Hi Dobber and Sallyanne.
When i divorced my 1st husband, our arrangement was....
£60 per week for two kids. We didnt go through the CSA. It was an agreement between ourselves. That was 5/6 years ago and its never changed. He now gives me £30 per week as one of our kids turned 18 and left full time education. He also paid half our daughters dancing fees which were £75 each per month. He never paid any SM or anything else. But if i ask him for half of whatever he does pay it. (but then we are friends and always have been.) The thing was i bought him out of the
FMH, he kept all the endownments, his pension and i gave him some money. I had to find a job as i had been a stay at home mum (but i did always work part time night work) anyway i found a job for 15/16 hours a week and i got WFTC, i found myself in a situation i'd never been in before and that was well off for the first time in years. No debts (only the mortgage) and i even managed to go out at weekends and live a good life. Had time with my kids, when we were all going through a rough time, had a job where i met different people daily and could still afford to go out and make a new life.
What i am trying to say to you both is , this all works if you can stay friendly.
Dobber there is a guy on here called Downbutnotout, he has been ordered to pay 60% of his weekly income, to former wife and kids, it barely leaves him with enough to live on, so inevitably he gets in debt. I think if you show your Wife and are upfront with all your bills, wages ect, ect, she could see from that that what she is asking for is impossible. You can always say with all the other things she wants above the csa payments that you will help her out if and when you can. I dont beleive you will have to pay anything more than the CSA payments for your kids, but as a dad, it seems you dont want them to miss out on the things in life that will inevitably come along...i.e. school trips ect. I dont think your wife is being unreasonable in her requests, she must be a bit worried at the moment wondering where and how shes gonna pay for all these things. But as a friendly couple you can work through these things together, after all if you were still both married you find the money from somewhere. For clothes and things you can always both work out a plan of spending say...£200 per child every six moneths or so. £100 from you and £100 from her. Sit and talk to her, say you will try and save so much a week for the extras. At the end of the day
mediation, divorce ect ect will only work for all concerned if you are both reasonable and all you both want is to see your kids are ok and not losing out. But sometimes we have to say NO to them, it seems most kids today have never heard the word! lol My daughter especially.
I also know from a friend of mine, he paid for his
FMH for 10 years even after the mortgage was paid off, he still continued to pay his ex wife money every month, when his kids were 25 years old, (his son still lived with his mum) he then asked his ex to sell the house, she had never worked in all that time. She wouldnt and he went to court to order either half the profit she pay him from the FMH or sell it! It was ordered that she give him £14k from a house worth £80k at the time, and that his former wife hadnt paid a penny too, this was some 7 years ago.
Sallyanne
I also understand from your point of view, i have another friend whos ex partner doesnt pay a rotten penny even when hes been ordered too, she has been awarded various things from the court... ie. cash lump sum, SM ect ect, not one penny has she had, no CS, he thinks its really funny, Yeah really is, isnt it? The only thing she can do apparentely is go back to court, but she has now run out of money and cant afford it. I tell her to self represent but shes had enough at the mo and feels to weak to fight anymore. Some men are unbelievable when it comes to their kids, seemed they were perfect fathers once, but they get at the kids to hurt the woman.
Crazy huh?
Anyway sorry to have rambled on.
take care all
Cya soon
Louise.