances, not have denied the father visitation.

In any case, your partner, is not the victim. The children are the victims. For 8 years, they have been fatherless.

I would imagine that the backstory would go far to explain the circumstances , and perhaps neither the mother nor the father is without blame in creating this situation.

In any case, only the children are without blame , and they through no fault of their own are also without a father.

@Coffeeandbeans

Because it shows a lack of morals. You do t have kids and then abandon them. I couldn’t abandon a dog let alone kids. If for any reason I was banned from seeing my kids I would still write to them to let them know that they are loved. To have a father or mother who leaves you must screw you up. There was a show the other week about babies abandoned by their mothers. You know what 60 years later these “children” were still hoping to understand why.

I've seen a situation where one parent has made life so difficult for the other regarding the children. Mother was determined that father would 'pay the price' for leaving her although her behaviour forced him to do so for his own mental health. He had regular access but she always made it difficult, not being home when he was due to collect them, attacking him in front of the kids, attacking his mother (police involved both times), posting lies on SM about him, she was deranged! He ended up living with him dm as he gave all his spare money to her for the kids. She moved away and didn't give an address, he went to court but they couldn't do anything as she was impossible to find. He was told the onus was on him to find her. He sent money, letters, gifts, cards to her dm to be passed on, they were all returned apart from the money 'not at this address'. This went on for 5 years. He didn't abandon them, their mother hid them away.

Wow ! What a huge amount of assumption and judgement on here for the OP.. do people actually trawl the step parenting boards to find a NRP family to bash just for the joy of it ?
Try TEN years in the family court with access awarded EVERY time but a mother who frustrates the court order in every contact.. back to court .. 4 enforcement hearings .. Imagine how the children feel about there father with NOTHING but bile dripped in their ears.. a pathetic CAFCASS officer who took the kids wishes and feelings into account at face value.. and recommended 'supervised contact' only for six months.

Then she even refused to comply with this. FINALLY we had a change of judge who reviewed the whole sorry saga .. The mother was told she had a 'last chance to comply with access or DH would have residency. That was the key. They started to come. They realised Dad wasn't the monster they had been led to believe. They grew a fabulous relationship and 18 months later the eldest voted with their feet and moved in with us. 2 years later the youngest did the same.

The fact that DH paid over 2k a month in CMS was a huge influence in all this. She didn't work and didn't want to. Actually told DH 'you owe me ' ..

The whole experience was beyond stressful. Many many times DH would have given up without me to push him on. He truly believed he was hated by his kids and the best thing to do for them was to stop trying to see them.

We are so pleased we didn't . We now have a lovely happy blended family. My DSC are wonderful teens/twenties now and we wouldn't be without them.

There's been a lot of criticism of OP's DH in this thread. I don't know OP or her DH but would like to say to those criticising that even though children have choices about contact with parents they are children and the choices they make aren't always straightforward.

I was 14 when my mother & father divorced. I loved my father very much but my mother forbade me & my siblings to have contact with him - we were left in no doubt from her that if we did then we had "chosen" his side and would suffer the consequences. Basically we were emotionally blackmailed into telling the Court that we didn't want contact with our father (even though in my case that wasn't true).

Birthday cards, Christmas cards etc. were returned without being opened. He turned up on the doorstep and the door wasn't opened to him. We were also not allowed to have contact with my paternal grandma who I loved. I found out later she'd died of a brain tumour and still think it the height of cruelty from my mother not to have let us see her (or her see her grandchildren) before she died. Even into my twenties my mother made it clear that having anything to do with my dad would be considered disloyal. Poison is dripped into children's ears, it's still dripped into mine now 40 years later and with my dad dead 5 years.

@RiveterRosie
Thank you for sharing. Family conflict is a true sadness. However, I think you and your father loved one another and that transcends any bitterness your mother had in her actions.

The positive I have gained from such experience is that it has given me a more forgiving and accepting outlook to others, to understand that situations and people can be more complex than they appear and that kindness always wins.