Getting Divorced is extremely difficult, especially with young children are involved. While everyone assumes they’ll still be friends with their ex, sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. But one mom is having somewhat of a unique battle in regard to child support.
Oftentimes, women need to fight hard for child support. But in this case, a Redditor feels like her ex is giving too much. She opened up about it on Reddit, hoping to get other perspectives.
In a post shared with Reddit’s AITA community, the mom jumped right into the issue she’s having.
“My ex gives me a generous amount of child support every month and I use about 20-30% of it maybe,” she began. “I’m very good at budgeting since my mum raised me on her own and we always stuck to a strict budget.”
Her ex didn’t have the same experience as she did growing up.
“My ex grew up being overindulged and knowing he would never have to worry about money in his lifetime,” she explained, “so we have different ideas of what living cheaply looks like.”
While mom might be doing something smart, she should be using child support payments to give her son the best life possible. Or at least save the money for his college fund later in life.
“Recently, my ex wanted to have a word with me because he didn’t like the fact that I made our son walk home from school,” she said. “He wanted to know why I wouldn’t buy a car and offered me money to get one when I told him cars were expensive, and I thought it was a waste of money. I told him no since I would rarely use it.”
The son is only Four, so the car would be for her to use.
“He then told me to take an uber home instead of making him walk,” she added. “Again, I told him, no, and he brought up all of the other ways he thought I was making our son’ live cheaply’. For example, I didn’t buy him new football boots or a goal when he started getting into football (he is only 4), I buy him ‘cheap’ clothes, I rarely take him to eat out, and if we go to a toy shop, I only ever let him get one thing, and it can’t be super expensive.”
It makes sense for a mom to want to live on a budget. It’s important for her to teach her son that he can’t necessarily get everything he wants, and it helps set an example. But it might make you wonder how she does spend the money she gets for his primary care.
That’s when she got real about where the money goes.
“My ex wanted to know what I was using all of the money he gave to me on if I was raising our son like this, so I explained I never used most of it but kept it in a separate account for either a rainy day or for our son,” she said. “Now he’s angry at me for making our son’ live cheaply’ and essentially told me to stop saving and actually give our son the things he wants now because he had already made sure our son would be fine in the future.”
Surprisingly enough, much of Reddit sided with her husband. And that’s because those payments are made for a reason — for her son. But she was quick to make some clarifications. For one, she’s not pocketing that money for herself.
She stated that the saved money would likely go to him when he’s older and in charge of his own funds.
“Certain emergency situations will directly impact my son, hence why I said I could potentially use the money for a rainy day,” she said. “Earlier in the year I had to take him abroad unexpectedly to go to his paternal great grandmother’s funeral and the excess child support meant I didn’t need to worry about how I would pay for the flights or [health crisis] related extra expenses. I also stated I would give the money to my son when he’s older.”
Is she an awful mom for withholding extras? Not at all. Redditor Neurismus said it best, stating, “You can try to limit the purchases and teach him something. He is little now. However, his father will be buying him expensive stuff down the road. That will eventually lead to your son favoring his father over you. If you go so far as to prohibit some purchases, then it can lead to the resentment.”
Source: AWM
Leave a Comment