To further 'assist' exw for dcs sake?

[JJfish70]

Good morning everyone.
A friend has directed me to this place so hopefully I can get some advice here.
I am a dad of three aged 22, 18 and 16. My exw and I are divorced for 10 years & we were separated for 2 years previous to our divorce so are12 years apart in total. There was no one else involved on either side, we just were totally incompatible and should never have gotten married. Our eldest was unplanned and we tried to create a family together but it just did not work.
My exw had just left a job when we met and has not worked outside the home since. When we split we agreed I would keep working and she would stay minding the children. I have a good job that involves a fair bit of travelling and I fully appreciated that this made her going out to work while the children were small difficult, as my schedule changes from month to month. This was reflected in our divorce settlement. I pay well over cms which I am more than happy to do. I also undertook to pay for all school extras such as trips etc. and all third level. I have just finished off paying the mortgage on my exw's house which she now owns outright. She also received a six figure lump sum in lieu of spousal maintenance.
I should add that she also moved to the far end of the country to be close to family. This meant I also had to purchase a small property for myself near her home in order to see and spend time with my children.
Now the current issues I'm facing are as follows.
Exw has never gone back to work despite the children getting older and more independent and despite me offering to pay for childcare if needed. She has also proven herself to be very bad with handling money and I am regularly contacted buy my children who say she has no money to give them for shoes, haircuts, that type of thing. She herself has also contacted me looking for money when something happens like her car breaking down. She is always complaining I don't give her enough and says she has gone through the lump sum. How, I don't know, but comments from the children would seem to back this up.
When my eldest turned 18 I stopped his maintenance but give him an allowance & pay for his third level. When he is at his mums and not in his accommodation I have told him to use his allowance to contribute to his mums household which he does. My daughter is 18 and not finishing A levels until this summer so I still pay her maintenance but plan on doing for her what I have done for my eldest once she starts college.
This means the only 'income' going into my exw's house will be the maintenance for my youngest son who has two more years left in school.
My exw is now kicking off massively and demanding I give her more money which my solicitor has emphatically said I should not do. However when I say no she threatens to sell the house and move to another town where some other family members live and threatens to pull our youngest out of school where he is very happy. This could all be bluster but the cold fact is that she is not going to be able to run a house on £200 a week given her lack of money management, her past history and no savings, so I think she will end up doing something drastic like selling her house.
I still travel a lot for work and I have been in a relationship with a wonderful woman for the past 6 years. She lives in the south of the country and has been remarkably understanding and patient of my situation and the fact that I have to spend so much time at the far end of the country because of my children. It has long been my plan to sell my home in the town where my children live once my youngest goes to college and to use the equity to buy an 'our' home with my partner. However I am now extremely worried that my exw will just sell up and even if she doesn't do it now she will do it in a few years and my children will have no home to go back to as she says she will move in with a sister where there would be no room for our children, and will live off the proceeds of the house sale. They of course know they are always welcome at mine and my partners but their lives are in the north as are their friends & their colleges of choice.
At the moment I'm feeling that I should maybe give her my house up there to live in and thus provide some stability for my youngest as he goes through A Levels and let her sell her house and bank the money. Another part of me feels I should put the house in my children's names as their inheritance and they and she can live there as long as they want.
Either way if I go down any of these roads I am giving up buying a home with my partner. I'm very torn as I am worried about my children and their stability but I also feel I deserve to start living my life now they are all older. I am a fairly successful businessman but I have very little surplus personal money as it has all gone on the divorce settlement and on my children and I cannot afford to keep housing them all AND purchase with my partner.
My family members all tell me I'm mad to keep bailing her out but none of them are divorced so they don't really understand my worries regarding my children who will all still need a base until they go out in the world and get jobs.
My partner has a very good and very specific job and I don't feel it would be fair to ask her to give all that up to move miles away just to provide a base for my adult children especially as I would still be travelling for a few more years and they would be coming and going from college. However I also feel it's unfair of me to keep expecting her to keep living this half relationship with me given our ages and the ages of my children.
If anyone has any ideas I would really appreciate it as I'm getting to a stage where I cannot see a way through.

This is what I mean by a battle mentality. I’ve asked how she might see it and now she’s abusive and he’s a victim, OP is no closer to a course of action.

Fwiw if he is a victim seeking therapy to review these narratives might be helpful. If he isn’t a victim reviewing the narratives will still be helpful.

@5thnonblonde

This is what I mean by a battle mentality. I’ve asked how she might see it and now she’s abusive and he’s a victim, OP is no closer to a course of action.

Fwiw if he is a victim seeking therapy to review these narratives might be helpful. If he isn’t a victim reviewing the narratives will still be helpful.

I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about

This is what I mean by a battle mentality. I’ve asked how she might see it and now she’s abusive and he’s a victim

Abuse was mentioned on this thread before you came on it. Do you not think this is abuse? The whole - give me stuff or I’ll make our children suffer? A number of posters have also gently recommended therapy as well.

[quote 5thnonblonde]@sassbott sounds like OP has got into a battle mentality which rarely results in any meaningful compromise. OP clearly came here wanting the OK to cut her off but why does he care what Internet randos think? Perhaps he feels guilty. He’s less likely to feel guilt if he views her as a whole real person and can engage with her as such.[/quote]
Why does there need to be compromise here? 🤯

@5thnonblonde

This is what I mean by a battle mentality. I’ve asked how she might see it and now she’s abusive and he’s a victim, OP is no closer to a course of action.

Fwiw if he is a victim seeking therapy to review these narratives might be helpful. If he isn’t a victim reviewing the narratives will still be helpful.

Well his course of action is to stop giving her more than he has to and to ignore her entirely. She doesn’t need to contact him because the youngest child is 16.

He can continue to provide additional support to his children directly, for as long as he bloody likes.

She got a generous divorce settlement and every reasonable person on Earth would have expected her to work towards supporting herself over the 12 years she’s been divorced. Her children stopped being a barrier to her studying or getting a job a few years ago.

The thing is, loads of women support themselves and their children - without their ex buying them a house and providing a large lump sum as well as generous child maintenance. It’s hard to feel sorry for a woman who is not only refusing to support herself but using her adult or near adult children to try to extort money out of their father.

There’s no need for compromise or to work with her. Her failure to do anything to improve her employability despite having children who require no childcare is her problem alone. She can claim UC and discover that she will be expected to work (or look for work) for 35 hours a week. Because frankly she has no excuse not to work. She lives in a home she owns outright. Minimum wage goes much further when you don’t have to pay to house yourself.

No violins - however small - are going to play for a woman in her position. She’s known that there was an end date on child maintenance for over a decade. She could have made better choices. Like all the women out there who work, and who get qualifications while doing so, without any meaningful practical or financial support from their children’s father.

One thing I have learned from working with and being related to many different sorts of people: Some people work hard at a strategy for competence and independence in life. Other people work equally as hard to develop skills of manipulation and neediness/vulnerability. When you see that someone has passed up opportunity after opportunity to take control of their life, but hasn’t, you do not owe them anything further (and no offence but by giving in, are not necessarily setting a good example for your kids. Would you want your sons to be treated the way you have been treated by your ex? Would you want your daughter to behave in the way that your ex-wife has? I’m not saying they would, but be aware, you are their main male role model.)

Your kids are old enough that hopefully you can give them much of money they need directly and keep your ex out of the loop to a greater extent than you have. There are also plenty of tools nowadays for maintaining a close relationship with people at a distance, and transferring money instantly, even when you are away for your job. Skype, FaceTime, Venmo, etc and other applications should let you be a part of your kids’ daily lives and even video chat with them on the go (for example if they are at your Northern house alone and a problem comes up where you need to take a look yourself). Can you work towards a direct relationship with them, both emotionally and financially, taking advantage of these tools?

Good luck to you all. Do NOT give her your house. Figure out a way to use it for you and your kids instead, it is a security and a base for your children that YOU control. There are some good ideas on here to make that happen.

Hi OP. Your situation is very sad and I hope you’ve had some useful advice here. It’s very difficult without all this to help children to transition from child to adult. This must be very tough on them. But you can start to build a relationship with them as adults, letting them take responsibility for their own life decisions and providing a safety net in case things go wrong.

My DH has just let his ExW know that now all their DCs are over 18 and either working or at Uni he will be stopping her maintenance and supporting the DCs directly - as per the original court order. She’s already had several months more maintenance than she was entitled to and apparently it has come ‘as a shock’ that the money to her would stop. He’s given her another six months to make adjustments. We’ll see what happens then. Unlike your ex OP, his ExW earns the same as my DH and has a partner.

Some women have some very odd expectations it would seem.

OP - you are entitled to your own life and happiness. You sound like you have more than gone out of your way to do your duty and be helpful/accommodating.
It is not on you if she has squandered her divorce settlement.
Like someone else said I would explain the situation to your children who are adults now. I wouldn’t even let her stay in your house if it was me, could lead to all sorts of potential problems. Explain to your children, make a stand and move on or this could go on and you will be manipulated forever. Good luck!

@MachineBee some women think having children with a man, especially a high earning one, is a meal ticket for life regardless of whether they stay married to them or not.

I would change exactly nothing until your youngest is off to university. At that point. Luckily they're adults now, or nearly. Buy yourself a lovely forever home with your amazingly patient partner and always have an open door for your dc, ideally they should each have a room of their own.

Was your divorce an other woman / man scenario?

@FindingAFish

I would change exactly nothing until your youngest is off to university. At that point. Luckily they're adults now, or nearly. Buy yourself a lovely forever home with your amazingly patient partner and always have an open door for your dc, ideally they should each have a room of their own.

Was your divorce an other woman / man scenario?

Why is that relevant?

Even if it were an affair more than a decade ago that led to the divorce, that doesn’t make it ok for a woman to take no responsibility for funding her own life and to make threats about disrupting schooling for her own children to try to extort more money from her ex.

Give money directly to your children. Do not give anything to your ex wife to buy stuff for them. Even the 16 year can have his/her own bank account.

Sounds like a very outdated arrangement. As a feminist I will always defend women's right to maintenance and compensation for years given to raising children. However, also as a feminist, its a shame that she didn't use the divorce and the settlement and the freedom she has not having a mortgage to make her own life and independence.

To add to the previous posters, please also consider your current partner in all of this. Like you said, it sounds like a half-relationship. I know of a few divorced couples like this, where in many ways they are still behaving like a married household although in separate homes, with the man continuing to 'keep' his wife. I personally would never get involved with a man who has this arrangement, I would feel like a mistress. Your partner cannot be happy with all of this and she wouldn't be unreasonable to lose patience with it.