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?

Because childcare can be so varied in terms of cost/quality, it might be that working ft and paying nursery costs would have left her worse off than working term time only. The dc being with their dad for half the holidays wouldn't have reduced those costs because nurseries make you pay whether the kids are there or not.
When mine were little I worked as a childminder and I offered term time contracts only. But that's not possible for lots of childcare providers to do and I could only do it because I had a husband working ft.
It's entirely possible that she's been hindered by circumstances you don't fully appreciate.

@Baconisdelicious She's the one making a big deal of it

She won't be otherwise she would start working or looking to work e.g. by studying, full-time.

There have been a few threads on here and other places in MN where ex-wives/ex-partners get angry that the child maintenance is going directly to the child at university, either as money or the father paying that child's university accommodation. This is because young adult children still cost money during university holidays and if they go back to her home, she will have to pay for them/get some money off them.

As your SC are now all at secondary school your DH's ex doesn't have an excuse not to work/plan to full-time unless any of them have SEN which means they can't travel home from school on their own.

@LadyBird1973 Yes I get that but they are at secondary school and there is a partner who they frequently stay with. There is no wrap around care now.

That's only if you have a CMS order. Your DH has increased each time he had a pay rise so can justifiably decrease his informal CMS payments if his salary is lower. Your salary has nothing to do with his financial commitments to his DC. Their mother will have to increase her incomes or decrease her outgoings. If your DH goes Half's' on uniform, shoes and pays for 1 hobby each his ex has not a lot to complain about.

He is not on a formal CMS agreement. He just uses CMS calculator for informal agreement and he put his contribution up when his salary increased, did not wait for it to be 25 percent higher then.

She chose to be a primary carer and work less.

Dad offered to be the main carer and that was refused. Dad wanted 50/50, refused.

She refused, declared she was going part time and wanted maintenance. And as for oh, but she'll need wrap-around care.... for teenagers? Ok.

The only thing that seems an issue to her not having more money than she gets, is her unwillingness to earn it, and her CF entitled attitude that it should absolutely just be given to her because works not for her.

If she can't be arsed to even earn the money she could to support her own children, she's got zero entitlement to suggest payments from OP to make up for that.

You're on here slagging her off without even trying to think about the bigger picture

You know there is nothing to be done legally. You're trying, unpleasantly, to justify the situation by being annoyed she is mortgage free and works term time only. You're not thinking about how that has facilitated essential childcare for her ex and made his life easier. She has picked up a hell of a lot of parenting slack you don't seem to appreciate. Maybe have a think about that bigger picture

It's a sausage fest in here I see

Did your DH's ex wife take a hit to her career to look after the kids because, well, you know she thought they'd always be married, which now with being the main carer has made it difficult for her to earn a decent salary? If that's the case then your DH is BU. £100 a month shouldn't be missed by two high earners. Especially if it is for his kids. Come on op. This is sort of what happens when you get together with someone who already has kids, you have to share some of their resources.

You’re coming across really badly OP. These are his children. Is your child seeing a reduction in quality of life by the job change? Stopping a class? Less new clothes? If they are then the reduction in maintenance to his other children is fair. If not then it’s not fair. He’ll have to make other cuts first, less in his pension, stop Netflix etc.

Unless his ex is in her 50s she is expected to maximum her own income.

As all the kids are in secondary school within 8 years all the child maintenance is going to stop as the SC will no longer be children.

The OP is not liable to pay for her SC.

If her DH's drop in income effects her own child then she will just have to cut back.

The children are secondary age.

In 8 years time there will be no child maintenance payable to the ex-wife. How is she doing to cope then? Kick her young adult DC out?

How much does/will he actually earn and how much does/will he give?

Every other weekend does mean that your DH is not bearing the brunt of utility and food costs for the kids, so that should be factored in. Teens eat a lot and food is expensive. Constantly having PCs running, additional laundry loads and dryer use can all add up significantly.

I don't think he needs to be praised for doing 50% of the holidays. Could he do 50% permanently instead? Then there'd minimal to no maintenance due to all and day to day costs would be equal.

My stepkids live with us full time and their mother "contributes" £20 a month pocket money to each child. That's it. Nothing else. She's on benefits and has never worked, so we can't claim anything from her and she very, very rarely sees them. She doesn't care and gets angry if the kids don't fall at her feet if they're lucky enough to get 50 whole pounds from her for a birthday or Christmas. They should be grateful for anything apparently.

If I took your attitude the kids would have a much shittier quality of life. I earn a decent amount (more than DH) and we share finances so everything is just a household expense. Things they need and want are just covered by us. There's no point in me getting bitter or resentful about it because she won't change. It's not the children's fault that their mother is a waste of space and I don't resent them "draining" my resources. I do resent her entire existence, but that's another matter entirely.

I do appreciate that our circumstances are different though and many people would've legged it in my shoes.

If you dont want to/can't pay maintenance then I'd look to move towards a 50/50 split.

In 8 years time there will be no child maintenance payable to the ex-wife. How is she doing to cope then? Kick her young adult DC out?

If she has no children to pay for, she won't need maintenance. And yes, presumably she will expect her adult dc to make a fair contribution to living costs if they continue to live with her. The same as thousands of families up and down the land.

I've read all the comments here and I think that there are fair points on both sides. However, the main point is YANBU because it's not you that should have to make up any shortfall for your husband and his ex-wife's children.

Morally, the only thing I would say is that I would expect your husband to have a healthy financial buffer in place so that his commitments to his children are not impacted by a short-term drop-off in income. It's very hard on his ex-wife if he has committed to a certain amount and then that changes. I would expect him to have around 6 months of funds for the maintenance to ensure that any short-term issues in his income don't impact on the maintenance he is paying. Especially as he is a high-earner. She may have a mortgage that was dependant on this amount of maintenance being a secure form of income for her. Giving her a few months notice that a drop is coming isn't ever going to be enough. It is likely she is panicking and is trying to problem-solve for him by suggesting you make up the shortfall. It's a bad solution unless he is going to pay you back but that is something for you and him to agree between you - she doesn't get a say. Will he pay her back for the shortfall if he gets a salary at the same level a few months down the line?

And yes, I get she doesn't have a mortgage but we've all got fixed (& rising) bills. It was just an example.

Yes, like OP too.

If he feels his children only deserve the bare minimum then that's what he feels. It's not for you to subsidise him. Nor is it for his ex.

I bet she's glad he is an ex though. Not much of a catch.

But the OPs child has two parents, so if mum makes up for reduction in income that is perfectly reasonable, it's up to the ex to do the same

"Stop Netflix etc" ... The children presumably benefit from acess to Netflix on the 50% of non-school days they are with their father in his home.
Why why why is money only deemed to be spent on something for the benefit of the children if it is spent by their mother? They cost money at dads house too, and OP is no doubt already bearing the brunt of some of that.

If he can legally reduce and that’s what he wants to do then there’s nothing she can do. But CM is a small %. Says he pays 16% his income for 2 kids with ex. I can assure you I spend far more than 16% of my income housing, feeding and bringing up dc as the main parent they live with. Without knowing her financial situation it’s hard to know if she’s BU. But £100 a month wouldn’t even cover school lunches for 2 high school kids. I do think NRP underestimate how much older dc actually cost once they are hanging out in town at coffee shops and into adult size clothes and shoes and need phones and laptops. I never hear of any NRP giving their teen dc pocket money or having a savings account for them stuff you will probably expect to do for your own child. But I agree this isn’t your issue. Your DH should do the right thing for his dc because they are an age where they will notice for eg my dc are well aware I put them first always and spend very little on myself. I’ve always made sure they had a reasonable amount of money to do stuff with their friends and didnt have to work termtime at uni because I wanted to give them the same opportunities I had growing up in a 2 parent family. It is not lost on my dc that dad doesn’t do the same and has never given them any money directly. And no I didn’t use ex’s CM as I didn’t take any it was so minimal. your DH and ex should be discussing uni years and planning ahead because those are seriously expensive and morally the costs should be shared even if legally your DH can avoid them. What upbringing did your DH have? What did he expect his DC to have when they were born? What does he want to give your joint child? Those are the yardsticks he should be using not what a CMS calculator says.

So what you are saying is, if your current partner (lets presume you have one for arguments sake) takes a hit work wise through no fault of his own, and you only work part-time. It wouldn't be your responsibility as a mother to take on extra hours to help with the costs of your children?

Right ok.

In theory, when using the CMS calculator i believe that the amount can change if salary goes down or if the person paying maintenance has a new dependent. Having said that, it does depend a bit on what your husband earns. Above a certain amount the CMS calculator isn't used. When you get to these sorts of levels the legal situation isn't just that you are putting food on the table and a roof over their heads, but that the children are entitled to payments in keeping with the parents standard of earnings/living etc. An extreme example would be that you wouldn't expect a highly paid banker on a basic salary of 300k to be paying a few hundred a month in maintenance. This is because the courts expect that some of this wealth should be pass on as maintenance. Obviously without knowing what your husband earns, it's impossible to say what is fair. It might be worth taking some legal advice. I would note that the CMS payments always seem really low to me but like I say, without knowing his earnings it is very to say. Good luck and I hope you find a settlement that suits you all.