My step daughter is 21 and at university full time. She lives away and we pay her accommodation.
I also have a step son who is 20 and at uni but living with us. Husband and I have a 13 year old together too.
My husband and his ex wife divorced when their kids were 3 and 4. (No, I was not the OW! 😅) The kids grew up doing 50/50 between our house and mum’s but my husband still needed to pay maintenance due to the difference in his income and hers. (She is long term unemployed)
The maintenance thing was always fraught because she wanted him to pay the amount he would owe if the children were with her 100% of the time and would constantly submit variations for this which we would have to push back on. Her justification was that we were dual income and therefore could afford double. We rejected this because my income shouldn’t form part of it (and legally does not). I know some people don’t agree with this, but I think we were more than fair and obviously the children were actually with us as often as they were with her.
My husband has not needed to pay her any maintenance for a couple of years now, since my step son finished his college course.
It’s a relief. I mean, our kids are all costing us more than ever, 😱 but it’s just nice to be paying on our own terms and to not be always waiting for the other shoe to drop!
My step daughter has become a bit of a lightening rod for it, because her mum knows we pay her rent. Her mum thinks we bribed her to go to university so that the child maintenance would stop. Which really isn’t true and it really upsets my step daughter.
Her mum has been demanding money from my step daughter and my step daughter has been paying her. We have only learned about this now.
Last night, my step daughter’s landlord called us to say she hasn’t received rent for over 30 days. We had no idea. Since my step daughter left halls, we don’t pay directly anymore. We give it to my step daughter and trust her to pay it. And she always has. (We are guarantors on her contract however).
My husband was climbing the walls but we talked about it and he agreed to try and approach it all calmly and openly. We have asked her to come home this weekend so that we can figure out what is going wrong and find solutions.
I have been emailing the landlord and have agreed to take over the payments permanently, so we will no longer be sending the money directly to my step daughter.
My husband and I have been messaging back and forth with our daughter this week and it has also come to light that she has taken out a credit card, which she has given to her mum. We’ve asked for the statements and she has sent us screen shots of the balance from within the app (£2,000). It’s not strictly our business but we have also asked her if she is in her overdraft and she confirms that she is.
My step daughter does work part time and receives a student loan. (The loan gives her some additional spending money and covers all of her uni fees)
The rent that we pay is “all-inclusive” so she has no other bills to pay, except for her mobile phone which we do not pay for. Obviously she has her other living costs like food and partying and a bus pass.
Before my husband and his ex wife divorced, they had serious money troubles due to a series of secret credit cards that his ex wife held. When it all came to light, it turned out that she owed £20,000 in credit cards in her own name, and a further £5,000 in a credit card which she had in her mother’s name. (My husband’s ex MIL).
The ex MIL knew about all of the debts and had been trying to help her daughter pay them off, but with limited success.
My husband found most of the debt to have been accumulated though online spin machine things. (Gambling)
My husband’s ex wife gave up work about 2 years before my step daughter was born, to be a stay at home wife, and hasn’t worked since. I think she is signed off permanently now due to depression, but I’m not entirely sure of what her financial situation is. I assume things are tight and she really had come to rely on the CMS.
My MIL thinks we need to tell step daughter that she stops sending money to mum or we cut her off but I’m not sure that threats are the way to handle this. Obviously my step daughter adores her mother, but I think she’s too young to be taking on responsibility for her. That said, she won’t just turn her back on her. I’m really worried about this credit card and that she’ll bleed the girl dry.
Has anyone ever had anything similar? How did you handle it?
Or has anyone here been in the situation that the ex wife is in, and needed to take money or credit cards from their kids after the CMS dried up?
Obviously this has all snowballed because we are no longer assuming financial responsibility for the ex wife. We never dreamed the buck would automatically pass to my step daughter. 🤦🏼♀️
When my husband and she split, she took 75% of their estate (£85k lump sum) in a exchange for a “clean break” so there has never been any spousal maintenance due.
All of this makes us sound loaded but we are not. We have had to dip into pension savings to make up the missing rent this month. All the kids are now at an age where they come with adult sized costs. We can’t afford to give her a monthly allowance as well as pay all of her rent and we won’t be paying for her mum.
Obviously our bills are skyrocketing like everyone else’s.
Please be kind. It’s obviously quite stressful and we want to fix it, but also to guide her in better choices.