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Hi guys,
Hoping for some clarity from anyone who has had experience in this area.
Short version:
My ex has given birth to our daugher. She hasn't let me see her due to lockdown (Child was born April 10th). She also named the child and announced it on Instagram without consulting me at all. Refusess to put me on the birth certificiate and is an anti-vaxxer.
I have proposed FBA but she is refusing as she doesn't want to sign anything. She initially threatened me with CMS but has now taken the stance of: pay or don't pay, I don't care, despite my insistance that I am happy to go through either CMS or FBA.
I have started reading about the Schedule 1 Act and I am concerned.
I currently don't own any property and have a Taxable income of £40Kpa plus £10K in debts (waiting for hospitals to open so I can work and clear this) and a £750 pm car lease. With my career trajectory and all the other projects I have in the pipeline, in the next 5 years I can see me income improving to between £100-£200K pa. Now I know this seems like a very first world problem, but hear me out.
I am seeing a lot of cases where men are forced to not only pay CMS, but also sell their home, in order to buy mothers a house and a car and give the mother periodical payments on top of this.
I don't care about the money, but I do care about the peace of mind. I want to just reach an arrangement and be done with it, but it seems that with Schedule 1, she can just keep coming after me.
I have a very bleak outlook at my life now, as I imagine, no matter what levels of success I reach, financially I will never escape from this woman's reach as she will constantly be dragging me to court and taking everything I have. My reasoning for this is the number of cases I've read about online where men have been forced to hand over 80% of the net worth to the mother as it apparently benefits the child.
If I can afford it, I honestly don't mind housing my daughter, I have already promised the mother that I will pay for her and her step-sister to go to whatever school she chooses and university. She already has a car, but if she needs a safer one, again, if I can afford it than I will happily buy it. But I see some cases take the mickey where mothers are awarded £80K Cars, £1M houses, £50K in annual decorating fees and then an annual Periodical Payment of £60K just for the pleasure of being a mother! No offence, but as a man brought up solely by his single mother, I know for a fact that this is excessive.
Am I to be a slave to this person for the rest of my young years?
Here is the full story for those who are interested:
I'm an Oral Surgeon (in training). I moved to the South of England from 2018-2019 for a locum year to save some money for some projects I'm working on.
I met a woman on Tinder. I was 27 at the time and she (said) she was 31 and had a 3 year old daughter. Long story short, we started going out and were together for 9 months. At month 7 I found out she was actually 36 but I let it go as I'd fallen for her. I then found out she had a 19 year old, again I let it go.
She was always very irritable about using condoms as she insisted she was on the pill. Stupid me gave in to the pressure and we started doing things without condom protection, but allegedly while she was using the pill. There was an understanding that neither of us wanted a baby and that if a pregnancy occurred it would be aborted.
As fate would have it, Month 9 of the relationship she calls me to tell me she's pregnant. I would say I remained reasonable but stood by my initial stance of an abortion. She didn't take kindly to this (understandably) and wanted to keep the baby. We stopped talking for 2 months.
My morality on the subject is basically, if the pregnancy reaches week 8 then it truly is a viable baby and I wouldn't want her to have an abortion past that stage. I got back in touch with her, and she'd kept the baby. I then made it clear I wanted to be involved and amicable with her. She was fine with this as long as I was financially supportive. This came in the form of covering her other daughter's Xmas presents as her ex didn't help her out with that, and buying a few baby things here and there to get ready for the birth.
We had several arguments about vaccinations etc. In the build up to the birth I felt it best that we cool off communications. On the day of the birth she called me wanting to talk money. I offered FBA or CMS. She initially threatened with CMS, but when I responded positively she cooled off that. She then suddenly adopted a stance of 'only pay if you want to but I'm not signing an FBA and I won't come after you with CMS'.
She then decided to name the baby without my knowledge and post it on Instagram so that I could find out along with the rest of the world. When I pulled her up on this she blocked me. We haven't spoken since. My only window into this baby's life is the mother's public instagram account where she seems to be dressing the baby up in designer things in an attempt to become some kind of pseudo-influencer.
sounds like that woman is very experienced at what she's doing. what is an FBA? I wouldn't be surprised if she makes CMS claim out of the blue, as she must know you earn a lot of money. the maximum CMS can take from you is £3000 per week lol. the mother can go to court to ask for more, if your a very wealthy person.
you never married this person right? if that's the case then she can't claim spousal support, or take your property if its solely in your name and she didn't contribute to mortgage etc..so not so bad for you. my ex did similar. name baby without consulting me. thats when I knew she became divorce material.
One important thing you're missing - were you married or in a civil partnernship? If yes, the answer is going to be very different.
Let's assume, as well as making these mistakes with protection and what not, you didn't marry a woman off Tinder after a few months 😛
You are liable for CMS if you are established as the father. You can be established as the father by asking for a declaration of parentage from the court. This may involve a DNA test. Side note - it may not be yours you know, make sure you can handle that?
Once you are established as the father, she can take you to CMS. You can also ask for contact with your baby.
CMS payments are well defined - use the CMS calculator. You won't have to pay more than that. Chill with the scare stories.
An anti-vaxxer will be ordered by the court to vaccinate their child - you can pursue this easily via a specific issues order. If she persists in resisting this, she may lose residence but that will be a very long, hard process and very very unlikely.
All the background about how you hooked up, your morality on abortion, etc doesn't matter.
Also stop contacting her directly.
Thanks for the reply. Nope not married. FBA stands for Family Based Arrangement
Thanks for the reply man.
Luckily we were never married, nor did we cohabit.
The problem is, I've read articles like this: https://www.majorfamilylaw.co.uk/the-kids-are-alright/
To be honest, if I had a chance in [censored] of getting custody, I would. At first I wasn't ready to be a father, but looking at the way her 19 year old has turned out, and the direction this 4 year old is going in, it breaks my heart to see this baby brought up solely by her.
She doesn't know how to cook, she just buys them McDonald's or ready meals.
She can't drive (even though her dad bought her a car).
Her flat is a complete tip, I remember being actually taken aback the first time I entered it. Rotting food all over the kitchen, spoiled milk in cups, dust and rubbish everywhere. Really awful.
But unfortunately from what I've read fathers have absolutely no chance.
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