retrospective maintenance

[kkrazysha]

I have 3 grown up children from my first marriage, which ended in 1982(.My husband commited adultry which resulted in a child) The children were then 7,5,3. I never received a penny in maintenance, but the court did order him to pay 5p per child, per year.He was supposedly unemployed. In 1989(approx) I seeked professional advice and started proceedings to get some maintenance.My Solictor thought we had a very good case. By now my ex was almost a millionaire on paper, what with his properties and his dodging dealings.Then he (conveniently) went bust and all the good work that the private investigator and the solictor had done would only benefit the Receivers, so the case came to a(unhappy for me) conclusion. Now, suprise,suprise he is once again top dog,with money spilling out of his pockets and into the publicans pocket and goodness knows where else. Because of his alcholism he has a very warped sense of memory, and anybody listening to him would think he had been a good father and husband, which he definately was not. Do I have a chance of claiming retrospective maintenance?

[libertie]

To be honest I would'nt even bother trying! Much as I'm sure it irritates you it has been almost 20 years and you have managed without his help until now, so let him think what he likes ~ the people who really matter will know the truth!!

[WendyS]

I suspect too much time and water has passed under the bridge and if your children are now adults and self supporting, it will probably be impossible to get any back maintenance out of him. Also, I assume that you have probably been working or earning yourself to support your family so I'm not sure whether any attempt to claim it legally would have much of a case. It may be worth trying to get a free consultation with your previous solicitor to check it out but difficult though it may be, perhaps you just have to wipe him out of your life and accept that life is sometimes very unfair.