want to hear complaints about BD and CS....

I am sooooo freaking pissed off with this man - my ex husband.

Background. We split. He joined online dating 2 weeks later, met a woman and was "in love" a month later, they bought a house and moved in together 3 months after we split. This was 4 years ago, they are getting married in July - in Italy no less (we live in Australia) No big deal - I like her, she's fine with the kids yada yada yada.

BUT. He was working full time, making reasonable money etc - and paying $250 a week CS (for two kids) The CO also states that he is to pay half of medical, education, extra currics etc. Then his mother got sick, she was ill for about 2 years and passed away last May. (side note - I went through the same divorce, and my father got sick and passed away within 8 weeks of being diagnosed the November before last so we have has the same stressors)

The stress of me leaving and his mothers illness caused his performance at work to take a nosedive apparently, so he quit before they sacked him.

He retrained - told me it would take 3 months - last Jan - Mar no CS but after that he would be earning a lot more etc. So, we suffered through the three months of no payments whatsoever from him. We got by. But the three months dragged out to a year.

He started work again mid January. Now CS here is calculated differently than in the US - it's adjusted each year based on yearly income (both parents only) and the amt of time children spend at each house. You guessed it - no income = CS dropped to $30 a fortnight. This is a joke. He pays his $30 a fortnight, and has paid half of SOME of the extra expenses - not all by a long shot.

The CO also states that we are to pay half the airfares each for visitation (he lives in another state) I told him in Oct last year that I was no longer paying this until he was contributing reasonably towards the children (so I paid it twice the FULL airfares - his bloody half as well as he wasn't earning) I got legal advice re this and told him so.

Soooo. He agreed two weeks ago to pay for the girls dance exam costs this year - he has paid nothing towards the tuition, uniforms, new shoes, costume costs, comp costs etc etc etc. He has paid SOME medical, half of school camps and school levies. That is it. And lets not forget that $30 a fortnight...

Both my girls dance, dd11 is good - very good, she wants to be a professional dancer when she grows up. They do 5 different styles of dance as well as troupes, stretch classes etc. They LOVE it, it's their world. DD11 told me when she was 3 that she wanted to be a ballerina - I know most 3/4 year olds go through this, but they are both still as committed as that first day. I tell you this not to brag but for a reason. dd11 gets Honours with Distinction (between 96-100%) for her exams every year. DD8 gets honours.

Last night I get a text saying that he will only pay the exam costs if I commit to paying half the airfares again. This is $450 for this year alone, out of the $720 a year CS he is paying - I know it doesn't work that way - but I am sure you can all see what I am saying....

I pointed out that he pays fuck all (didn't use those words) and that he cannot seriously expect me to pay out $450 when I am already the one supporting them 90% to his 10%.

He said that the girls should choose the one style of dancing that they love the most and do only that, freeing up my money to pay the airfares as this is important to him!!!!!!!

I told him that what I spend MY money on is not his concern, and that even if they stopped dancing altogether I wouldn't be paying out on airfares until he was paying to support the children a lot more than he does!

He said that neither of us want to waste time and money mediating a new CO so I should just do as he says, I say bring on the mediation. He says he already puts aside 25% of his pay to cover CS and expenses - WTF - he can't be earning that much then...

Lets see, $30 a fortnight CS, half of the school fees was $260, half of camps - total for both kids $335, half for some uniform items they needed $50, half for the interschool sports bus costs $15, half for the hearing clinic yearly fee $13 - that's about it for this year folks. (and don't forget the fucking NOTHING he paid last year!) So, lets see, since January he has paid $913 - in 17 weeks. That's the grand total of 53.71 a week....

I feed them, I put a roof over their heads, I buy their clothes, I keep them clean and warm, I run them everywhere, I pay for ALL the dancing costs on my own, as well as half of the expenses mentioned above. As well as medicine when needed, and all the other stupid little things that come up. I fucking do it all.

And he thinks that I should do more because he won't fucking work enough to support his kids.

Fuck I am sooooooo pissed off with him.

But I did not fight, I did not rail and get angry, I just politely pointed out that what he pays covers barely anything and he has a cheek to ask me to pay more, or for the kids to sacrifice anything rather than getting off his arse and earning more himself. (not worded like that though LOL)

End of rant. Just needed to get it all out, so that I can continue to NOT scream at him.....