Separated, how much should I provide?

justme111

Jack , you may want to consider withdrawing your "voluntary " support on the grounds of you believing it is not appropriate and no court telling you otherwise. I would use this money to pay debt and children's stuff like contact.lenses etc . When you go to court I don't see any judge ordering you to pay your ex money that goes towards debt payment or children. You mat want to write to her copying kids advising her on it and offering to transfer debits for kids optician etc

duchy

Jack you doubt your reasonableness.
Did you wife always feel all your judgements were reasonable whilst you lived together?

My guess is not. Maybe you allowed her to usually have her own way in the end however ....and maybe that is why she thinks she can behave as she is now?

Just a thought.

eskimo26

I haven't been able to read the whole thread but I think you've made a huge mistake by supporting her beyond the break-up because she can now establish herself strongly as a financial dependent and this will get her a lot more.

Maybe someone who knows more can clarify? My mum was a financial dependent of my uncle so will be included in any settlement with the hospital responsible for his death, she established this by showing payments from him towards her mortgage. [He actually remortgaged our home though so the story is lot more convoluted then it seems.]

It seems your providing enough money to establish her even more strongly as a dependent which will go massively in her favour, again someone with expertise can probably confirm but as cruel as it sounds you needed to cut her off.

You could have given enough to the children to cover bills and such and i'm sure they would have used the money to do so and that wouldn't have established her as even more of a dependent.

Sometimes doing what feels like the right thing puts a noose round your own neck when it comes to the law.

Good luck hope it goes in your favour.

JackRS

ampersand wrote: »

Can you clarify this for me please? -
' will not be any better than the compromise proposal I have made which on further reflection I am not prepared to offer.


Do you mean, '
' will not be any better than my latest compromise proposal, made [date, for avoidance of doubt and wriggle room] which, following successive, substantial and unappreciated concessions by me,[STRIKE] on further reflection[/STRIKE], I am [STRIKE]not[/STRIKE] no longer prepared to offer.

Hi and thank you for your continued support. My meaning is that from the compromised financial separation proposals I made, any counter proposals from her would only be less in my favor. However on reflection the proposals I made in mediation were ones that I am not comfortable with in terms of giving her a far greater or as I said in mediation disproportionate share of the assets. I feel I’d rather take the risk with the judge.

ampersand

Thankyou Jack. - as I thought and, however presumptuously, paraphrased:-)

Good.

Mojisola

JackRS wrote: »

I feel I’d rather take the risk with the judge.

Whatever happens in court, at least it will bring all this to an end.

Even if the worst happens and the judgement goes more in her favour than you're happy with, you will know what you've got to move on with the rest of your life and can start planning your new life.

Getting rid of the stress and the uncertainty will be a huge relief.

JackRS

eskimo26 wrote: »

I haven't been able to read the whole thread but I think you've made a huge mistake by supporting her beyond the break-up because she can now establish herself strongly as a financial dependent and this will get her a lot more.

Maybe someone who knows more can clarify? My mum was a financial dependent of my uncle so will be included in any settlement with the hospital responsible for his death, she established this by showing payments from him towards her mortgage. [He actually remortgaged our home though so the story is lot more convoluted then it seems.]

It seems your providing enough money to establish her even more strongly as a dependent which will go massively in her favour, again someone with expertise can probably confirm but as cruel as it sounds you needed to cut her off.

You could have given enough to the children to cover bills and such and i'm sure they would have used the money to do so and that wouldn't have established her as even more of a dependent.

Sometimes doing what feels like the right thing puts a noose round your own neck when it comes to the law.

Good luck hope it goes in your favour.

Thank you for your thoughts and information.

I’ve contemplated many times reducing to CSA £650/m and as daughter will go to London in a few weeks that I could pay her direct a little something to help with her bills.
However as you know my solicitor continues to advise against it. I was also thinking of taking a bank loan out to pay credit cards as will have to start paying interest on £16K in October and no longer have a sufficient credit rating to get any more 0% cards. So a £16K loan is £1362/m for 12 months. Although me reducing my debt would work in her favor. It’s complex and I hear the majority of your voices calling for me to reduce the payments as you have since this started.

I’d appreciate if there is anyone with an alternative as to why it’s not a good idea? The next payment date is 3 weeks away so I would need to inform her of my planned change now.

kelpie35

JackRS wrote: »

Hi and thank you for your continued support. My meaning is that from the compromised financial separation proposals I made, any counter proposals from her would only be less in my favor. However on reflection the proposals I made in mediation were ones that I am not comfortable with in terms of giving her a far greater or as I said in mediation disproportionate share of the assets. I feel I’d rather take the risk with the judge.

Hope and pray that you can continue with this positive attitude.

Hope you can get a court date very, very soon.

Take care

justme111

My guess is solicitor might have her hands tied on this one . May be the right way to pose the question would be "how can it be detrimental to me if I stop it and what is the likelyhood of whatever may happen happening" rather than "should I stop it".

JackRS

I wrote the following to my solicitor


I feel that as ‘daughter’ moves to London uni at the end of this month and son is living with ex Mrs JackRS parents on the coast where he has been working most days during college summer holidays, I would like to reduce maintenance to CSA level of £650/month to ex Mrs JackRS. Then give a nominal amount to Daughter to help her start in student accommodation. I also need to reduce my credit card debt as the 0% term ends in October so it’ll be more cost effective to take out a loan with my bank to clear this £16K debt and continual legal charges. I am concerned that the continual payment at the level I have been paying they will use it to demonstrate it’s at an acceptable level for me and there is no incentive for ex Mrs JackRS to look for employment, she’s enjoyed the time off not working. There are a number of admin jobs in the area she wishes to live that she could apply for ranging from £15K to £20K full time salary.

She replied with:

I agree regarding maintenance. ‘Son’ is 18 ½ and as he has left full time secondary education, I am not of the view that you should be paying child maintenance for him in any event. I would advise you to consider looking at the Child Maintenance Service website for clarification.

Mrs JackRS does need an incentive to get into work, but I just want to be cautious that she doesn’t make an application to the court for interim maintenance.


I haven’t replied as don’t want to be charged again for reading the email, I guess I should clarify what are the consequences of ‘application to the court for interim maintenance’, I know previously she suggested it would be £4000 in fees and back payment if the case was upheld.

In terms of son he is still in FTE (she got that bit wrong) in terms of greater than 16 hours a week and under 20 years old so does qualify.

From this it seems she isn’t instructing me not to follow my proposal but pointing out the likely risk.