My (27M) significant others(24F) coparent(mid20sM) is not splitting the financial burden of raising a child fairly and I need help approaching her with this subject.

This is a throw away account. This is a spur of the moment post, please bare with me for the formatting and grammar as it’s being typed up on my phone.

My current significant other (let’s call her Monica), had an agreement in place with her ex (let’s call him Ross) pertaining to the splitting of their child’s expenses. I think it needs to be changed, and she is afraid to broach the subject with him. Here’s why:

When they initially split they agreed that they would split daycare costs 50/50, and he would cover health insurance. He makes a very generous (close to the 60k mark) wage and was living in a nice place in an expensive city thanks to his well-to-do parents. Initially they were driving the meet every weekend, to drop off their child with each other. Ross kept the child 2 nights a week. This lasted for about 5 months. Ross then started asking for increased time off from his parental duties for events and weddings and parties and dinners. Eventually morphing in to him going up to 3 months without seeing his child. Then Ross got a new job; making more money, with a different schedule, and more time off from being a parent. It was on and off for having his daughter for the following year. He would go a few weeks, without seeing her, then visit for a day or maybe keep the child over night. This continued up until recently when I asked Monica to have a talk with Ross about how this isn’t good for the child not having a steady routine with their father and the fact that he’d go weeks without even asking how the child was doing. It went to every other week Ross would take his child for one to two nights a week. All the while not increasing any payments.

My stance on this, is you get 50/50 split of the costs if you do 50% of the work. This has not been the case for a long time in this co-parenting relationship.

As of recent, Ross has moved to a different state, a state that requires a plan ride to get there within a few days. Now living rent free, in a home, thanks to the aforementioned well-to-do parents. He left his job, dropped healthcare coverage for himself and his daughter, and is taking time off from life.

Monica needs to get health insurance for their child now, and will have to incur the extra costs. Is it wrong of me to push her to get more than the $100 a week Ross has been providing as basically a verbal agreement to child support?

Is it wrong of her to ask for that now that Ross is out of the picture except for times during the summer and holidays? Especially being rent free in a nice place with no real responsibility?

The one hangup that Monica has is that she’s afraid Ross will get his well-to-do parents to pay for a strong defense and try to gain full custody of said daughter, being states away from her home, family, friends, and career. I have met both of Ross’ parents and they’re very level headed, down to earth, kind and generous people. I don’t think they’d allow that fear to materialize.

Thank you very much for your time, patience in reading through this, and any responses or advice laid out for me to go by.

Tl;dr My S/Os coparent isn’t much of a coparent and I think she needs more compensation from him. How do I approach this with her, and how do I help her approach him?

Edit: An important note, their divorce decree is observed in a different state than they are both in right now.

Submitted November 30, 2018 at 08:33AM by isathingy https://ift.tt/2PfFQ2Q