I left my marriage to Greg for many reasons, but one of them was that he was so money-oriented. When we divorced six years ago, I agreed that he would pay me £50 per week in child support for Amelia and Rosie, even though I knew this was £10 less than the CSA would have made him pay at that time. In the last six years, I haven’t asked him for a penny more for anything.

The last few years have been such a struggle. The girls are getting older, their needs greater and £50 doesn’t cover much at all, so I messaged him today outlining all the girls’ outgoings: shoes, clothes, haircuts, school trips, school uniform, books they need, money for things in school which may all be small but over the years they really add up. Plus when you take into consideration the cost of entertaining them during school holidays, and all the other little bits, it soon mounts up.

He just phoned me and tried every single trick in the book to explain why he shouldn’t be paying more:

• Amelia shouldn’t have a mobile as she’s only 12. He is prepared to let her do the 55-minute walk home alone with no way of contacting me.
• I should have sent her to a different school where the uniform is cheaper, even though the only other school has a bad reputation and the kids are known for being really challenging.
• They don’t need to be taken out at all during the school holidays.
• I should have refused to send Amelia in the correct uniform and saved myself money.
• He has bills to pay
• They don’t have to go on school trips; that would save money.

The list was endless. However, all of that is nothing compared to what he said next… “I don’t see why I should pay more when I only have them every other weekend.”

I replied that was his choice and actually, had he wanted to see them more, I would have been more than willing – as I said when we split up. I said it wouldn’t hurt him to have them for a week or so during the holidays. His reply was he can’t get the time off work even though  he has a two-week holiday abroad every year, and then he said, “What you don’t seem to get is that I want my time to myself and I don’t want to have to use my holidays up having them.” I said he was fucking disgusting and should be ashamed of himself; his reply: “Whatever”

I’m stopping all this pussyfooting around, and I’m calling the CSA first thing tomorrow, and they can deal with him.

His argument was so pathetic that he asked me for the school phone number and Amelia’s head of year to complain about it. I hope he does; they’ll laugh him off the phone.

I don’t get why – when between him and his wife, they earn around 60K per year – he doesn’t want the best for his daughters. He actually said, “What’s the point of sending them to a good school when most kids leave school and end up dossing around anyway?” It’s good to see he has such high hopes for his daughters.

Amelia is starting to realise what he’s really like.

It was her birthday recently. She was at his house from the Friday, but woke Sunday morning to just a card, was told to get ready, and then he took her shopping for half an hour, spent another 90 minutes looking around the shops at stuff for him and Diane, then went home and left Amelia and Rosie downstairs for the rest of the day while they went upstairs to decorate. He promised Amelia he’d bring her home much earlier than usual so she could have half the day with me, then didn’t bring them back till 5.15 pm so we hardly saw each other on her birthday.

What is it with the men in my life?

Greg, Tom, and Danny – who just walked out one day, abandoning Josh when he was a baby. I don’t know why I bother.