Maintenance and accusations

I’m a newbie on here so please be gentle as I’m looking for advice

I have been with my partner off and on since the age of 12. We have 2 girls together aged 14 years and 20 months old. He has a son aged 8 with his ex wife (I know, the age difference between the children is weird but we were separated for a few years and he married and they had a boy)

We’ve been back in a relationship together for the past 5 years, after his marriage broke down we just sort of found our way back to each other.

During the beginning of our newest relationship together visitation with his son was whenever his mother would allow it as she was annoyed to say the least. She was acting bitter as she thought we were having an affair whilst they were married (we were not) and even named this as the reason for the divorce aswell as naming me as a guilty party.

The tension eased off as time went on as you would expect, it also helped that she started a new relationship also.

My partner and I weren’t living together at the time as I was waiting to see where we were heading before I wanted my daughter to deal with having her father there again then leaving again ( she was 9 at the time) so we were taking it slow.
That’s when the accusations of benefit fraud started from her.
I’m not going to lie, I was on single parent benefits at the time so I could keep the roof over our head but WAS NOT defrauding the government at all because it was just me and my eldest living there at the time, my partner DID NOT live with us until months later.

He paid an agreed amount for their son weekly, cash in hand straight to her and provided anything extra that he needed including a trip to lego land where he paid for both of the parents, his son and her eldest from a previous relationship.

When we eventually moved back in together I notified the local council and the job centre aswell as the tax credits people, I didn’t want to get into any debt or spend time looking over my shoulder so we went all above board.
We even got him registered for being self employed also, which he has been since their separation and still is to this day.

His ex wife continued to accuse us of defrauding the government and tried to blackmail us into giving her more money, we didn’t give her anymore than what we originally agreed but continued to pay and also gave half to his extra activities after school and we took it in turns to buy school shoes and trainers for him and also paid half towards his uniform and gave him spending money when she took him on holiday.

We now have another girl together and she continued to accuse us of trying to do her out of money so she went to csa.
We don’t get any help towards school dinners or uniform for our eldest and also get no help towards our rent or council tax nor did we get any help towards our youngest milk like you used to.
We are a household of 2 adults and 2 children living on basic child tax credit and his income of £240 a week.

I’m not going to lie there has been times where my partner has had to work on a Saturday when he has had limited days that week just so we can have his regular £240 wages that week and not less, but if that falls on his regular fortnightly visitation he always rings her a week before to let his son decide if he still wants to stay at ours or with his mum.

Lately she has been saying that she is struggling with the maintenance we pay, (csa have said to pay £90 per month) and is now accusing us of swindling csa and claiming that my partner must be getting cash in hand from his boss as he helps out when his boss has his regular visitation with his son every fortnight also.

I don’t work so I do not have an income of my own, the only money coming in is the child tax, child benefit and his weekly wages.

She has also stated that because she has a residence order she doesn’t have to let him see his son and calls him a wasteman and shit father.

I have a good relationship with my stepson which is why he chooses to stay with me on the odd Saturday his dad has to work.

We find it hard to believe that she all of a sudden is struggling with what we provide for him (including shoes, trainers and uniform still when she asks aswell as the regular maintenance) when we buy everything he needs for our house including shoes, trainers, clothes, presents etc. But yet she has her hair dyed regularly and new nike trainers and a new north face thick coat yet my stepson is in hand me downs instead of the occasional new clothes.

Before everyone starts about finances being hard when you’re a single parent I would like to say that I know exactly how it feels as I had NO contributions towards my eldest daughter whilst they were married, not a single penny for 3 and a half years so I’m not apposed to any means of help from family or friends but when you take into account that over 5he last year we’ve paid £1080 in maintenance and he had not had hardly any new clothes but she had her hair bleached and took her eldest out on day trips when we’ve had my stepson you can’t help but jump to conclusions.

My partner is registered with HMRC and pays his tax. The csa have this information aswell as our bank statements and everything else they have asked for yet she still continues to harass us when we do something she doesn’t like.

Sorry for the looong post but wanted to put as much information as I could because I would like to know if there was something we could do to stop her using my stepson as a pawn and trying to deny us access when we tell her we can’t afford something extra for him outside of the maintenance. Or when she accuses us of swindling the government to try and blackmail us for extra money when we aren’t getting anything other than what we have declared.

If you have a residence order in place that must define what days his son is where. Payment of support money and as you say extras is not related to contact so if she is not obeying the residence order then you would need to go back to court however this may make the situation worse as the courts have traditionally been very weak in enforcing residence orders. As children get to 11-12 I found as a father that the court was more willing to listen to the child's wishes and 13-14 essentially the court didn't want to make an order and it was essentially up to the child. So only you can judge your situation but it maybe better to grit your teeth for the next couple of years knowing that after that her control of the situation will be significantly weakened.

Thank you for your reply.

The residence order we have is “loose” as no times, dates or days were agreed. The only set in stone dates are the big ones ie alternating mornings on Christmas Day and mother’s and Father’s Day. All my partner was told when asked by her solicitor to sign it was that if we wanted to leave the country with my stepson we would then need written permission from his mother.
So far we’ve managed to avoid going to court about visitation but can see her wanting to take that route like she did with her eldest child’s dad who now has had no contact in around 3 years.

Will have to sit down and think about what the best route to go would be for everyone to win really.

Thank you for your experience as a father it’s has answered a few questions for my partner