[Solved] Can somebody give me some advice please?

Hi Everyone,

It's been a good couple of months since my last response.

Shortly after posting my last post, I ended up leaving her. As expected it didn't go down well, I packed only my personal items that I could get and before trying to leave I had to call the police because she started kicking off again. Long story short, I managed to get most of my personal things out of the house and go to a family members house.

A few months down the line...it's been a rough ride in terms of having to put up with her. She has continued to be verbally abusive, threatening and manipulating. I left in at the end of March and she will still call me every now and again and send me the odd message telling me how she wants to be civil for our daughter when in reality I know that this isn't possible because as soon as I say something she doesn't like it's back to shouting etc.

I am now looking into paying for a divorce, she has flat out told me that she won't pay anything towards it, I don't want anything from the house that I left, I have moved into my own place now and bought everything I need again. In terms of bills, when we lived together we had an agreement that I would pay the house, electric, gas and the only main thing she had to pay herself was the council tax. It turns out however when I left and had to set up my own council tax, I was notified that she hadn't been paying it and that the account was about to go to court. I was mortified, I'd never seen a letter about this and she always told me she was paying it. So when I asked her to pay half towards the council tax bill she agreed and told me to take it out of the CSA that we had arranged together to which I agreed. Well...she knew what she was doing because that very week she decided to go through CSA to work out how much I should pay and when for my daughter despite me never missing a payment and always paying what we had agreed. This now meant that she wouldn't pay anything towards the outstanding council tax debt and so that it didn't go to the courts I was left to pay it. I'm not sure but maybe I could recoup some of this from the divorce?

I also have a question for anybody that might know...So I always make my CSA payments on time and I pay the amount that is owed and more sometimes just to be on the safe side. More recently because I have been overpaying I have said I would deduct the overpayment from the next payments, this is what I was told I could do from the CSA as long as I could prove what I have paid. As soon as I said that, she kicked off with the verbal abuse again and told me she would go to CSA and request direct pay instead. Now this would mean I have to pay even more money just because this silly woman wants to try and get one over on me, but surely the receiving parent can't just request this if the paying parent has always paid and on time can they? that would make the system more one-sided than what I believe it already is for good, honest paying parents. I am going to phone the CSA tomorrow but I just wondered if anybody had any advice on this?

I would also like to know if anybody has any tips or recommendations for the divorce?

Thanks

Hi, she can't request direct pay, CMS will only use this if you are in arrears. However you can't deduct anything she owes you from this, that isn't the concern of CMS. You can stop overpaying though.

With regards to the divorce, you could use a divorce service, which will be much cheaper than a solicitor - I used one to make sure all forms were filled in correctly, though my last divorce was quite clean, with no children involved.

Thanks for the response. Yes, I phoned CMS yesterday and they confirmed what you've written which is a relief. In terms of the deducted what I overpaid here the customer service agent told me that this wouldn't be an issue. I think I'll phone them again just to confirm that this is the case.

I will take a look at a divorce service and any other options I might have, thank you.

Ask the CMS to put it in writing.:)

I can recommend the one I used, mine was all by email as it wasn't close. You could go to a local FnF meeting when you might get recommendations from other dads.

I've spoken with CMS again and although I didn't ask for confirmation, they've said any overpayment you've paid you can take off the normal payments as long as you can prove that you've overpaid if required i.e. with bank statements. It's also on the system notes, as the lady brought up the previous conversation around the same matter.

I can recommend the one I used, mine was all by email as it wasn't close. You could go to a local FnF meeting when you might get recommendations from other dads.

FnF meeting? Could you elaborate, please?

Sorry, Families Need Fathers
https://fnf.org.uk

FNF hold regular meetings, I think actd is suggesting that meeting up with others that have been through the process might be helpful in getting some recommendations for handling the divorce process.

Thank you! I wasn't aware of FNF, I'll take a look 🙂

You might benefit from having a look at the wikivorce website too, lots of information about divorce there.

www.wikivorce.com

All the best

Thanks for what looks like to be another good link, I'll check it out.

Has anyone ever experienced the following and what did they do if they did?

I have my child on the days that myself and my ex have agreed. I have her over night, through until the next day and given it's not a school holiday I would drop her at school in a morning on a weekday. My ex works and I work too but I work at home so I have more flexibility. When my ex works, her other 2 children are looked after by her mum that lives right next door to her.

Given that it's the school holidays, my child wanted to go back to her mums today so she could play with her friends. I would usually drop my child off in the morning but I prefer her to stay as long as possible because to be quite frank, her nan isn't the nicest of people towards the kids. However my child wanted to be dropped off just after lunchtime so she could play outside with her friends! So I said I'd drop her off knowing that her nan was looking after the other 2 and given that it wasn't now officially my day, it wouldn't be a problem...oh was I wrong!

About 5 mins after dropping my child off, she calls to say "Can you come and pick me up again because my nan said I'm not allowed to stay at home". I was shocked and asked her why and who was looking after the other two. My child responded and told me that her nan was there looking after the other two but wouldn't look after her. I immediately told my daughter that if she is looking after them two at your home she is looking after you! She said she would call me back and let me know if anything changes. At this point I am absolutely fuming and parked up in my car decided if I should go get my daughter back! I would have my daughter full time that woudnt be a problem but I didn't think it would be wise to go back given how angry I was and given that I would have just bought into what my childs nan wanted!

Not a good situation, I'm concerned that this will continue to happen to my child so phoned child services for some advice on the matter but I just wanted to know if anyone else has been through a similar situation because I'm absolutely gutted that my daughter had to call me and say that to me! No child should go through that and I sure as [censored] don't want it to happen again. I can't talk to my ex partner about it because it wouldn't solve anything but she should theoretically have sorted child care for the days she is supposed to have her if she knows her nan isn't going to have my child because she wants to be spiteful.

It begs the question, why did my ex lose custody of two of her other kids? Something I never questioned when I was in a relationship with her.