Payments for a working stepson - ALL advice welcome! Please!

[Siane]

Hi - my stepson is 19 in May and lives mainly with his mother, but stays with us every other weekend and every other Thursday night. (Fri to Mon on weekends). Currently my DH is paying £500 a month for him to the ex but DSS should be out of college and working full time in a shop by July. Do we drop all payments or make a contribution given that he'll be earning peanuts? He won't be moving out any time soon as he's diabetic and not managing it very well. We have a terrible relationship with the ex, despite many efforts to improve it. She believes the money should stay as it is. I think that's potty and am getting totally strung out about it. Any tips?

I'm sure you are only legally obliged to pay maintainence until the child reaches 18, if in full time education. Once they reach 18, no matter whether they are at college or not you do not have to pay maintainence. Otherwise you could effectively be paying for years and years should dc deceide to do degree/masters/phd etc?

Obviously this is your dh's child and he still wants to support him in some way. If he is working come Juliyhw about paying a reduced amount to the son - assuming that he will have to pay some sort of rent to his mother?

Sorry its 19 and 12 hours or more in higher ed

I think once he leaves the course in the summer then you stop maintenance. TBH it's up to his Mum to charge him rent/living expenses etc If you choose to give him a monthly allowance (bearing in mind you feed him 5 times per fortnight) that you could but what is that teaching your dss about responsibility/being an adult etc? It's got nothing to do with him being you dss it's how you would choose to treat any adult his age - to live off his parents or stand on his own two feet.

I would give a monthly allowance then he can pay his mum for his board

Stop the payments to his DM, and find out how much your DSS will be earning in his job. Then assess whether you'd like to give him a small allowance to help him out, but I'd set a timeframe on it, say for 12mths only, so that he knows you won't be cash cows for the rest of his life.

Thanks lots for messages, very useful. Have cut and pasted to my dhh so he can see it's not just me who thinks he should stand on his own two feet...Oh the joys of it all. Kids down, it's wine o'clock. Off to drink loads,
Siane

I thought maintenanace had to be paid until they finished full time education (to degree level)

BUT, if he is working full time I don't know why he is getting any maintainance. At 19, and working he is an adult!

Agree that its potty for the money to stay as it is once your DSS starts work.

It is tricky because 19 can mean a lot of different things from married with kids to barely able to get themselves out of bed without help. So I can understand if your DH wants to carry on giving him some money, but to be honest I think a lot of teenagers don't really understand the real world of work until the bank of mum and dad stops supporting them.

When we were 18 my mum said she would support us if we were studying but that if we wanted to work then we had to support ourselves - a good motive for study if ever there was one!

Does your DH's ex use the bad relationship to get her own way?