DP suddenly broke - can I grumble?

[Stepmumptsd]

My DP, formerly a somewhat high-earning professional who one would generously consider middle aged, is broke.

This is 100% self-inflicted.

He has started an MBA ( 20 years older than most on the course) and cut his work to one day consulting a week.

And now we cannot go out for dinner anymore.

DP is in finance (like me) and beyond the age where extra letters after his name would propel him towards the C-suite. He will most likely enjoy his course then return to his former director level job or similar with impressive new Powerpoint skills.

But I thought his career break was a nice idea, until he told me that he is broke.

I was not sure this was true, so we looked at his budget. He's broke.

He has enough savings to fund his course, pay his mortgage, pay his nanny, buy food for himself and the kids and run the car. And also to keep paying his non-mortgaged ex wife her court-ordered absolutely flabbergasting monthly maintenance as well as the substantial list of extras the exw, I just learned, is billing DP for monthly.

These comprise: children's clothes, clubs, extra curricular sports, holiday camps, school uniforms, tuition, therapists, school dinners, mobile phone, pocket money, horse riding, birthday parties, football shoes and LEGO.

They have the children 50-50. The exw works part time but does not need to and does not pay for childcare because of generous parents. The 50-50 was agreed by exw after fantabulous maintenance was secured. Lol.

I don't live with DP so am not directly affected by his brokeness exactly.

But we do share a life and a lifestyle. And pre-brokeness it was a nice one. Dinners out a couple of times a month. A foreign holiday together once a year. Taking both sets of kids to plays and musicals at weekends. We always went Dutch. I always knew the exw was richer than me because she worked very hard in court for several months to prove her womb was golden and I worked in offices for 25 years so as not to rely on an ex husband, but I didn't mind as my lifestyle was the same as before I met DP.

But now DP is broke it is going to cost me.

When I fancy sharing a bottle of plonk and fish and chips at home, I will have to buy it.

When we have mutual friends over for a meal, I will have to buy the food.

When my child is in a play and wants DP and his kids to come, I will be buying all five tickets.

This is probably an AIBU but I put it on step parents because I am a step parent in all but living arrangement - DP and I shift nomadically between our two homes depending on which kids we have when.

And yet when it comes to having a say on finances, I am feeling nothing like a partner and very like a girlfriend who may have just sleepwalked into buying meals for a geriatric student who is paying for his exw to summer in Tuscany.

I am asking myself whether:

I should've been consulted ahead of the MBA decision with fully discussing the finances?

I should have realised he was paying over the odds for child stuff?

I should ask DP to review this now or to vary his maintenance order in court? (He will say the exw will respond by pulling the kids out of activities and not buying them shoes.)

I should resign as quasi step parent on the basis I should not have responsibility for DP's kids when I have such little agency over how we live our joint lives?

I should merrily commit all my disposable income to myself and get a season ticket to Champneys, leaving DP at home to eat Pot Noodle?

I should join his student lifestyle, learn to love Pot Noodle again and clear my mortgage early? (Quite like thiis idea actually, lemons into lemonade.)

It's based on the OP's information and not being faux naive about what the circumstances clearly are.

Exactly this.

You're essentially subsiding his ex. Because he's choosing to gift money to her, which then means he can't afford to do anything with you.

He chooses. He already pays maintenance (that he shouldn't because it's 50/50) but then on top of that gives her a tonne...for the stuff the maintenance should be covering. He chooses to do that. Could he bend over much more? Whilst simultaneously letting you know that you'll be covering social stuff for him and his children because he's got no money.

He has. He's not over the ex.

OP has an interpretation of the situation based on one side of the story and coloured by her jealousy and bitterness towards the ex. She’s not a reliable witness to their marriage and subsequent divorce settlement.

Father only pays maintenance - Disney dad who doesn’t acknowledge that maintenance doesn’t touch the side for the financial cost to raise a child. Arsehole

Father who earns significantly more than his children’s mother and pays for clubs, hobbies and clothes and an amount of maintenance plus still sees his kids around half the time - arsehole who should be saving the money on swimming lessons and instead use it to take his girlfriend out for dinner 🤦‍♀️

@Stepmumptsd There is obviously a lot of bias on these pages because whilst most posters expect your DP to work hard and pay generous maintenance, no one seems to be considering why the same expectations don't apply to the ex-wife. It is all very well of the ex-wife to make some cock and bull story about giving up a career but what always fascinates me about such cases is why these apparently marvellous women who gave up having a stellar career have no inclination whatsoever to make up for lost time when their children get older and they get divorced. Instead, they seem to focus all of their efforts on getting bigger handouts from the ex when in reality if they focused the same energies on even a modest career they would be a lot better off.

There is definitely a double standard going on. Everyone here says the DP would be a "shit dad" if he didn't carry on paying for all the maintenance and the extras. Yet no one seems at all concerned that the ex-wife can't be bothered to maximise her own earnings to do the best by her children too. I find that odd. The deadbeat dad is a well known trope in divorce. I think as a society we need to start questioning why we don't have the same disdain for deadbeat mums.

Bingo.

I see a lot of divorces and when good men are dealing with deadbeat mums (the kind who are hell bent on not achieving financial independence) and they just cannot win.

If they want more time with the children it's interpreted as wanting to pay less maintenance; if they end up on the wrong end of a Mesher order (because mum has no mortgage capacity and is hell bent on not doing anything about it) and cannot afford somewhere for the child to stay they're criticised for being absent; if they say they cannot do 50/50 with the children because of their job on which all the family finances are based they are criticised for being bad parents and so it goes on.

Even in the more serious cases where abuse is alleged it can be quite troubling. For example, Women's Aid put ideas in people's heads and I'll give you an example that I'm bored of seeing:

1. Mum does a bad job of a domestic task. Dad complains about it. Dad is abusive.
2. Dad does a bad job of a domestic task. Mum complains about it. Dad is abusive because he is using weaponised incompetence.

I don't know, it's not uncommon for high earners to be treated unfairly by the courts in divorce. Especially when the other party is hell bent on a future where they don't have to have the same responsibility to work and provide for their family as their ex does. The ex-wife sounds pretty typical of the "type" who could work full time but moves heaven and earth to avoid doing so. I wish the courts would be more consistent on calling time on these people, at the moment it is still pot luck with the judges.

She's probably more of a reliable witness than you are though isn't she?

I get where you are coming from but it's only for a year, and not even a full 12 months at that.

He sounds thick as shit.

I would dump him.

Thick as shit?

A high earner who’s doing an MBA. Really?

😂😂

A doormat maybe but probably not thick!

My ex pays a small fortune to keep our DC in the expensive Lego models they've been accustomed to (with him not me). Even Lego ages, goes yellow over time.

Can't wait for you to discuss your various theories on 50:50 with my DC. As to why you think that works. 10+ years on after I asked the family court to consider the impact of transition, why are my DC now telling counsellors they don't want to move around any more between locations. That has big implications, by the way, for higher education and work opportunities. That might exist outside their immediate local area. But you just sound like a bitter 2nd whatever.

Thickasshitness takes many forms 😜

Unless you are sending them up chimneys at 10, they won’t have to go and stay with their father 50% of the time when they are working!

Putting your kids first isn’t one of them though.

You've probably answered this up post, and this is more rhetorical, but: how long have you been together? How long is the course? What else do you enjoy about your relationship?

I wonder whether the issue is just temporary frustration from your side? You seem to live very independent lives, and life is short. If the course is just one year long it will be over soon. Let him enjoy it, cut back on the luxury stuff together, and then get back to normal life in the summer. Hopefully he will look back and value your support.

Is it worth meddling with the maintenance etc over this?

I would say people without the completly un-nuanced take of "kids come first" without the ability to understand that step family dynamics can be a bit more complex are generally thick as shit.

To be honest it sounds like the maintenance needs to be adjusted on a long term basis anyway so it may as well be now. The danger of not being fast to act with maintenance is that the recipient remains reliant on it and gets older, therefore diminishing the prospects of them ever not relying on it.

Unless payers of open ended or extendable maintenance are happy about funding a grown adult who could work more but chooses not too, then they really need to ensure that at the very latest the recipient has achieved financial independence by the time the youngest is in secondary school. It's not always possible but it's a realistic aim in most cases.

Resorting to calling me thick as shit really loses the argument for you. You also obviously don’t know anything about me if you think I’m not familiar with step families.

Nailed it

This!