Drop in income means drop in maintenence- or aibu?

[goldensquaresofjoy]

Name changed recently as I posted on style and beauty and someone might recognise the outfit!

Anyway. DH works contracts- he always has. His pay increases or stays the same with each contract. It lasts about 2-3 years per contract. He increases his maintenence payments in line with the cms calculator each time.

He is struggling to find the next contract- demand has fallen and competition for the roles has increased. So he's started looking into permanent positions. These all seem to come with a lower salary.

He's started applying and gave the ex a heads up that in 3 months he's going to have to look at the maintenance and as he's looking for a permanent position for stability it will probably go down.

All hell has broken loose - she claims maintenance should stay the same even if I have to subsidise it.

For info as I know everyone hates a drip feed. he and I both have well paid jobs. We have one shared DC. We have mortgage. Ex works term time only (not a teacher) and has no mortgage or rental commitments. DSC are all at secondary school.

Aibu to think its ridiculous for her to expect him to keep a career decision made 15+ years ago when they were together and she'll just have to accept the drop on maintenance?

Yes this is part of being separated but it's also why there's a difference between accepting the reality of a change in circumstance when you are part of couple or not.

It's not unreasonable to want to decrease the maintenance in line with the decrease in income, but, I can honestly say that if it were me I'd be looking at making savings in other areas instead of immediately lowering my children's standard of living. I'd find it so unattractive if my DH behaved that way.

I get that it is difficult to accept, but as a result, many seem to dig their heels in and genuinely think that the only fair thing to happen is for nothing to ever change at all because they didn't get to choose those things. That isn't practical, things do change in life, and however difficult it is to accept, you need to accept it. You have lost an element of control by separating, and you cannot simply stamp your feet over it.

Well yes, that's true. I'm thinking the ex wants to know that it truly is a necessary cut and not something he is choosing because he can, according to the CSA calculation.

If there are expenses relating to the kids that can't be easily reduced, the NRP effectively saying 'there's less money, get on with it', is making it the problem of the RP and washing their own hands of it. Because in the end, the RP is the one who must find the money to feed and clothe the kids, to pay their bus fares to school etc.

Her working hours, earnings and even the fact that she doesn't have any rent or mortgage to pay has nothing to do with the amount of child support the father needs to pay, so I don't know why you keep bringing that up?

Because if she's short of money she could go and earn some more for herself? She's not completely helpless.

He does pay more than the minimum towards his children. Just not directly into their mothers bank account.

Plus half school uniform, school trips, 1 club each

And as half of all their non school days are with Dad, he also provides a home and food etc etc for them.

All this "legal minimum, bad guy" narrative is just false.

I suppose from her pov she's thinking the dad should pay 50% of what it costs her to raise the kids and she shouldn't have to change her work situation because he's not doing so. They aren't married anymore, so she shouldn't have to work around him, seeing as she had no say in his decisions.
She could argue that if he can't do his current job and pay his share, he should be the one to look for a different, better paid career, since the 'failing' is on his part, not hers.
That's going on the assumption though that the dad hasn't been paying more than his fair share over the years. Without knowing all the financial details that's impossible for any of us to say.

@Backagain23 it's hard to say. He could pay minimum CSA plus those other things and it still be less than half of what it costs the mum to support them. Or it could be more, in which case the mum needs to stop moaning.
She doesn't have a mortgage which is a big expense she doesn't have to cover , whereas dad does, so possibly it costs her less. But a lot is in the details - some parents have committed to school fees or some expensive interest their child has (I know a family whose child is on track to be a professional athlete and that come with a lot of expenses).

@LadyBird1973 I think you are going down a different track with this. CMS is a contribution, and in this case NRP is not just CMS but half uniform, trips etc. It shouldn't necessarily be 50% costs, as the NRP is paying 100% costs for own home for children too, which from details given here the children are with NRP at about a third of the year. Dad wanted more contact and to be RP Mum didn't, and then chose herself to reduce working hours and these are now secondary age, so do not require childcare. Her life choices have also resulted in this situation. It is interesting she asks the partner of her ex to support. I wonder if she has asked her own partner who she lives with to do the same.

She also changed her work situation after the split by the sound of things, so he could say exactly the same.

Your salary is an irrelevance, I agree. But I would think less of a man who only paid the statutory minimum unless he was really scraping by.

Yes I would wonder that too. It's not fair to ask the OP for something that she wouldn't ask her own partner. And I agree it's not the OPs responsibility anyway.
I guess in our house we would see it as a family expense and so it would be paid out of family funds but I also know that in the OP's position I'd want my dh to pay his fair share but not more than his fair share if finances were tight.

I see maintenance as a family expense too, but it's not supposed to be 50% of what it costs the mother. It's supposed to be 50% of the costs the mother has on days over 50%of the time. Ex isn't worrying about how she's going to pay half of our (considererable) costs for DSD.
In our case we have DSD roughly 60:40 in mum's favour but he's still paying her almost the same maintenance as when it was EOW and half holidays. So he's paying hundreds of pounds to cover his half of the 20%more her mum has her.
We can afford this as he's also had pay rises in recent years but if push ever came to shove and his wages dropped a fair bit then I'm afraid DSDs Mum would have to suck up her share of the pain. We have our own children to provide for too and they aren't less important than DSD, as much as many posters would like to insist that the are.

He's not paying the statutory minimum though so that's a mute point.

*moot

The NRP also has children in his own home. They’re just spreading the reduction in available finances, if the non resident child’s position is protected that has a disproportionate impact on the OP’s children with her OH.

The NRP also has children in his own home. They’re just spreading the reduction in available finances, if the non resident child’s position is protected that has a disproportionate impact on the OP’s children with her OH.

Absolutely.

Because if the dad is somehow expected to be looking at his other expenses/circumstances so she can receive more CMS than she is now entitled too, then her circumstances..sod all housing costs, the main expense for any household in the country, is absolutely relevant!

Well there’s nothing she can do about it. He’s given her notice. And I bet she’s a teaching assistant which is low paid but won’t choose to change that because having all hols and weekends off suits her nicely while your dh works all hours under the sun.

He might work more hours because he's got more kids to support.