Ex does not give my son his time or money

[Mandy333]

I have an 11 year old Aspie son, his father has never really been bothered with him, and we split up when I was pregnant, and he immediately moved in with another woman, who he married. Over the years he has let our son down over and over, it used to break my heart to see him sitting at the window waiting for his dad who was often late and often not turn up at all.

I had to involve the CSA as he did not give me any money. 3 years ago they were both made redundant and so stopped paying me any money.

When she started a new well paid job, and he set up a new business he said I should cancel the CSA and he would pay me every month. He made one payment and then stopped

Recently I found out his house is a huge 5 bedroomed property,(he has lived there with his wife for 6yrs) I had never seen it before as he has never invited me over there, he has 3 or 4 cars and he has just come back from a 2 week holiday.

He now has 2 young children under 3, and he absolutely dotes on them, when he comes over to pick up our son, he takes him back to his house, he virtually ignores our son and fusses around his 2 children. My son feels ignored and sidelined. Basically he does not want to take our son out on his own.

A few months ago our son was in hospital with suspected meningitis, and he did not even come to visit, he said he did not want to pass on the disease to his 2 children.

His wife has made it clear she feels hard done by due to the existence of my son.

I always have to bite my tongue, if I raise the subject of any problems, - my ex will storm off and I feel that I cannot say anything for fear of upsetting him. I want to get the CSA involved again, I am still on the old CSA 1993 scheme. But worry that if I do ring them up, he will get to hear that it was me that started it all again and become vindictive. I don't want my son to suffer any more than he has to.

Any thoughts or advice appreciated.

 

[trekster]

Would you be better off emotionally without being financially affected if you cut your ex out of your life? How does your son feel about his dad? Would a contact centre be any good so your ex can see his son? I wish I had something better to offer you in a way of advice.

[positive_about]

Hi Mandy333, its terrible your ex is behaving in this way, but you are still entitled to go the CSA if he is capable of paying maintenance. Whether he continues to see your son is down to you and your son, and as trekster says a contact centre might be best where there is supervised access. Your son needs predictability, its probably causing him a lot of distress the way things are.

[Mandy333]

How do I go about arranging a contact centre? His dad thinks he is a wonderful father, he and his wife think they are the best parents, they look down their nose at me, it would really put him down to have to go through a contact centre. I would like to have a third party to intervene.

I think it would hurt my son even more not to see his dad even though he just gets the crumbs.

[BelLocke]

I don't know much about the legal or financial side of things. However, if your ex is acting this way towards you and your son and refuses to change, I would seriously consider perhaps removing him from your lives. My father was abusive (physically and emotionally - and he never paid child support either, so I can relate to that at least), and although a very confused part of me still loved him and wanted to keep him in my life, my mom took my brother and myself away. In hindsight, it was the best thing she could have done for us. I'm still suffering from my past with my father, even though he passed away almost nine years ago. It's painful and not the easiest of choices to make, but sometimes, we need to cut toxic people out of our lives, before they do even more damage.

[Sally44]

I don't think there are any easy choices for you here.

 

Obviously he knows he should be paying maintenance and isn't.

 

Can you have a 1:1 conversation with him saying that your son needs to spend time with his father and that some of that time should be 1:1 without the other children/wife. And that your son needs that to feel valued and for them to build a bond between them. How often do they see eachother now, and could every other visit be a 1:1 where he meets your son and they go somewhere together alone? His wife and other children have access to him all the time. When your son sees him he will want to feel valued by his father. Would your ex understand that?

 

See what his response is to that. Does he understand what you are saying. Is he prepared to do that.

 

And also tell him that he asked you to stop the CSA because he said he would pay you himself.

 

I suspect he has said that because the CSA would investigate how much money he actually earns and from your description it sounds like he is earning alot more than the CSA knew before and his maintenance payments were calculated on his previous level of earnings, and not what he gets now.

 

I understand what you are saying about your son just getting the 'crumbs', but at least that is something. But your son maybe entitled to a third of the loaf and you may need to take a stand on that issue. You and your son may need to say "we are worth your time and if you are not prepared to give it then access stops." Because your son does deserve to be treated fairly. You could make a stand and get what you want, or it could go the other way and your son loses access to his dad.

 

Without the CSA you have no idea what is earning and what maintenance he should pay for his son. He has agreed to continue paying you maintenance at the old level he was paying before. And he hasn't kept his word.

 

Have you ever talked with your son about how he would feel if he stopped seeing his father? Would his father stop seeing his son if you contacted CSA again? And if he did, what does that tell you about him?

 

I don't know if there is any service that you can call to talk through these options. Maybe Citizens Advice? At least you would be talking with someone that would have some experience of CSA and the wider issues.

 

I just thought I would also mention "short breaks". This is something that children can access whereby the LA pays a provider to spend some time with your son. You can phone your local authority and ask who is responsible for short breaks provision. It is usually Childrens Services. This could get your son 1:1 provision for a number of hours each year, for someone to take your son out to do things he likes. And one of the reasons you could say you want this service is that your son has an ASD diagnosis and is isolated. He has social communication difficulties. He has few [or no] friends. He does not have a consistent male figure in his life and you want him to spend some time 1:1 with a male mentor. And I would suggest you get this up and running before you challenge your ex, so that there is something else in your son's life that he looks forward to doing on a weekly basis.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Sally44

[Kerisha]

Hi Mandy,

 

I really sympathise with you and agree that your son needs a male role model in his life. My son has finally been diagnosed last Nov, but he was referred to a mentoring programme last year by his primary school. My son found this really helpful, the one I used was Chance UK and I asked for a male mentor as his father was not seeing him regularly and I thought he need a male perspective in his life (He has 5 older sisters). Chance matched him up to a super mentor who saw my son every week for a year and the change in him was amazing.

 

Funnily enough his dad starting wanting to see him more - he was jealous of the mentor! He sees him much more regularly now, but I am in the same boat as you, I do not get any financial help from him and I don't know if he is working or earning as he simply refuses to discuss it with me, however he also thinks he's allowed to come over whenever he likes and when he likes so I find dealing him really frustrating as he invades my space and boundaries. I want my son to see his father but my peace of mind with dealing with my son's ASD and his fathers stance is making me wonder whether his fathers invovlement is worth it! Especially as he implies i'm not doing enough and I should watch what I spend and I will have more money!

 

In your case I say go back to the CSA, he can obvioulsy afford it, whether he sees him or not you are entitled to the maintenance.