"Extras"

[noglow]

If your partner pays for half of "extras" how does this work for you? At the moment DH gets asked really regularly for half of the cost of "extra curricular" activities. When does that just become an activity mum has arranged on her time? Basically cost of living is hitting us much harder than it is her and DH is getting a bit of kick back when he's querying if the DSC really need to be doing all the out of school activities. Mum doesn't ever ask until she's already paid it and then causes drama when DH says no/queries it.

So how does your partner work it? Do they just pay say a lump sum for extra curricular stuff a month? It seems silly to say every single decide has to be run past DH or it will be a no but he's considering it.

Dp and his ex discuss things like this between them. Neither would just pay a large sum of money and then demand the other pay half.
How much money are we talking though? Is this hundreds of pounds on fancy equipment or 5 a week on a football club?

It's escalating because of the school holidays coming up I think. So extra tuition. Sports lessons. It's all on "her" time, so he still has to sort stuff to do in "his" time. I think he's just going to have to say if it's going to be more than x a month she has to ask him first if she wants him to pay half.

Does she pay half for the activities done on dads time? How often does he have them?

No. Every other weekend and half the holidays.

He tells her now that he won't be contributing to anything else unless he is asked in advance in writing and that he is struggling to afford things now.

Is that OK do you think? Or is it a bit controlling? Perhaps he could just up his maintenance by a bit a month - but he thinks then that will just be assumed and she'd still ask for extras on top of it.

Every other weekend and half the holidays.

I mean everything will be on 'her' time then.

Yes perhaps up the maintenance and say he won't be contributing towards extras from now on as he can't afford it. Do this in writing. Good compromise.

He should also tell the DC that this is the situation.

DSD is an adult now, but when she was a child her mum somehow managed to convince DH that he should pay for every other pair of shoes on top of very generous maintenance and DH paying for school trips and music lessons single-handedly.

She finally pushed her luck too far by expecting him to pay towards renovations she'd chosen to have done on DSD's room in her new house. A CF of the first water.

Ultimately the maintenance should cover this. Obviously lots of people will pay on top of maintenance for extras and that’s probably the morally right position.

However if you cannot afford to pay half then she is either going to have to cover the full costs herself or talk to DSC about cutting back on extra curriculum.

If this was your biological child living at home and you simply couldn’t afford to pay for hobbies and extras then they wouldn’t be able to go. Simple as that. It’s sad but it’s shit reality for a lot of people in this country.

in your DPs shoes I would work out what I could afford to contribute and tell ex there is a cap and he cannot go over it, end of.

If he only has her EOW then I don't think you can claim he shouldn't contribute to activities on her time at all but it should be a discussion if large sums of money are involved.

If you can't afford to pay for anymore things can't he just tell her that he's at his limit so can't fund anything else extra and stick to it? She can ask for the money but he doesn't have to transfer it. If this happens a couple of times she will stop it.

Nowhere did OP say he couldn't afford it.

Obviously all activities will be on mums time because he only had every other weekend which is pretty poor tbh. Mum does everything and kids always want to do activities. Why should it always fall on mum - kids cost a lot more than maintenance and dads don't realise how much mums do.

We have my DSD just over 50% and we pay for the activities we take DSD including gymnastics, swimming and football. Her mum doesn't take her to any hobbies so doesn't pay anything.

Your situation is different though, I don't think it's fair for their mum to essentially spend your money without consent. Like I'm sure you wouldn't buy the kids a £2000 quad bike then say "hey, you owe me for half of that". Maintenance your DH pays should cover all expenses. If she wants the kids to do extra then that's on her.

I don't think its about everything falling to mum. Surely if you plan to split a large cost with anyone for any reason it's normal to check with that person first.
Kids do cost more than maintaince but being an NRP isn't cost free apart from maintaince.

Yes exactly- that's why I said "her" time because he can't just leave all the costs to her just because its "her" time.

Thanks, glad that sounds reasonable. It's that or she'll have to get like preapproval if it's going to be over a certain amount etc which sounds a bit more like it could cause issues

I think I've been misunderstood. The only reason I mentioned it was "Mum's" time was because obviously he gets no say over what she signs them up to. Not because he thinks he shouldn't contribute. If it were our shared DC we could say look we can't sign them up to piano, fencing, horse riding AND French tuition (for example) as money is tight. But when mum can sign them up to whatever she wants she can't just expect to spend DH's money without asking imo.

If he was a full time parent then when these things come up I guess they would be paid. If only CMS bare minimum is being paid I would certainly want to contribute to extras that my child wanted.

Of course his kids will want to do activities near where they live. That’s their main home and they’ll want to do the same stuff as their friends. I also think school holidays are expensive and your DP should either be contributing to these activities (which I presume are set up to allow ex to work) OR take on the childcare instead. He can’t just effectively ‘cancel’ the activities and offer no alternative.

Exactly.
I don’t know what the circumstances are, but the parents should talk. It is normal for kids to want to do activities and in my experience the costs go up as the kids get older.

@Wenfy there is absolutely no arguement that the kids need to do things or that they will be near their homes. The issue is the number and expense.

And you assume wrongly. It is not a childcare issue.

He's trying to talk. When he queries it she kicks off.

They should try to figure out a cap. I am divorced and this is what we did. We shared expenses up to a pretty generous amount. After that cap 100% of expenses are on me. The cap is pretty high though.

Relations with ExDH are atrocious. He has DD for one day a week only in the school hols.

activities DD does on “my” time I pay for.

if she wants to do something on “his” time I ask if he is happy to cover the cost and to do the logistics. Only once he’s agreed in writing does it then get booked.