should his lifestyle be downgraded to support kids

LOL.

I can't understand how they get away with it!

I also can't understand why a father will not financially support his children, when they are able to. There are Dads out there that earn little and happily give as much as they can (without being 'forced' or told to).

Just one question to you all: When you were married to your ex's were there any signs they would behave this way?

I guess what I'm asking is - were they totally selfish 'In it for myself' throughout or suddenly turned this way after the split.

WR

my ex was pretty selfish for him self would never buy things for the kids even my xmas presents and b'day presents were things that he wanted like a leather 3 piece suite for which I can't stand leather as I think it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but I did get it for my xmas present yippee NOT.

TThings like DVD's he wanted eg. Deliverence, even got me the same slippers as his nan.

But I never thought that although he never went out of his way to buy things that were of any thought that he would ever leave not only me but his own flesh and blood children without totally.

WhiteRose, I don't recognise my stbx, I am totally flabbergasted at the change in him. He constantly comes up with these little surprises and has done more or less to the day that I asked for the divorce and moved out of the marital bed.
That's when something changed in him, when he realised that he had actually lost me, forever. Everything went out of the window, all his principals, all his values, his niceness, his loyalness, his position in society, his morals - why do you think he gives his serbian girlfriend envelopes of money??????? To smoke????????
But at least the game has moved on from the controlling/stalking aspect, I'm currently not being video-ed and I think my computer is more safe now.
Always watching my back, staying one step ahead and trying to keep saner than him.
Supercali xx

Think the van is FANTASTIC!! Well worth any warning you may have had.

Bit concerned about mum4 being owed £49k. CSA always say dont worry you will get your money - sounds like they might be making that up!!

But yes we are all better off without them - maybe not financially but in every other way!

In the case I mentioned above (i.e. CSA writing off the claim) the father wasn't allowed to see his son. That wasn't because he was violent, or anything like that, but just because the PWC was bloody-minded and thought their son only needed her. She'd done it to her other son (different father) too - he never saw his father either until he was much older and sought him out.

I think there is an argument to be made that if someone is wrongly denied the right to see their child, why should they pay, especially if the PWC is rolling in money?

The CSA should link payment to seeing your offspring and if there is no good reason for the mother to block this then she simply gets her money docked. I know what you will say, "It's the child that suffers!" Well that's not the case if the PWC has so much money she doesn't know what to do with it. The only person that suffers then is the father if he has little money.

In my friend's case he'd have had more value for money (feedback), as it were, if he'd sponsored a child in Africa. Phoning his son was fraught with difficulty because his mother would then go running to her sol and say he'd been deliberately upset; letters were slightly better but when she had a gripe she got the child to write to his dad about it - at aged 7. Awful behaviour.

Mum4, you should put it on youtube and on a blog - defo.
You've definately got guts, no money, but plenty of spunk.
Supercali xx