Maintence Versus Level of Contact

Hi Steve,
I appreciate your comments and your support.

So you think i should pay exactly what the CSA say I should pay for just my daugther on the amount of days I have her at the moment and see what she does?

If it went to court, how would the court see me doing that? Isnt that just as bad as her using the children as a pawn and cutting the days for money?

I know this is going to be hard, I know I need to get hard with her, but I just feel so worn down with it all.

I felt so strong for so long, becoming a weekend parent took a lot out of me, but now I am really flagging and she is taking advantage of it!

Divorce settlements depend on the specific facts of a case and an individual case is unlikely to be similar to another posters.The first consideration is how the children are to be housed if the former matrimonial home has been sold and there is no equity. On the face of it there isn't a huge discrepancy in incomes once benefits and CM are factored in but if you are cohabiting it may be assumed that your new partner should be contributing to your household expenses leaving you with some disposable income to pay spouse maintenance.

A solicitor with knowledge and experience of the law and how local courts tends to view matters is in the best position to advise given all the specific details. Even if you do decide to go it alone afterwards I would suggest seeing a solicitor to find out where you stand and what options there are. No point in getting into a heated argument about reducing child support if that means the difference is made up in paying spouse maintenance.

Hi Jaymdee,
Thanks for your offer to check out my letters / emails, I will certainly take you up on the offer.
I need to be very careful with my ex, she texts nasty texts then when I respond with something I dont class as nasty she texts back saying "stop these nasty texts now or I will contact the police", she is a complete nutter!

I have a very small pension, however it was noted on the divorce she would have no access to this.

My ex is going to live with her boyfriend in a rented property that she has already arranged.

I cant see she will stop me seeing the children completely, she probably needs her weekends with her new boyfriend without the kids in the way, plus she know it wont look good on her if she stops them seeing me.

I understand I need to get the financial Consent Order sorted, however she will will drag this out and make life really difficult.

By the way what does FH stand for??

I will also have a look at the self repping forum.

Thanks

Sorry FH = Final Hearing.

Dont respond to text messages, as my partner has discovered they cause most of the problems.

If you have a smartphone it is possible to get an app that sends all text messages to email so you have prove of what she is saying and you can demonstrate that you are not intimidating in response.

If it was noted on the divorce that she has no claim to the pension are you sure you havent already got a consent order signed and sealed?

Hi Jaymdee,
As far as I know there is no financial settlement.

I think the divorce side was rushed through because a few months before we split her mother died, from what I gather she was left a lump sum from her mother and I guess she thought I would try and claim some of it or try to pay her less because of it.

Neither was true, I stuck to paying CM regardless even if she was left something, i simply didnt care what she had.

I agree about the text messaging, I sent a text the other day and she completely misread it and accused me of tyring to start an arguement, funnily enough straight afterwards she asked me for money towards he sons football boots!!
Guess she gets me on a back foot accusing me of arguing, makes me feel bad, then goes for the throat!!

What is the name of the smart phone App you mentioned?

I really think I need to get her to mediation to discuss the financial settlement, child contact and child maintenance, however I just dont see how I can get her to agree to go, she is just so unreasonable, all she does is demand demand demand.
Last time I asked her to go she said her solicitor advised her not to go to mediation as I had been unreasonable and she was unable to discuss matter with me.

I think my first step will be to stop paying for extras and simply point out, politely, how much I already pay her. Advise her that if she is not happy then she should seek legal advice.

When the baby arrives in December I will go ahead and adjust the level of maintenance inline with what the CSA say for one child, plus a minor increase for my stepson.

In the mean time I will look into self repping for agreed contact with my daugther.

I know I need to address the financial side of things but I dont even know where to start!

Hi. Warning - long reply follows.

A lot of people may disagree with me and say I am hard. That is probably true but I didn't start out that way.

I read the books by families need fathers. Take the high road. When your kids come and ask you for money, imagine how they feel when they go back to their PWC and have to tell them you said no? Who bears the brunt? I have showed up at school open days where we were accosted by teachers asking us why we let our daughter (my step) come to school with no hockey boots, sticks that literally left her with blisters... when my husband's ex asked him to pay 1/2 he said yes. he said send me receipts for anything you buy in the month and I will add it to monthly child support. Likewise, I will send you receipts for anything I buy for school and deduct 1/2 from monthly child support. She wanted £500. He said no. She never raised it again, just refused to buy anything. We didn't know she had no school uniform, no gym kit etc.

So we paid for school uniforms, school trips, school fees, university accommodation. It never ever ended. And to this day she is convinced she and her children have been hard done to. The kids would show up and say will you buy us clothes? If mummy does, we will not be able to afford electricity. One time when we dropped them off it was - are you going to give me more money or are you happy for your children to starve to death? At the same time, she paid off her mortgage, bought a new car, installed a conservatory,installed hardwood floors through the house and saved up over £25k (we know this through the numerous court cases, the last being when she tried to change a term spousal maintenance order to a lifetime one) - while we spent all our disposable income on the kids after my husband gave her 40% of his take home income every month.

PLEASE LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES!!!


He gave her 100% of the capital from the marriage 'for the sake of the children'.

It will become a never ending court case and financial drain. stop it now.

I have put my answers to your questions below.

More information on finances below:

I take home £2487 per month
She earns £1500min (I dont know for sure) this excludes benefits, maintenance etc.

Her salary will almost never be taken into account.

No financial settlement on divorce even though we have Nisi and Absolute, just cant afford the legal fees.

Use a site like divorce online to draw up a Clean Break agreement. This will finalise the break between the two of you. Use the CSA for child support.

She stayed in FMH and paid mortgage since split, refused to move out, recently found she couldnt pay the mortgage and now house sold and completing next week.
There is no equity in fact about £150 shortfall which I will be paying.

Court will be concerned about the living arrangements for the children.

I am taking on joint debts, loan £5k and overdraft £1.5k

Document this in a clean break agreement.

I will have had the children 123 nights by the end of this year inclusive of holidays.
I pay £384 even though CM Options website says £264 for one child and £354 for two.

Get contact enshrined in a contact order as soon as you can. At the very least get a written agreement with your ex.

I also pay £190 of this via childcare voucher scheme so she gets £243 instead.

Does this actually cost you anything?

This gives her a total from me and the childcare vouchers of £435 per month instead of the £264 for one child.

If the vouchers don't cost you anything, you could agree to give her them as long as you continue to receive them as a payment above the CSA amount. If you do, document this clearly.

I am on the verge of cutting it back to what the CM website says I should pay, £264 pay it direct and let her take me to court for the rest. But I know that is not going to make me look good in court.

You will almost never look good in court anyway. Cynical but true. Your stance needs to be that you are paying exactly what you are supposed to. That you are additionally providing care for hte child for 1/3 of the year and that you are (if you are) also contributing child care vouchers as long as they are an employment benefit.

However I am scared of what she will do, I cant afford to go to court to sort out the financial settlement.

My husband spent £4k on a solicitor first time he went. His ex didn't get one. He had to obey rules of court. Ex spent nearly an hour spewing complete lies. Judge said she was clearly upset so should get to speak her piece! He has been back to court 4 times (he didn't get a clean break at the time of divorce) and represented himself every time after that.

One other twist in this, my new girlfriend and I are expecting a baby in December, I feel this may have been the catalyst that kicked off my ex, she obviously realises her maintenance will go down.

Yes. for my husband's ex - she was very nice until he proposed to me. Then she went absolutely ballistic.

What do i do ?
Is she liable to get more from me if I were to cut it back to what it should be?

Get a written cost from CSA (or CMEC, whatever they call themselves). Do not include your stepson, pay for him if you want to but make sure it is optional, not part of your legal agreement.

Can I self rep? How hard is it?
What sort of cost am I looking at for Solicitor?

Yes and I would recommend it. But you have to have all teh facts to hand when you go in and you cannot be angry or bitter. you must be fair and put the best interests of your daughter first. If she files and you want something different, remember you must file a counter claim or they cannot address what you want, only what she has filed.

Can she refuse to go through mediation?
She said as I have been unreasonable in recent arguements she doesnt have to?
Yes we have argued, tempers have run high, but I have never threatened her as she has implied!

Yes or she can write to them and say that you intimidate her and she doesn't want to attend with you. They will see her independently then. Or she can refuse.

My husband and his ex were actually ordered by the court to seek mediation. He went, she went for an individual appointment and then the mediator called my husband and said she has said she refuses to negotiate so you must go back to court. Despite it being a court order they attend mediation, she was not penalised in any way for refusing.

Given I have paid over the odds, could a court make me carry on paying it even though we have had no written agreement stating what I should pay?

Yes and this is why you should get a written quote from CSA and pay that only going forward.

If it does go to court are they liable to award her SM?

Does your girlfriend work? If so, does she earn enough to pay 1/2 household bills? If so, that will release 1/2 of your household bill commitment.

If you do discuss SM, make it term based so - I will pay SM until child is 6 and in school. A clean break is better if you can get one.

Hi fedup2ndwife,
Thanks for your long response, it was very helpful.

Things took a turn for the worse last night when I went to pick up my daugther and stepson, but I will talk about it later in the post!

I can add a bit more information to what I already said.

I have thought about using a site like Divorce for the clean break, however surely this relies on her agreeing to a clean break, if she doesnt where does that leave me?

My ex is moving into a new rental property after the house is sold (possibly with her new boyfriend), will the court still be concerned about living arrangements for the children?

With regards to SM, my new partner does work, or she will uptil the birth of our baby, we cant afford to pay childcare after that so she cant go back to work.

Currently she give me no money towards my rent as she has a property in her own name, she cant sell it and is in negative equity, its been on the market for ages and we are getting more and more in debt as time goes on.

How will a court see that??

So back to lastnight,
I was ready to leave work to collect the children from the childminder as normal when I got a text to say that my ex will no be working from home on Wednesdays and from this week forward I will need to collect them from her.
I find this very awkward as I dont like to see my ex, it normally involves her asking for money!
I call at the house to find them not home, she arrived some 10mins later, she had literally been to the minder and picked them up. I find this very annoying as it breaks up the routine i have with the children, my daugther then refused to come with me as she wanted to stay with her mum.
This never happens when i have collected them from the minder in the past.
Her collecting them is clearly to disrupt my routine with the children.

She then started asking me for money, I stated I was there to collect the children and not to discuss money.

She made no effort to help me get my daughter to come with me and then in front of both of the children said maybe if I phoned them more often they might be more willing to go with me, she then said that I cant be bothered with them, both children clearly heard it!

She said she couldnt force the children to come with me, to which I got very upset about and said I would leave them, she said it was all my fault, at this point I accused her of not helping and this clearly being what she wanted, basically I was very upset, emotional and lost my cool.
I know I was wrong, but she was implying I cant be bothered with my children.
She has no idea of the love I have for them, I cherish every moment I have with them.
Besides on Sundays when I have to take them home they dont want to go back, do I phone her and say "sorry kids dont want to come home, I cant force them!", no, I tell them they need to and that is the way things are.

I left the children and drove around 1/2 mile up the road where I broke down in tears, she had really got to me.
I phoned my girlfriend and cried like a baby!
My ex had left me a voicemail, which I still have, she said she had persuaded the children to come with me, but as my phone is off I obviously cant be bothered to come back for them, this was all said clearly with venom!

I turned around and went back, when I arrived there her father was waiting at the door, she had clearly got me upset and then called a witness to see me looking upset.

I once again tried to get the children in the car, my daughter this wanted to come, I was readying her seat when I stepped back and knocked her over, this was met with a scream from my ex and a scene in front of the neighbours, almost making out I had struck my daughter!

I stupidly said "oh shut up, it was an accident", I was then accused of being abusive! I was told I was clearly not in the right frame of mind to have the children.
Her son then said he didnt want to come to mine, I was then told they couldnt be seperated as they are never apart, this is a lie, they are seperated during the day when he is at school and they have also spent nights apart when at the aunts etc.

I left again without the children.

I got halfway home when I got a call saying the children wanted to come to mine, I agreed to meet them at a local park where she dropped them off, no conversation took place.

I was later told by her son that she had promised him a present if he went to my house! No wonder he refused to begin with, he was playing her!

So lastnight everything took a turn for the worse, she baited me and I was stupid enought to fall for it!
She made a huge scene in front of neighbours and her father so she had witnesses to say I was being aggresive, the truth was I was very deeply upset and she was being very cutting saying I couldnnt be bothered, I stoop to her level and I got made to look an idiot!

So Where from here?
I guess my first step is to get a contact order so she cant keep adjusting things like this. I want to go back to me collecting from the childminder, I want her to stop telling me to phone them, I dont call as I think it confuses them, she has to stop wanting to phone them when I have them as well.

I will repeat this whole story on the contact forum and see what help I get there.

Sorry for the rant, but I need to vent a people who know what I am going through!