How much is enough?

My wife left my eldest son (now 15) to live with his grandmother so that she and my youngest two sons could move 50 miles away to live with her boyfriend in his council house. This is good motherhood in her eyes.

I pay 25% of my net income which is £1300 a month (averaged over a year). I make no deduction for the nights I have the kids (every second weekend) and I occasionally buy clothes etc for them. We have no formal arrangement.

She works 20 hours a week, her partner is on long term disability benefits -bad back. The kind that doesnt stop you driving, putting up stud walls, plastering ceilings. They live in a two bed council house and pay about £400 a month in rent.

She continually tells the kids that I do not pay enough to cover the cost of feeding housing clothing, etc. It has now reached a point where my eldest son, who was due to come and live with me as soon as I find a job that doesn't involve working away all week, has told me he doesn't want anything more to with me.

I've offered to have all of them live with me, which she won't allow because she says I am a bad father for leaving them. This would involve a much lower paid job and tax credits so it would need to be permanent. On a fortnightly basis I get late night phone calls demanding I go and collect whichever one is playing up so that they can live with me, but of course it never happens. So I can't do much and she adopts the moral high ground.

I'm at my wits end.

Am I being unreasonable?

Hiya,

To me it doesn't sound like its the amount - you could pay 100% of your salary to her and she'll still say its not enough

What a shame she says these things to the children - I think children should not be involved in 'Adult' matters - its a spiteful and manipulative thing to do.

Many PWC on this site would think £1300 pm was a fortune!! Esp as its more than CSA calculator and you don't do discounts and buy extras.

How far along the divorce are you?

Can you enlist any family members for support?

Keep on plugging away at your eldest - but don't be tempted to bad mouth their Mum, but by all means you can reassure them you do pay enough as its important they know you are supporting them.

Take care

WR x

I'm divorced. Nisi in October 2010, Absolute July this year. Reason for the delay: wife's reluctance to sort finances.

The FMH was sold at her behest in January and she got £46k from that. I got £32k, as well as about £35k of marital debt. We also agreed a 50/50 pension split. All of this on her assertion that she wanted the finances signed off by March.

In the ensuing period she claims that she has spent all the money. For several months my solicitor wrote to hers, getting little in reply, but eventually provoking a response that they were no longer acting for her and didn't know her whereabouts. So I launched an Ancillary Relief Petition. She told me it wasn't a priority, then provided it two days before the court date, with her new solicitor requesting a delay which was agreed.

The silly thing is she claims not to want spousal maintenance (hopefully she wouldn't get it anyway as she's been cohabiting now for over a year). She is just dragging her heels. Naturally she also blames me because she now has larger legal bills to pay.

No, you're not!

Currently you should be paying 25% with two thirds of that going to the mother and one third to the grandmother.

The grandmother should also be claiming 15% of the mother's income plus child benefit and child tax credits.

If the eldest comes to live with you then you would pay 20% to the mother and would be able to claim against her for him.

If you want him to live with you then you could make an application for residence, bearing in mind that the court won't make an order once he is 16 and at 15 they will pretty much act on his expressed wishes.

You could also make a residence application in respect of the other two.

I am in a similar situation as you describe. My ex has set herself up in an identical situation

I pay 25% of my net salary in maintenance, plus travelling expenses for a 3 hour round trip every weekend to see my boys. I ring the boys every other night to be part of their lives. Its not enough for her

You ask how much is enough?, how much do you love your kids? From what you have written it sounds like your ex and yourself have forgotten that there are kids involved in this and rather, seem to have fallen into the trap of back biting and bitching about the wrongs of the other.

My advice to you my friend is..Be all that you can be to your kids,for they need a father to look up too and no matter what their mother says to them, by being true to them your relationship can only strengthen!!

I have always loved the expression there are two sides to every story .... It's such a shame that on sites like these the other side is never heard.

I also have 3 boys, the eldest (15) lives with his Nan. The decision to let him live with his Nan was not an easy one, the facts were he has Aspergers and struggles with change, he also is not good socially, so I felt it was best to let him decide where he wanted to live.

I was forced to sell the FMH, firstly my ex needed the money from the house to pay off his business debts and secondly I could no longer afford to pay the ongoing bills on the FMH as I wasn't working. I felt I had no choice but to move in with my partner, my credit rating was so bad because I had been unable to pay many of the bills on the FMH, so getting a rented house was not an option.

My ex has said he would pay 25% of his net income, but for one reason or another it's never come up to the agreed amount and there have been months where I was not given a quarter of that. I do understand that I am very fortunate in the amount of money I get each month, it is a lot more than most get. He does occasionally buy them clothes for which I'm very grateful as boys grow so fast they get through clothes at an alarming rate. However he does have a very high standard of living ie .. living in the poshest part of town, shopping in the best clothes stores and travelling first class.

I will admit that I have also called my ex on a few occasions asking for his help with the boys. It has been out of desperation, and a need for assistance, as I have not known what to do. When you are faced with a boy of 12 years old standing over you, calling you filthy names and threatening violence, is it wrong to call their father asking for help ??? He has offered to have all the boys go and live with him, which although very kind of him isn't an option.

My eldest son doesn't have a good relationship with his father, I would love for them to get on better, but it seems that's just not going to happen. The last straw for my son was hearing from his best friend that his father had been at the pub slagging him off for not doing well in his exams. In fact his son got mostly A*'s, something his father should have been praising him for.

I would never declare to be the best mother in the world I have made many many mistakes, but I am doing my very best to make their life happy because that is my main goal, it's not about how much money I can give them, but how much love and support I give them.

Are you being unreasonable ? Only deep down do you know the true answer to that.