Husband's ex wife wanting more money

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Guest101 wrote: »

You're right, except for two things.

The ex gets the benefit of having the child 80% of the time.

The ex must also provide for half the costs.

The work she puts in is ofset by having the child more. She could always swap roles... Strange not many take up that option...

Strange how most parents don't see their children as commodities that carry a pay per view premium and can be dumped like a SKY subscription if they're a bit skint at the beginning of term, rather than ask the other parent to make a 50% contribution to what can be the largest expense of any year (as you have to buy school uniform, even Christmas presents aren't compulsory and not affording them won't lead to a kid being unable to access Statutory Education). Perhaps it might be because they love them? Radical suggestion, I know.

paulineb_2

Or shockingly poor communication.

If this father were paying absolutely nil for his child and the mum went to him and said, I need £150 and I need it badly and he said no, then Id be lining up to criticise him if he could afford to hand that over but just couldnt be bothered contributing anything for his child. But this man is contributing.

And all our experiences shape us. My mum was never rich, shes a teacher and I saw someone on the board the other week say that teachers earn 40 grand, well my mum has been teaching almost 40 years and she earns nowhere near that.

So in the days when I was growing up, there wasnt much left spare after rent and bills were paid and she brought up two of us one her salary, with as I said minimal help from my dad, the absolute bare minimum, nothing extra. Ive never had a birthday or christmas card from my father my entire life. Or a visit, birthday or christmas present. Nothing.

My brothers dad !!!!!!ed off to australia and married and that was that. His wife doesnt know he has a son, my brother was just scratched out of his life, totally. I actually admire my mum for being the person she is and not being bitter about any of it.

My father is wealthy now, very wealthy, hes remarried, he has a son who has no idea I exist and I believe that he hasnt told his second family that he was ever married or had me (Ive been in touch with cousins once or twice via email over the years who confirmed this). Hes also quite prolific in the career hes in so Ive seen the odd tv interview with him (just by chance over the years). But never in person.

My mum made the best of her situation. She went without to make sure we had. And that included kitting us out in school uniform every year.

I know what its like to grow up in a family where not only do fathers contribute the square root of nil, they also dont care about you as a human being either. They have no contact with you, they dont want any, they couldnt care less about you.

I just think when people are criticising the OP and this man, they could recognise and Im sure my situation has been repeated in households all over the world, that some men and women bring up children and they have absolutely nil financial support from their fathers or mothers (my dad paid £8 a month but that was the legal minimum he could pay and thats what he paid) and they get on with it. Because they have to.

I also know a family just now who are going through a split and the father is determined to ruin the mother and leave her with nothing, hes not paying CSA payments, took almost a year to get backdated payments and she didnt get everything she was due, hes worth a million at least.

Sometimes we need to make the best of a bad situation. Sometimes we have family members who dont step up to the plate and dont care.

But sometimes we have people who might not have loads of cash and who try their best to be actively involved in their childs life and pay what they can towards their upkeep

And coming from a family where my dad had to be taken to court to pay £2 a week and whose brothers dad effed off out of his life as soon as he could and didnt pay a single penny, my view is, if you have a productive relationship with the parent you dont live with, if you have a parent who cares about you who might not get it right all the time but tries, if you have a parent who does pay money towards you and your day to day expenses, then make the most of it, because as long as someone is trying their best and genuinely means well, you are a damn sight better father (because its my father who walked) than mine ever was.

He had plenty money spare, he just didnt want to part with it, he didnt care at all about me, he didnt care if my mum struggled, he didnt care about any aspect of my life, how I was, how I was doing at school and later uni, he just didnt give a hoot

So when I do see someone actually trying to provide and be involved in their kids life, I really cant see what the criticism is for.

Kids should not be used as a pawn in parents arguments and old wounds. I absolutely agree with that. But if a second wife is upset because ex wife has asked for money at short notice that , shes being honest, theres nothing wrong with that.

And you know, for all the comments on here criticising this entire situation, Id be interested to know if this kid is happy. Forget the bloody school trousers, is this kid happy, is he cared for, is he aware of any friction between the mum and the dad and new wife.

Its peoples happiness that matters at the end of the day, bottom line.
And theres more to happiness than having a new x box.

paulineb_2

duchy wrote: »

Post that you are struggling with a large mortgage on some boards here and the majority response would be "downsize" and a lecture how you shouldn't buy above your means. It's all about perspective <sigh>

Its possible that their mortgage is bigger because it was taken over a shorter term, I think the OP said they could only get a 19 year mortgage due to her partners age.

And perhaps the OPs concern about what the mum will do with this money stems from the fact that she said he turns up to their home in clothes that dont fit him and school shoes and theyve had to kit him out in clothes.

If the reason that she isnt buying him enough clothes is because she cant afford it, the ex wife should be speaking up

If its because shes awful with money, well that can be addressed, you only need to look around these boards to see people who have light bulb moments and decide to cut spending and make savings, people with kids included.

Spendless

Maybe if she's used to £450 a month maintenance she sees this as covering 'usual expenses'. If up to now she's never had any extra contribution for school uniform costs and is going through the 2nd year of paying out for more expensive Secondary school uniform, she's decided to ask for what she sees as an 'additional cost'.

I've got a 13yo, I went earlier this week for school uniform. Trousers were £12 a pair as he's getting bigger. I still need school shirts, jumpers only available via school @ £17 each, pe kit, rugby top only available via school @ £18, school shoes, trainers and football boots. For years I've smiled at posts that refer to buying a sew on badge to reduce costs. Mine have always been at schools that have the school logo embroidered into the sweatshirts/jumpers/polo shirts so you can't buy anywhere other than at more expensive approved stockists. The 3 pairs of footwear son needs will come to well over £100 due to mens sizing and needing something suitable. The only thing I'm not replacing for going into yr 9 is his tie! Everything else has already been outgrown, is on the brink of being outgrown and won't last till July 2014 or has worn-out

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

And my father did similar. But my mother didn't have the advantage of a secure professional job, plus her own mental health issues.

Both my children always had contact with their dads. One grudgingly paid maintenance, one didn't. Made no difference to whether or not they saw them, though.

However, I'm the one who had to take the rubbish jobs to fit in with the children, pay the childcare, dinner money and everything else they needed. My career prospects were the ones that were harmed, I'm the one whose outgoings were too high to be able to get a mortgage, the one who couldn't afford to make pension contributions or go out, have hobbies, make friends away from the schoolyard or even just drop into the supermarket for some milk on the way home because the after school club closed at six.


DD2 now lives with her father - and since then, he has decided that, having found out for the first time what's involved in being responsible for a teenager, never mind an infant who needed fulltime childcare and looking after,he feels that he didn't pay enough or give me enough credit for what I did whilst he was off building a career and buying a nice home, car and everything else he did.

FBaby

I asked the OP questions about how she knows this woman's income, out-goings, what debts she may be carrying, what additional debts she may have had to take out to deal with essentials etc. etc.

But these questions are totally irrelevant. The reality is that the government is already insuring that she receives enough benefits to cover essentials. How much tax credits would she receive if it wasn't for her son? So it is fair to accept that the full difference should go to her son and her son only (including joint bills). Taking this into consideration, it is very hard to picture how she would struggle to buy essentials out of her child benefits (including child tax credits) AND £450 in maintenance.

Once again, if she has accrued debts, if she has outgoings that are above her budget, then her issue with not having enough left to buy her child his uniform is hers and hers only. Why should the OP's husband be expected to come at the rescue because she can't budget properly. Budgeting is what it is, that is adjusting your outgoings to your income to insure you can pay for essentials.

The fact that she might not be able to find a full-time job again is not the problem of the nrp. He is doing is part and is doing so is paying a significant amount. He can't be expected to pay even more just because she is, possibly, struggling to find a full-time job. It would be the same than the nrp stating that for one month he will have to cut the maintenance by 2 because his boiler has broken down and he needs to replace it, and it is an essential especially for when his child comes to visit. How would the pwc react then?

I also find it unlikely that a pwc who demands £150 at the last minute is one that is genuinely struggling. I would have thought that any such pwc would be asking for anything additional funds the nrp is capable of contributing, rather than a fixed amount with no details at all as to what that would go towards.

I too get fed up with second wives who think that they come first and should be supported, along with her family as a priority. I have no more sympathy for them not providing financially than I do for pwc but this is clearly not the case here. The OP's husband has not given up his job on the advice of the OP so he wouldn't have to pay a penny in maintenance. She hasn't moaned that he is already paying additionally for things when the child is with them, she isn't expecting him to support her and her child.

paulineb_2

She must have known this expense was coming up. Its not unreasonable to say to someone a couple of months ahead, btw I need school stuff for him and I cant afford to pay for it all.

Because if she didnt, which she didnt, the dad might have thought, well shes obviously budgeted for this and now she hasnt and hes been asked to pay half.

Asking someone to pay half the costs of kitting your child out in school uniform a week before the school starts is thoughtless at best as far as Im concerned.

She knew weeks ago this expense was coming up, theres no reason why she couldnt have said sooner she couldnt pay for it all.

And the dad seems to be paying for a lot of the kids out of school clothes as well, hes already paying over and above the money hes giving her.
Im sure a lot of parents do the same. But if hes already buying a lot of the childs clothing, surely thats saving the mum money anyway?

FatVonD

paulineb wrote: »

She may have owned half as a marital asset, but he may have paid for most of it.

He paid for most of it because they together chose to have a child and for her role in that partnership to be as a stay at home mum so she contributed her time (possibly sacrificing her own career) to make it possible for him to make his contribution to their family a financial one.

I wonder how much childcare for thier child would have cost him for the duration of the mortgage if she'd not stayed at home to raise their child?

FBaby

This is exactly the reason why I don't find it unreasonable at all that nrp should have at least a rough idea what his maintenance payments are paid for. The few month my ex did pay, I actually offered to do so for him. He said he didn't need it because he knew I was spending all the money on the kids and them only. I can totally sympathise with nrps providing large sums of money each month, not having a clue whether it is spent on what it is intended to. Fair enough when they can build an idea in their head and be satisfied with it, but when you then get a pwc asking for more money, it would make anyone wonder. If I was an nrp, I would hate suspecting that the money I provide doesn't all go to my kid AND that suspicion getting even stronger if I was asked for even more, yet there was nothing I could do about it.

FBaby

He paid for most of it because they together chose to have a child and for her role in that partnership to be as a stay at home mum

And how do we know that? Many mothers decide when it is time to get back to work, having initially agree with the father that they would return to work, that over their dead body will they do so, and the father has no choice whatsoever but to go with it?

I certainly know a number of families in this situation. As a matter of fact, one of my OH friend was just telling him about this situation a couple of weeks ago. They decided to have a baby when they had calculated they could just about afford to with her going back to work, but she decided at the last minute that she couldn't cope with leaving the baby with the childminder. They had massive arguments about it because they are not in a financial position to do that. He suggested they sell the house but she refused that too. Her position is that it will only be for 4 years because she will then go back to work when the child is at school, and that they would manage by budgeting better. Except that 1 year on, she is spending just as much as before, and he has just found out that her credit card has now reached £3,000. He is very stressed but when he said that maybe she should reconsider her decision not to work, she has said that if he continued to insist, she would go and then she would be able to be a SAHM any way.

So no, not convinced it is always a family decision for the mother to be a SAHM, especially when they end up separated when the child is still young.