what exactly is covered by child maintenance?

Thank you. She knows that and the CSA knows that; it doesn''t stop her from trying to manipulate them though.

There have been lighter moments. Twice her machinations with the CSA have led to reassessments of my payments that resulted in reduced sums, saving me money. Her latest wheeze came when the CSA computer was playing up; I twice paid them in advance over the phone and my summaries later showed the resulting uncollected weekly deductions as payments in arrears; she then used the summary she got to claim that I''d failed to make payments so should be encouraged to make them in future by charging me that 20%. Fortunately for me we had an experienced assessor who gave her short shrift.

Does anyone have a good news story about how they dealt with child maintenance?

There are lots of people, none looking or posting here, who work everything out between themselves amicably and in the best interests of their children.

Despite my bad experience, the flipside is that 80% of the people involved are quite happy over money: my ex-wife is happy that I am paying for everything and our 3 kids have everything they need and want provided for them. With this take you can see why courts are happy with the situation.

Indeed, I am proud that my children are getting the financial support that they need. This may sound a bit old-fashioned, but despite all the difficulties I have held up my responsibilities as a father to provide for them financially.

As an aside, I think people should take internet sites in perspective. There must be over 1,000,000 adults involved in the divorce process and post-divorce life in the UK at any one time, yet on this thread we might get 25 different posters - 1 in 40,000, which is a tiny fraction. That doesn''t mean that 39,999 out of 40,000 are happy, but many must have good news.

Yes I have a good news story. My stbx took me to CMS even though I had paid much more than I needed to over previous year. She was annoyed that she was not getting any of my quarterly bonus. Anyway she claimed and CMS initially took my previous years much higher total earnings including bonus and averaged it out over 12 months when my bonus was not guaranteed at all or the amount. And performance of the company was well down and my bonuses would have been (and turns out were) seriously affected.

This meant i was asked to pay £867 per month which was not sustainable. I called them and got a very helpful adviser who guided me through appealing because my basic is over 25% less than my previous years earnings. So the revised award was £567 per month, much less than she had voluntarily received from me the previous year.

The caveat is if my earnings increase through bonus by 25% or more I have to advise them. They have not to date and I am very pleased with the service I received.