Good fathers are suffering for the bad ones out there

My former partner of 10 years and mother of my 2 children convinced me to re mortgage my property and put her name on the mortgage for the sake of the children.Idid this and since 6 years ago she made false allegations of domestic violence against me and as a result i was prosecuted and lost my job with local authority (she destryed my career of 22 years).She tried to break contact between me and my children and i had to fight her through CAFCAS to maintain contact with them.I now work zero contract hours and claim benefits and have maintained regular contact with my children and have great relationship with them i pay £5.00 a week for rhem out of my benefits as well as take them shopping regularly every weekend and buy them clothes.There have been times when their mother tells them to tell me they need new shoes and coats for school so i would take them shopping and buy them whatever they needed.

I was in temporary employment in 2010 and the CSA were deducting £500.00 a month from me so I sent the receipts to the CSA as proof that i was still contributing to the upkeep of my children and they contacted me to say they recieved the receipts but they would need to ask my former partner if these were given as gifts or as maintenance for my children??? I told her not to bother because it was obvious to me that my former partner would say they were gifts.(I couldn’t believe it what aridicilously stupid question to ask,how could school shoes and coats or any clothing for your children be gifts)?? Nvember 2013:I recieved a phone call from the CSA asking why i hadn’t been paying child support from my benefits over the past couple of months,i explained i wasn’t aware of this and it would of been because jobseekers had sanctioned my benefits and suspended my payments because i had missed a works programme interview i told her that i explained to the job centre that i’d missed the appointment because the appointment had clashed with work opportunity that came up and that i’d gone into the reception of the works programme office and asked to make my work coach aware that i wouldn’t be able to attend but i was sanctioned anyway.She told me that as a result i now owe £400.00.How could this be when only 4 payments had been missed to my calculation it should only be £40.00.She told me they were going to freeze my account so that it would’nt increase any further (as if she was doing me a favour).I explined to her that i still had regular committed contact with my children and that i still bought them clothing and that my former partner still told them to tell me when they needed clothing.Her response to this was.”Oh well she shouldn’t be doing that anyway.”I explained that i was struggling to pay my bills and mortgage she told me that the maintenance of my children was more important than paying bills or mortgage.My response to her was well how would i be expeted to maintain regular contact with my children if i become homeless and without somewhere that my children can come and comfortably come to visit me? The thing is if i was to become homeless,end up in a state of depression or even suicicidal then what use would i be to my children? How does the irresponsible don’t care attitudes and actions of the CSA serve to help my children when their main objective is to destroy me???

They claim that their priority is for the maintenance and upkeep of my children (How hypocritical!!!)Surely you would think the the love,emotional support and relationship of fathers in the lives of their children would be just as equally important if not more??

She told me the only way they would stop taking money from me is if the children stayed with me so many times a week,i told her there were occassions when they have stayed with me during the summer but it wasn’t possible during the winter months as a struggle to heat my home and i am resigned to living in my bedroom to keep warm as i find it impossible to heat the rest of my home and wouldn’t subject my children to that when they could be in the warmth and comfort of their own homes (i don’t think either they nor my former partner would appreciate this either).The only other way they would stop taking money from me was if my my former partner contacted them and told them she no longer neded the money from me.My retort to that was that it just goes to show how unfair and biast the system is towards men.She tried to justify what she was saying that they weren’t unfair because there were women out there who weren’t getting money from their former partners to support their children.How does this concern me as a good father to my own children and all the other good fathers out there who do try to do their best for their children? Why tar us all with the same brush and why are the good fathers having to suffer for the bad fathers out there?? I could give this CSA operatives name but i don’t know if i would be contravening any nconfidentiality laws. I did say to this person that the CSA should speak to my childen and ask them what kind of father i am like to them (child protection services and social services do why can’t they)??