Savings when seperating- scared I will lose it all

Mojisola

It does sound as if things would be more settled if dates were agreed ahead - either a regular pattern or a block of, say, three months at a time.

He shouldn't be saying that he wants this date, that date, change that arrangement, etc. It gives him too many opportunities to mess you around.

tesuhoha

I think one day in the not too distant future your daughter will make up her own mind about him and then she will probably not want to see him at all.

icklejulez

Just spent all last night reading you thread.


So sorry you have had to go through such a horrible time but I am also amazed at your strength.


I have worked with many women who have gone through similar things with their partners and I recognise the fear that you have.


Once you get some time I would definitely consider speaking to womens aid or your doctor about any charities or classes that will help you with being more assertive towards your ex, understanding your rights and ensuring that he is not walking all over you. I think you would benefit from some emotional support in this area and a hand in learning how to deal with the messages he sends.


I just wanted to add, that the more you give him the more he will take. Your daughter is fully able to determine what she wants to do. Don't let her get trapped in his emotional abuse, it can be as damaging as physical abuse.


My solicitor told me that it was what was suitable to me, not my ex as to when he had the children. We agreed every other weekend. But my children were 4 and 2.


As for the maintenance look at it from the other way, he has a moral obligation to pay for his child. He hasn't the morals to offer you that in over a year. Say it was £200 a months = £2400 a year. That is a trip to Disneyworld or New York for you and your daughter. You may feel cheeky taking his money but he owes that to you. You both chose to have a family. He had an opportunity to work on your relationship. He had the opportunity to offer. I phoned the CSA anyway and they looked at his income (so he couldn't lie) and then told me what they thought he was legally obliged to pay. Then my ex and I agreed how he was going to pay it. Don't settle for anything less.


Your ex may say he is skint but he has chosen to stay out of laziness in your old property. He is a single man, does he really need a large family home? £950pm for rent and bills is a large outlay for a single man who says he cant afford to pay maintenance. You are going without, working hard and bringing up a teenage daughter whilst you are still allowing him to have an easy ride.


My ex cheated on me and I was hoping for the day he would regret his actions, especially when he separated fro this girl and moved in with him mum and lost his car etc. I was hoping he would realise what a fool he had been and just wanted to see some kind of remorse. It never happened, some men just aren't programmed in to their feelings. I know deep down you want him to think you are a good person and you still have underlying feelings and wish he would see your story and reasoning in all of this. However, he has shown this will never happen. You really need to learn to acknowledge this and gain the strength not to need his satisfaction.


If I was you and your daughter, I would start looking to the future. Make a 5 year plan together, things you both would like to do.


Maybe tell her about the house, I think that would offer her a great deal of security, something that she may desperately need right now. Don't fear your ex, he has no right to choose what you do. After all, you could have bought it with a 5% deposit for all he knows. Don't even acknowledge the conversation with him.


I'd also recommend an degree of honesty with the daughter, tell her how trapped you felt and how much you are hurting inside. Tell her how much you loved her father but the situation was just too bad to spend the rest of your life with. Try to explain his behaviour to her, and why he does and say the things he does. She needs the strength to be able to stop any emotional abuse that he may use with her. There may be support groups for you and her to go to that will teach your daughter how to deal with the situation.


Good Luck though, and be proud of how far you have come. xx

teawithmilk

Grrr, just lost a message AGAIN! what is it with me and computers.

I asked him (by text) what time I could get her back today and he has just reminded me that I "agreed" he could have her back tomorrow. I hate doing everything by text message its so hard to refer back to.

He was very patronising in his response...so it made me mad and I asked him for a timescale about the money he owes me. I will see what comes back from that- he tends to ignore any about money.

Thank you for all the lovely replies. Feeling a bit better today as its such lovely weather. I do catch up on stuff when she isnt around- been to the gym today, 2 loads of washing plus general tidying up, cooked a chilli for later on, mowed the front lawn and had 3 attempts at getting the vomit smell from my staircarpet! I just woke up at 5.50am my normal time to go to work and couldnt get back to sleep.

I shall relax this afternoon!

rpc

teawithmilk wrote: »

He's now saying he wants her on my birthday weekend, which means I will be on my own for my birthday. It seems a coincidence he wants that particular weekend. I said I didn't want her to go but he says he has already booked tickets to go see his family and cant cancel.

He is trying to control you and that is abuse. Plain and simple.

I'd bet good money that he doesn't even have tickets.

I'm not sure what I would do, but I'd be tempted to let your daughter choose. "It's my birthday and I hoped we could do X but idiot says he has booked for you to see Granny." On the one hand, it isn't fair to put her in the middle. On the other, she is old enough that she should have some say in what she does.

girlatplay

I'm only on for a quick nose at the diaries today so this is just a quick one.


You have had brilliant advice from the other posters and I agree with them in all they have said. I do think you should seriously follow a lot of the advice you have been given with regards to telling DD a bit about why you left, and when she is at her dad's you should let her know if she has an invite somewhere and let her ask her dad's permission to go. Leave it up to them. If she needs you to give her a lift, fair enough, she can ask you.


About the losing posts when you go to post them, this was happening to me a lot and was VERY frustrating. What I do now is once I have typed out the post and I am ready to post it, I copy the whole post before I hit the reply/post button. I do this every time now without fail. A couple of times I have been kicked out of the login but because I have copied it, it is ready to paste once I have logged back in! It works and saves so much frustration. Just a thought.


((((hugs))))

stripey1969

Sounds like he's deliberately picked that weekend, knowing it would upset you. What are the chances that he's actually genuinely booked the tickets this time? I'd be tempted to say that you already have plans with her and he should've checked with you before getting tickets. The sooner you get specific days/weekends arranged (e.g. every Tuesday and every other weekend), the sooner you'll be able to avoid stuff like this. He's such a d**k!

teawithmilk

Well he has finally grudgingly promised me some of the money he owes me next week when he gets paid. He hasn't said how much. In fact it has gone on so long now that I have lost track of which bills I have paid and exactly what he owes for just utilities alone. Never mind anything towards DD. I will have to go through the e mails to him and texts which is sooo confusing as I may have lost some texts. TBH anything I get from him will be welcome and then I might just have to write off the rest and goto CSA for any ongoing support for DD. He sent me by e mail a screenshot of his bank balance just to "prove" he had no money to pay me...well, fair enough I can see he has no money (although he does have 2 current accounts so could have stashed money in another one just to make it look like his bank balance was low) but that's not the point...I am short of money but its just meant that I (actually DD and I) have had to cut back on stuff and budget and do without - c'est la vie. He just doesn't "get it"...I feel like a broken record and we are never going to see eye to eye on it.

DD was texting me at midnight last weekend (which was the night he had wanted me to bizarrely go to that event with him) so I half suspected that he had dragged her along to it but she said she hadn't been and she isn't good at lying. I think as usual he was letting her stay up way too late which is why she is exhausted all the time when she comes back from his house.

My birthday falls during the May Day bank holiday. If he waited another 2 weeks he would have the longer holidays at the end of may to take her away. That was the point I was trying to make to him. She has waited long enough to see his mum that 2 more weeks wouldn't make a huge difference. However I have decided to be the "bigger person" and I texted him to say that I was not happy about it, but, if he had to take her away that weekend, then so be it. I am not prepared to let him see that he has upset me with his stupid games. And I asked DD about it and she didn't seem bothered that she would be away on my birthday so I think I might have been a little bit big headed assuming she would be upset...she must be growing up. We can do something the next weekend anyway. And I would put money on him NOT taking her anyway and coming up with some rubbish excuse. At least he cant blame me for it that way.

RAS

teawithmilk wrote: »

She has waited long enough to see his mum that 2 more weeks wouldn't make a huge difference. However I have decided to be the "bigger person" and I texted him to say that I was not happy about it, but, if he had to take her away that weekend, then so be it. I am not prepared to let him see that he has upset me with his stupid games. And I asked DD about it and she didn't seem bothered that she would be away on my birthday so I think I might have been a little bit big headed assuming she would be upset...she must be growing up. We can do something the next weekend anyway. And I would put money on him NOT taking her anyway and coming up with some rubbish excuse. At least he cant blame me for it that way.

And I guess he is going to look like a right twit if she gets there and he does not take her to see gran yet again.

As for not getting upset; partly DD is growing up and partly she sees a lot of mum and does not get to see gran too often?

BigAunty

teawithmilk wrote: »

...TBH anything I get from him will be welcome and then I might just have to write off the rest and goto CSA for any ongoing support for DD. He sent me by e mail a screenshot of his bank balance just to "prove" he had no money to pay me...well, fair enough I can see he has no money (although he does have 2 current accounts so could have stashed money in another one just to make it look like his bank balance was low) but that's not the point......

Indeed. The CSA have their formulas as a minimum expectation of what a non-resident parent should pay, something in the region of 15% of their income for 1 child, reduced by the percentage of time the kid stays overnight at theirs.

The CSA has a very 'computer says no' approach to dealing with stingy parents - they wouldn't spend a second analysing the NRPs expenses, they base their calculation on a modest percentage of their income, that is all. They wouldn't engage in infantile debates with them around their need to budget to provide this insignificant sum of money.

You've already mentioned his passion for expensive hobbies, his head in the sand approach to debt, the way you had to subsidise the household. It's clear that he's got absolutely no skills in planning or budgeting but that's not your problem, nor the CSA.

It was probably his lifestyle aspirations and terror of having to address his credit record, the path of least resistance, that led him to stay in a property he can ill-afford - again, not your problem.

Clearly, he needs to make changes in order to be able to afford to buy your daughter the odd set of clothes or shoes, but just don't engage or get sucked into his worldview of him as victim. Seriously, just don't have any kind of debate, provide any kind of response, to his pleading and goading. Spend your time/energy more productively.