Ex partner, csa, and our new baby, i'm slowly going mad!

[avaboosmummy]

Hi,
i'm new to this site, and just wanted to share my probs, who know's maybe tey will half.
This is the concise(!) version so far ;

My Dp has a daughter from a teenage relationship, when we first met 4 years ago his mother looked after the child every weekend which I found strange as Dp not involved in his arrangement at all.
Dp split with his ex soon after the child was born, and he moved away for personal reasons whie still keeping in regular phone contact.
When we met I fet he should be invoved in his daughters life and I felt that his mother needed to take a step back in order to do this and any commmunication with the ex should go throught him, rather than simply between the ex and his mother.( We also asked friends, family, work colleagues, parents if the felt this was the right way to go about this)
We asked them both to agree that if we had the child every other weekend, his mother to see her once a month.
Anyway they couldn't stick to this and the weekend she should have been with her mother stepfather and new sister she was still at his mothers, even though everyone had agreed to this arrangement.
Anyway it drives me potty because I feel his ex still has the ful support pf his family even though they never lived together and were never really serious.
We fell on har times and it became hard to pay the bills, never mind find the petrol for a 100 mile round trip, so contact stopped, we would have been more inclined to put ourselvs out had others cooperated.
There are certain elements about his mothers parenting we do not aree with, example we buy things for the child yet they stay with his mother, ie clothestoys etc.
I also finds some of the comments made by his child to be rather odd, and it seems she is very influnced by his mother and in the wrond ways.
Example his mother would tell her at 5 years of age that her stepdad is no good, etc etc.
Also his mother allowed my Dp to go clubbing at sge 13, and ended up taking drugs intravenusly while still a teenager!!!
When my Dps child was born he was entering a rehab programme, and his ex didn't want to know after he had completed it.
I met my partner a year or so after this and I have supported and encouraged him, he's got a good carer now, yet I feel his ex still has the backup of his family just because she had a child.
She quickly aquired a new partner, who she now has a child with.
Her own mother was disgusted at how she treated my dp, but his family still support her
We found out we were expecting in October last year, and in Feb this year after 8 years the ex had to claim maintenence as her partner was in prison!
(She has never worked and does not believe that she has to)
Of course this came at a bad time, and at 4 months pregnant was very hard indeed, I contacted his ex and asked if we could reach some agreement and she refused point blank.
The CSA of course unsympathetic, continue to get his payments wrong and they are taken straight from his wages.
After my partner has paid bills, mortgage etc, he is left with £150 disposable income, of course I do claim child tax credit but this is assessed on my partners full income, which I think is wrong because this household do not benefit from the chunk that the CSA takes.
I receive approx £150 through tax credit and child benefit.
I am currently receing maternity allowance until feb, although I lost my job at 6 months pregnant, so it is claimed through the DWP.
I am pissed off because once the MA finishes, firstly I have always planned on going back to work, but with the reduction in our income I really don't have a choice, while the ex can continue to not work, use his parents as on demand babysitters, and generally make a mockery of my values, ie working for a living and actally wanting her child to have contact with her dad.
I feel that my child and I are considered second best by this system and I am really strting to crack under this pressure.
On top of all this I have his mother, making snide remarks 4 days after giving birth about my choice of name.
Its really getting me down my partner and I are on the brink of splitting up.
I'm starting to fell really sad for us, and this is kind of a bad sign for me, at least when i'm angry I've still got some fight left in me.
Arrgghhhhhhh!!!

I'm sorry for you that you are feeling so overwhelmed. Hopefully someone with experience of stepfamilies will come along with good advice.

You need to take a step back and try to ignore the stuff going on with his family - you are unlikely to change anything and its just mental torture!

I know its hard, but you need to let him sort out the CSA and you ignore it, put it in a box in your head and lock it!

I nearly drove myself mad when my eldest dd was born as we were in similar situation with dh's ex - she was manipulating my 2 dsd's and tryng to get more money from CSA - all the usual crap! (his family are ok though)

You have to make yourself ignore this stuff and get your dp to step up and take some responsibility - he is the only one who can sort his family out. If he fails then reduce contact - still see them but on your terms and only when you want to.

my mil is a free babysitting service for dh's exW and their DD. she is very involved with the exW and knows intimate details of her new marriage and life. she trys to overcompensate the DD for the split by buying her excessive amts of clothes and stuff, and lets her do what she wants. If the DD is bored at her DM's she rings nana and gets picked up (an hour and a half round trip) and taken out for treats. xW never asks my DH if he would like this time for extra contact. DH has repeatedly asked his DM to pull back on the spoiling and running around after the DD, it eases for a week or two then goes back to normal.

What I think I'm trying to say, is you have to just take the attitude of not caring what his family is doing, you'll get too wound up, we just say we can't be bothered anymore, if that's what they want then fine. We don't buy her clothese anymore as MIL buys to excess and many things only worn once ("but that's ok as was bought in the sale" ). We do what we have to do, and get on with our life.

The financial side is harder, but if you are buying things for the DD also, try to stop, it's hard, but if you are struggling, the X gets maintenance to buy what the DD needs. Originally my DH was working o/s and was giving xW quite a lot in maintenance, then we found out she was going to factor the money into how much they could borrow for a house! We know have a private arrangement which is slightly less than CSA recommendation, but didn't reduce when we had our DS or if we have his DD more. If you can push this with her, and try to cut the CSA out altogether.

hope things get better for you, it's a struggle every day, wondering what the future holds, but take 1 day at a time and focus only on the things YOU can control

Join NACSA to get practical advice on the CSA mess, they will really help you out.

I'm sorry you're having such a stressful time avaboosmummy. I know how stressful it can get trying to deal with the CSA. There are practical things that you can do and would also strongly recommend the NACSA. My DP is in the process of appealing the CSAs deciaion as we are in a similar financial situation to you. I think tazmosis's right though - leave that stuff up to him, it seems that you have enough other stuff to deal with at the moment. I have found that I can cope with the situation a bit better by taking a step back.

avaboosmummy, I really feel for you so big hugs first of all.

My dh has 2 children from a prev relationship and his mother is very involved in the ex's and dsc's life but she never comes to see our child, his dc's are 12 and 9, our son is 4 and we are expecting another in December.

We have been together for 8 years and his mother always tried to get her 2pence worth, the things she has said to dh were unforgivable but I stayed out of it, things came to a head when our son was a month old, the ex got the csa involved, after saying she would never get them involved, I told the ex never to ring the house again and never to ask for extras and feelings became tense between mil and me, mil took the ex's side.

Feelings between us and the ex have improved vastly, me and ex can have a lovely conversation on the phone, she always asks how me and our son are if she is talking to dh, but between us and mil feelings are very much not there anymore, we never see her, she never comes round but she will still jump for the ex everytime.

With regards to the csa, I deal with them everytime, I ring up if there is a problem and I deal with letters from them.

My advice with regards to your mil is if you have to have a relationship with her then you have to put your foot down about the snide remarks and with regards to her involvement with your dsd, there is nothing you can do about it so as hard as it will be you have to let it go, it's easy for me to say that now as I've dealt with my feelings but you should let it go.

I really hope you and your dp do not split up, you have to let each other know what your feelings are with the situation and don't think you are second best, yes you will feel as though you and your dd get the worst deal but your dd has her parents with her all the time, thats how I got through a lot of it, I always felt our son never got nice new clothes, or a holiday or the best toys, like the dsc's got but I had to keep saying that at least he had his mummy and daddy with him every day and I bet the dsc's would give anything to have their dad everyday, especially my dsd as she is a right daddy's girl.

I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say as I'm not very good at explaining what I mean

I have found this forum excellent in coming to terms with my role as stepmother, I've been a sm for 8 years now and it's only in the last 2 years that I can honestly say that I'm happy with it all.

I hope you can get to that place soon xx

i dont know much about step families, but i think you need to take a step back from a lot of these problems. most of them originated long before you came on the scene, and people formed relationships with each other that had nothing to do with you. they probably feel annoyed at you for forcing change on them.
if the grandmother is happy looking after the child, then thats fine. try not to interfere in their relationship.
any snide remarks she is making should be ignored as it's not worth your while. you have new baby to care for. that is the mmost important thing.

Have I got this right? He didn't pay for 8 years and now the CSA are involved? Are his payments so much because he has arrears that they've backdated? And why are they taking it direct from his wages? I thought they only did that if the absent parent wasn't making payments. Hopefully NACSA will be able to help with all this.

And I don't really see what the problem is with your dp's mum being supportive of his x. Isn't that a good thing for your dp's daughter?

I think what you really need to do concentrate on is your dp's and your relationship with his daughter. Get to see her as often as you can and make those contacts matter. Do lovely things with her, be a family, all 4 of you. Don't refuse to put yourself out because others don't cooperate. Just be grateful for every day that you can see her.

The rest of it you can do nothing about, so don't waste energy on it. You can't change her mum's values, and you can't change her parenting. But what you can do is make sure that little girl has a lovely time when she's with you.

Hey,
thankyou for the advice. Dp is going t speak with his parents and explain how we feel about things, and also say that we shall be taking a step back if things can't be resolved.
We don't thk it's on that his mother told his daughter shehad a sister, surely that was his right.
I do think its good that my mil is supportive of her grand daughter, however I feel as the ex choose not to have my partner involved from the start, why his family should support her.
I believe strongly in working for a living and as i mentioned in my first post, once my MA finishes its back for me, so surely if I have to then why is it another rule for others?
If my mil supported the ex so she could do somethig productive then not a problem.
It is very hard for me to want to see the child when we will be struggling to manage on our income now csa is involved.

Hey,
Had a long chat with my mil, on the phone for an hour and half. I think we've made some headway.
She has assured me she isn't close to my dp's ex and that she would be devasted if we were to fall out as she likes me and is happy for us as a family.
I also raised some issues about dsd showing signs of insecurity and she has also noticed this too.
I have found out some details on dsd that make me want to sort things out purel for hr sake.
I have mentioned to dp that if we could get her a mobile she can contact us when she wants, and that I wouldbe happy to see her if she can get to us, which would involve her mother putting her on a train and us meetng her at the other end, does this sound reasonable?
The child is nine, but mature for her age and woudbe on the train for about 40 minutes and there is only one stop between where she would board and depart.
My dp is seeing his parents in two weeks and wants to speak to them before we make any commitment to this.
At least this way we can avoid any contact with her mother as we really don't want her in our lives.