thorny financial issue!!!

[silkcushion]

Dh and I have been married 2 years. Dd is 12 weeks old. Dsc are 13 and 12 and live with his exw 80 miles away.

Have just worked out what maintenance should be on csa website - £320. We are paying £580.

Exw has a very small mortgage, she got everything when they divorced 9 years ago. She also has parents who give her a fortune. She moved a new boyfriend in last August (who does not work from what we can see).

The maintenance is just for the children as the exw always worked full time. She, dh and myself all earn about the same amount of money. When we married Dh insisted that we bought a huge house so we could have our own family but also his kids could have room each.

We have a 6 bedroom house and a £215k mortgage. She has a 4 bed house with a £60k mortgage. I have to return to work this week as we can't afford for my salary to drop to SMP. Nursery is going to cost about £650 per month (which we don't really have tbh).

I think dh should negotiate the payments to exw down - maybe to £450 per month (halfway). This would allow us to help with nursery costs and perhaps have a second dc (we both want one but can't afford it).

DH says he can't reduce payments as exw would tell his children he was refusing to pay for them and might stop access. I am very pissed off with this. They have several foreign holidays per year - we have none. dsc are spoilt rotten - playstations, trampolines, sky in their bedrooms. if i felt they needed the money i wouldn't suggest a reduction.

how do i handle this? i feel like dh is putting his stroppy exw before our family.

It should drop now you have a child in your household anyway. And you're generous paying over the CSA so your suggestion of meeting it halfway is a good one. I'd go done to the CSA recommended you stated, without taking any off for the child in your home, so you'll still be giving more than you have to. You can explain to the children yourself why their DM will be getting less. They should be old enough to understand.

Not sure about threats for access, but seen on here before that £ and access are not linked, so if you don't have a court access arrangement, perhaps you'll need to get one.

think the problem is my dh - he won't ever do anything to upset his ex

think the problem is my dh - he won't ever do anything to upset his ex

It's a tricky one. What is he really afraid of, is it the access, because if she gets nasty about it, you consult a solicitor.

My overall feeling as an step-daughter whose step mum felt like you is this fathers have a responsibility towards their children. It is not important that their grandparents give them loads of things, what matters is that their father supports them. He cannot do the work as he no longer lives with them so he has to do in financially.
you knew this when you got together with him.
Rather than going back to work, can you think about moving towards a smaller house, I'm sure your dsc will not mind sharing so long as they do have their own space in your house
I am sorry that i sound unsympathetic and harsh

thanks for advice. I agree he is really worried about access and sorry to see you've had problems Jammi.

I also understand how a sudden drop would be a shock to her. I think he should discuss it and agree to drop gradually maybe throughout the next six months. Our financial problems will start if we have a 2nd dc (hopefully next year). The other option to finance 2 lots of nursery is to downsize the house which he doesn't seem too keen on either

witch - I appreciate your point of view as a step child. DH does take care of them emotionally and we do see them every other weekend and holidays (bit less so now but that is driven by dss playing rugby as opposed to us not wanting them)

Surely if we offered £450 that is still over what the csa recommend. My step children have a really good relationship with me and are not in the slightest bit jealous of dh getting married again or having another child. In fact, dss told me at xmas he was glad his dad had the chance to ahev children that would live with him. Their mum moved to Devon to be with previous bf 6 years ago. Prior to that dh had them at least half the week and saw them all the time. I think his children know he loves them and wants to look after them.

wrt to working full time - I don't really mind that. I want to work actually. It's the fact that we won't be able to afford a 2nd child. Dsc can't share a room as they are boy and girl. DH also felt it was important they had their own rooms so they always felt they had their own space at our house.

Silk, I know the feeling. DP's ds gets £100 a month from him just £20 less than csa say. Its the ex that causes the problems although dss has now started doing so himself. I told dp straigh that he needs to learn to say no and mean it. It has worked for me. fingers crossed for you honey.

Message withdrawn

Aims, the reason he gives her that amount is it is what she asks for. Prior to this he was being asked every school holiday for £50 for new school shoes, and various uniform bits, not to mention everyday clothes, the amount of time we had dss and had to take him out and buy him new trainers is unbelievable as she would send him in his crappiest pair and say that they were all he had although we knew we had bought him a new pair just 5 weeks before! I then fell pregnant with ds2 and dp and I agreed that there needed to be a proper arrangment. She asked for £100 a month so thats what she gets, that is not including the money we have to pay dss to come and see his dad...i.e day trips to the coast to theme parks, cinema, trust me it all adds up and with ds1, and ds2 as well as dss some things have to be cut back on.

They have never involved the csa. she is a solicitor so i think dh believed he better agree to everything she said. She said the amount was based on csa guidelines (quite possible back then I suppose).

The amount increased when she moved away from the area and went to Devon. Her childcare costs increased obviously because she had no one to look after the children after school. She asked for more money to put them into after school club. She took them out of that when they were in year 5 and 6 (without consulting with dh) and let them come home on their own. despite this saving of (I think) £200 per month for the last 3/4 years dh has never decreased the payments back down.

Dh says maintenance was never straight forward. When they first split he moved in with his mum, exw kept the house and he paid all the debts off. After 12 months it was agreed he could reduce payments in order to scrape enough money together for a deposit on a house (so he could have the kids to stay over) - this was agreed on the understanding that he had them half the time (which he did). When she moved away she came after him for the difference in money over the previous couple of years (ie the amount they had agreed he could drop it to). He paid her a lump sum of £2000 he had saved to put a bathroom in his new, very rundown property.

I think the problem is that no definite agreement involving the csa has ever been made. dh has always been under the impression the csa would make him pay more (which he could never have afforded). Will the csa look back at past years if we get them involved? Or just work it out from now on in?

Update for you all. Dh and I managed a sensible, non emotional discussion about this last night. He has decided to write to exw in March. Maintenance is always reviewed (and increased) in April.

He is going to explain that circumstances have changed ie birth of dd and that dsc haven't needed childcare after school for several years. Tell her that he has checked with csa, attach website showing payment should be £320 and will reduce payment to £500 for 3 months followed by further drop to £420.

She will go berserk I'm sure but if she wants to cause problems the csa would say she should get less.

I think this is quite a generous solution and not dropping it immediately should help her. DH will still be paying £100 over the odds and we'd be happy to pay towards school trips etc.

What do you think?

This is a pattern. A family breaks up, the man avers he will support the children, he remarries, the new wife wants children, there isn't enough money to go around and the old children suffer ...

It's not a pattern I like by the way. You are not forced to live in a six bedroom house with a large mortgage. His ex-wife's means are nothing to do with you. He has an obligation to support his children, he has reached an agreement which he is now trying to renege upon.

I don't like this behaviour at all. It is his fault of course, but I don't suppose he had much choice in the matter.

I take it you are divorced. I agree the situation is very difficult all round. Dh is having to choose between his first and second families.

I agree about our house Quattro - I didn't want a big house. Dh and his mother thought we had to have a place big enough for his children to have their own rooms. I always thought it was unnecessary but didn't want to explain to dh at the time that when his children became teenagers they would visit less frequently.

There are always 2 sides to every story though aren't there?

She moved away from the area which has resulted in less contact. Dh also has to do all the travelling to pick them up. Her new bf lives in her house without contributing and we pay their mortgage and some!!! DH doesn't mind paying for his kids - of course he should - he loves them and has a resonsibility for them but that is also true of our dd.

The exw has been a bit deceptive in telling him the csa guideline was so high back when they agreed it (and he was very silly not to check) - before he lived with me he was in shit street financially trying to make ends meet. She also made him increase payments to pay for after school club - then took them out of it aged 9 and 10. She didn't offer to accept less money though when saving £200 per month on childcare.

His children will not suffer at all by this reduction. I think her means are all important. If she were struggling to pay the bills then I think we would all live a frugal life and Dh would have to accept that we couldn't afford a house big enough for all his kids.

Yes I wanted children and so did he. Do you think men shouldn't have second families? Also are you assuming the breakdown of his marriage was down to him?

Sorry if I sound aggressive - don't mean to be - this whole situation is extremely emotive for ex wives, new wives and husbands.

"I think her means are all important."

Her means are nothing whatsoever to do with you. It is simply you justifying quite frankly bad behaviour in persuading your DH to renege upon his agreement.

No I am not divorced. I merely have sympathy for my friends who are in the invidious position of the old wife, coping with the grief and aggravation of having an exhusbands who simply cannot stick to agreements.

I don't get why people say that the ex-wife's means are not important. Of course they are. Both parents have a duty to maintain their children, not just fathers.

Just because a fmaily splits up (regardless of blame), that does not mean that all future bills, whatever they may be and whatever they may cost should be down to the father. This is where the whole system breaks down ime.

I agree that fathers are not solely responsible. But I object to fathers reaching agreements and then reneging upon them. Everyone should stick to reasonable financial settlements and then everyone can move on.

The reason that the ex-wife's means are called into account is to justify behaving badly. And it is not fair to the exwives. The exwife in this scenario is working and doing her best. It is not up to the father to become a spendthrift and then decide that he can no longer support his children in the way that they have become accustomed and then cut the money off. That's just not right.

But situations do change (and sound as though they may have done on both sides in the op), and so the ideal way forward would be a renogotiation, but that is unlikely to happen in a mutually agreeable way.

I am in the middle of a similar postion with my dh and his ex-wife, and things are rarely as simple as "It is not up to the father to become a spendthrift and then decide that he can no longer support his children in the way that they have become accustomed and then cut the money off."

We are, of course, only hearing one side of the case, but I very much doubt that it is clear cut. Sadly, when it come to emotions and money, it rarely is.

In our case, we do have to have a bigger house than dh's ex. This is simply because his ex has stated baldly that dsd and dss will not be coming to stay here if they do not have their own permanent bedrooms. so we have to have a 4 bedroom house at the least, and that leaves our dds sharing while we have 2 empty rooms for most of the year. At the same time, of course, it is absolutely fine for her to rent out rooms in her house to exchange students, often relegating dsd and dss to sharing the ex-playroom (no idea what she does with the money - I would love to have even half of what dh pays her to run our household!)

Btw, does ANYONE think that £580 is a lot of money per month for one parent's contribution to two teenagers?

Anyone?

But that's the point - it does all depend on what you can actually afford to contribute (or, rather, it should depend...)

Bless you Silver

It really is an area that is such a minefield though. Tbh, if dh only had to pay £580 we would be laughing. He pays triple that, plus all school fees, and extras on top of that. He also currently earns a third of what he did 10 years ago, but no renogotiation here....