Refuse to make financial sacrifices for DSS

[usernc76482]

NC but regular poster. Cannot sleep as I'm drowning in a sea of anxiety.

I'll keep this brief: we (DH and i) can no longer afford to send DSS (Yr 12) to private school. ExW and husband comfortable but I don't think in a position to pay till he finishes secondary education next year. ExW and husband also have DC together who are also at the private school), but I mean, why would the step dad pay for his step son to go to private school when that is my DHs job and part of the original court order? ExW does not work.

At the same time, our DC1 has started at private pre prep (Reception) in September last year. It's looking unsustainable being able to send her there now and we will have to pull her out next term.

We could afford to send one or the other but not both children.

So: we COULD continue sending DSS to school if we take our DC out. I just don't think that's fair? If the children's are going to suffer it should be all of them?

It's been a very financially rocky few years but we had made it work, sold our car, no holidays etc. to continue sending DSS to school. We rent so cannot get a loan or anything against a property.

I'm fed up of making sacrifices.

@SherryPalmer

It would be really bad to pull DSS out in y12/13 when he has one year left. Pre-Prep isn’t really necessary - your youngest will be fine staying in state education until y3. It really won’t make a difference.

100% this

The fee payment order could have been made in lieu of the wife foregoing some other financial cut from the marital assets pot.

The OP’s post is vague on the reasons for continuing paying for the DSS’s schooling.

So I'm hesitant to join the ex wife should pay for it brigade.

I read a few years ago of a wife who was awarded a large chunk of the marital assets in exchange for rescinding all rights to her husband’s business. Within about a year of the court order being signed the business went bust and the husband’s shares we’re worthless. He attempted to return it to court and was told by the judge he’d made his choice and he wasn’t getting anything changed.

If OP’s DH had wanted to change the order and been in a position where he’d have been successful. He’d probably have had the order varied by now. However the OP and her husband were able to enrol their own eldest child in to private school, so they do have the money.

OP your circumstances may change for the better in a couple couple years and then you can send all your dc to private school. Certainly you’re DSS will be out of school (not entering the uni debate), and you’ll have funds for at least one child to attend private school.

Also currently schools are all closed. Online learning is going to be very similar for four year olds. She’s not going to be missing out.

I think some people have an idealised view of the courts. In my experience they are only too willing to order a variance on much more flimsy evidence than OP has mentioned. Especially when the child's mother doesn't work.

I think from your update you can see how unreasonable it would be to take DSS out of his final year so you can send your husbands other child to private prep school. It's a no brainer to take your 4 year old out of private school until the eldest child finishes next year.

It might also be worth considering if you really need to send your youngest to private primary school, are you just doing this because its what your husband and ex did for their child or do you have genuine concerns about the primary schools in your area? So in your mind its only 'fair' that your youngest goes to private school too? I really doubt there is going to be much difference between a good state primary and a private primary school, it may make more financial sense for your family to wait until secondary to go private. There are lots of kids who are not from blended families who have grown up without things being completely equal, younger siblings benefiting from the parents having more financial security/disposable income etc, don't break yourself trying to mimic for your youngest what your DSS had in a different situation.

@Tier500 - thanks for clarifying yesterday @ 16:05. Things obviously work differently where I'm from.
I have to say though that I think it's crazy for a court to order private education to be paid by one parent indefinitely without review as surely sahm often go back to work once dc are older & it's also not unheard of for paying df's to loose their jobs/fall ill etc.
I think it's orders & assumptions like this that make the entire divorce system so archaic & so unfair - Father will provide & will thus be always under pressure to maintain finances no matter what his circumstances, and Mother will stay at home to mind dc & will therefore have to/choose to live off exh's wage forever! It's ridiculous & I say this as a dm, not an sm.

I also think that if you are in such dire financial situation then
1- you talk to your ex and review the need of a private school/see if she can step in. This should have happened 4 years ago when they lost their house
2- you don’t put your younger child in private school when you are still renting.

Either what the OP is saying doesn’t add up or between her and her DH (who is a business person/entrepreneur) they have no idea on how to handle family finances.
Because those decisions do not make any sense to me.

I think the court order part of it will make it tricky for him to just stop.

Though I'd be inclined to do what I could to keep DSs in for the end of his A levels - changing schools now especially with all the rubbish going on with covid isn't going to be great for him especially if next year pupils again are reliant on centre assessed grades rather than actual exams.

I understand your want for things to be equal between the two children but they are at such different stages of their education - I don't think the youngest will suffer in the same way for not being in private prep as the eldest will for having their A levels messed around more then they already are due to covid.

That would be up there at the top in the cheeky fucker department.

Taken to court for refusing to pay school fees because you cannot afford them, whilst paying for the youngest to go.

Rather than focus so much on his ex household, you both should be concentrating on your own lives. Not her fault is it that your household income is so unstable? Wasn't her fault that the last business crumbled unless she was the brains behind it all.

@DecemberSun you really think a court would vary an order to allow a father to pay for his 4 year old daughter to go to private school at the expense of his year 12 son? There is no way that would ever happen. Whether the son’s mother works or not isn’t relevant - she presumably didn’t work at the time of the original order either. The question is whether the father can continue meeting the original obligations and the answer is yes, provided he doesn’t take the entirely unnecessary step of sending his 4 year old to a pre prep.

@OwMyNeck how many times are people going to pull out the "well it must be fine for OPs DH to put his son first, then, like that's some sort of clever trump card?

It's painfully obvious that as both children are his, it is not the same situation.

Yes they are both his kids, but continuity of education is essential for his DS and not essential for his DD. The right thing to do is to keep paying for the DS for the next 1.5 years. He’ll then have 12 years where he can pay for DD. Anyway the court order means he doesn’t get to choose.

@FolkSongSweet I'm not disputing any of that, and I agree DSS should be prioritized at this time if one of them can go, as his need is greater due to his age.

But "well it must be fine for your husband to prioritize his child then" said in response to a step parent whose child, who she shares with said husband, is her priority, gets pulled out on MN all the time, and it is mind numbingly stupid. How convenient to forget that both children are his 🙄

My DS is the number one person in my life, no question.
But I wouldn’t put something not that important for him ahead of something of critical importance for DSD on my priority list.
DSD is not my child or responsibility but if all the approx. 2 billion kids in the world who aren’t mine, she is number 1 out of those.
The DDs benefit in staying in private school is minimal when weighed against the cost to the DSS of being pulled out. That’s just a fact.
However, if continuing to pay for the DSS means further erosion of the quality of life of the DD on top of missing out (for now at least m) on a private education, uprooting her to move to a cheaper area (with worse state schools perhaps?) well I’d say that’s where any mother would be within her rights to say “no more, the cost is too great, other arrangements will have to be made”.

This exactly.

So well said as ever @Youseethethingis

Frankly if the EXW cares this much about private education she should be paying for a portion of it.

Do we know if the ExW gives a monkey's about private education? Maybe it was the OP's husband who wanted them in private education, and that's why there's a court order in place for him to pay the fees. (Apologies if I've missed it, think I've read most but maybe not all of it, so am just surmising.)

Either way, I am sure the ExW would fight tooth and nail not to have her son's schooling disrupted at this point though, and I think we'd all agree with her.

It's not a trump card, its a fact. They're both his kids and he can't choose the small one at the expense of the big one. He literally can't, there is a court order that stops him.

I put my kids first before all others, which is why I would never have had any with someone who already had children. OP chose to do that, and therefore lost her option of only ever putting her own children first. Her choice, she needs to deal with that.

Stepmother bingo right there

@OwMyNeck That's not the point. He equally cannot put his first child first at the expense of his second, in a majority of scenarios. In this instance, weighing the two up, he may decide the older child's needs are more pressing, and I would agree with him. But that does not in any way mean it is appropriate for him to make his son his general top priority in retaliation for OP doing the same with her DD, which is what you implied.

The second part of your comment is untrue. I am with someone with a child and I absolutely did not give up the option of putting my child first. I gave up the option of my partner always putting DD first, but I can and will. I expect him to prioritize them equally depending on need.

OP chose to do that, and therefore lost her option of only ever putting her own children first. Her choice, she needs to deal with that.
Literally the card from last night on the other thread - 2nd tier mothers not allowed to put their children first because they have older half siblings.
Where is the balance?

But the OP isn’t parenting her child alone, that’s the point. If she was earning her own money then she could legitimately say that she didn’t want to pay for DSS’s education with it, but what she wants is for her DH, his father, to use his money to prioritise their joint child over his eldest. That’s not reasonable.

"Do we know if the ExW gives a monkey's about private education?"

Well her two kids with her "new" husband are in private schools...

@Tier500

But the OP isn’t parenting her child alone, that’s the point. If she was earning her own money then she could legitimately say that she didn’t want to pay for DSS’s education with it, but what she wants is for her DH, his father, to use his money to prioritise their joint child over his eldest. That’s not reasonable.

This, the child also has a father who is parent to both and has to do the best for both kids, and in this instance, without any shadow of a doubt, the best absolutely is for the elder kid to complete his education.

No four or five year old needs to go to private school. And I say that as someone who sent hers at four. It is simoly not necessary. No harm will come to this child by doing reception snd year one in state school. Harm is hugely possible to the elder child by withdrawing them at this stage.

The father is doing the right thing, the op is trying not to.

@Tier500 I've never said he should prioritize the youngest over the oldest in this scenario. Saying it's not ok to only ever put your child first and if that's the case then it's fine for OPs husband to do the same is clearly a general comment about priorities, not something that is only being applied to this situation. That is what I was responding to.

And as much as I can't see any evidence OP earns her own money, I can't see any evidence she doesn't either, so it seems to me people are jumping to conclusions by saying she doesn't earn herself (unless someone can direct me towards the comment where she said this)

Oh I absolutely agree that in this instance the DSS needs should clearly be the priority, and that would be the case even if he had 10 younger full siblings.
I reject the idea that SMs generally have “agreed” to not make decisions for and do their best by their own children as their priority. What a lot of dangerous nonsense.

Literally the card from last night on the other thread - 2nd tier mothers not allowed to put their children first because they have older half siblings

No, thats not right. Sometimes their children will come first, sometimes they won't. But they have lost the right to ALWAYS put their child first. That's what they signed up to. There is no way around it.
You might not like it, but is a cold hard fact.

But this is not even about having 2 families at all. The same would be true if they were all one family, the older childs schooling is more important that a very young child, whetehr they are half or full siblings.