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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

AIBU to think that my exH is a shit for asking my DS2 to live with him after 11 years

246 replies

womanwholivedinashoe · 30/05/2011 22:06

We are relocating to Norfolk from London in the next 6 weeks and have just told my EXH and his wife. My DS2 is 14 and doesn't want to move but due to finances, family reasons etc we don't really have a choice. I've looked into secondary schools for him and have set up appointments and have arranged for him to start training with the local football team but................. I do know he is unhappy about the move. So AIBU when my ex then phones up DS2 and offers him a room in his house in Cambridgeshire (see still having to move) and i'm brokenhearted that DS2 is considering it. I know if he decides to move in with his dad I can't say or do anything as it'll be his choice but its killing me:(. I've looked after DS2 on my own since he was 3 and only in the last 2 years met and married.

OP posts:
AnnieLobeseder · 31/05/2011 09:10

Absolutely agree with swallowedAfly

exoticfruits · 31/05/2011 09:18

Could you not delay the move? Much better to change with the 6th form where there is a mix up of friendship groups.
Most of you are putting this as a parent issue. It quite plainly isn't. 14 yr olds don't like to move areas-and especially not from London to Norfolk. My friend's DS said that he would sleep in a cardboard box when they suggested moving him at 14yrs!
Forget the ex issues and find an acceptable way of moving a city boy to the country.

Wellnerfermind · 31/05/2011 09:19

And why Norfolk?

Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 09:54

"It seems that your 14 yr old ds2 will gain no educational advantage by going to live with his father, and could be seriously disadvantaged if he commences at a new school in Cambridgeshire and subsequently finds that he's not happy living with a man and his wife that he barely knows, and then needs to move schools to be with you again.

I think you should put your foot down; ds2 moves with you and studies for his GCSE's in Norfolk. However, during the course of the next 2 years, your ds2 spends at least 2 weekends a month and all school holidays from October it seriously is not going to happen once your ds2's football boots get stuck into Norfolk soil with his father so that they can get thoroughly re-acquainted with a view to your ds2 attending a sixth form college in Cambridgeshire when he's 16.

If your ex has suggested his half-baked plan to your ds2 without prior consultation with you, he's a complete shit and it's highly probable that he's not the best person for your son to live with during a crucial time in his young life."

I couldn't agree more. My ex tried this with my own teenager, a child I'd raised alone since a baby, he hadn't seen for many years and still rarely sees, all of which is his own choice. Like you I have another teenager who is also his child and whom he refuses to see and he also refuses to pay maintainence for either child.

I gave my teenager full blessing to go. The two understandings were that DC's cat stayed with me as my ex isn't fit to care for her and that my DC understood that this was the end - they did not come back and that I wasn't picking up the pieces when it went wrong. I didn't want to live or deal with the person which my ex would inevitably turn my child into and that there was no way my other DC was going to have the material goods that would follow the move waved in their face knowing that their father didn't even speak to or provide the funds to feed them.

My teenager decided not to go after all.

exoticfruits · 31/05/2011 10:31

I gave my teenager full blessing to go

I think that is a bit of a laugh! What teenager wouldn't pick up on the negativity?
People should stop reading their own experience into it and realise that moving a 14yr old from London to Norfolk isn't the same as moving a 4yr old or even an 11yr old.

Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 10:35

"My teenager decided not to go after all."

Is all you needed to read, ef.

swallowedAfly · 31/05/2011 10:35

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exoticfruits · 31/05/2011 10:43

It was totally unfair to be so negative and then say 'I gave him full blessings to go'! Rubbish! Of course he didn't go-what choice was he given?!!!

exoticfruits · 31/05/2011 10:44

It is like my mother-all her reasons for not and then-'it is up to you of course'!

swallowedAfly · 31/05/2011 10:46

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PigletJohn · 31/05/2011 10:48

just to check, if he's 14, and you "make him" move to somewhere he doesn't want to go, and he has an offer to go somewhere else, which he thinks he'd prefer, are you planning to use chains?

wikolite · 31/05/2011 10:49

Its up to him not you. If he would rather go live with his father then you should accept his decision and he should go. If he wants to live with you then he should and his father should respect his wishes.

exoticfruits · 31/05/2011 10:50

Tell him straight ,swallowedafly, not tell him to go with her blessings-you don't have to be very emotionally aware to read the subtext! It was emotional blackmail. Instead of the adult choice, made by her, she gives him only one possible choice and then says 'he decided for himself'.
It could backfire in later years.
After my mother had told me all the reasons why not-and then said but 'up to you dear' you have to be very strong minded to go ahead!

exoticfruits · 31/05/2011 10:52

A 14yr old has to be consulted-he isn't a possession.

shudaville · 31/05/2011 10:53

YABU its his life and if he wants to go and live with his dad then he should be free to do so. You don't own him and he's 14 and more than capable of making decisions for himself.

TheLadyEvenstar · 31/05/2011 10:54

I figure Norfolk because it is so cheap to live there.

However from people I know who have moved there they have all said the same that while it is cheap to live there jobs are harder to get.

I was looking into moving out of london last year when DS1 was going into yr8. I honestly felt it would be unfair to move him as he was in secondary school.

So instead we downsized our home and expenditures etc to make it possible for us to stay where we were.

I wouldn't be moving him when he is going into yr10. I would be looking at other possible solutions.

Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 10:57

"It was totally unfair to be so negative and then say 'I gave him full blessings to go'! Rubbish! Of course he didn't go-what choice was he given?!!!"

Exactly. Objective achieved. My feckless ex, who for many years denied even having children and who has never played a part in their upbringing and has often gone out of his way to cause us distress and hardship was prevented from tearing my family apart and breaking the heart of my younger child with his sudden "interest and care for" my elder child.

I've no regrets nor any remorse and if I were to advise anyone in my position I'd suggest that they do exactly as I did.

Thank you swallowedafly, for your astute and accurate description of the situation.

SardineQueen · 31/05/2011 11:00

I can't believe that he didn't discuss it with you first Shock

That says all that needs to be said really.

Well that any everything SAF has said as well.

TheLadyEvenstar · 31/05/2011 11:00

Did you really tell your teenager that if they went they wouldn't be able to come back?

Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 11:06

Yes, TLES.

No regrets and I'd do it again if I had to.

millie30 · 31/05/2011 11:08

Why are people continuing to condemn the OP for moving and telling her she shouldn't go? She has very clearly stated that she cannot afford to stay and is deliberately making the move before her DS starts year 10 in order to cause the minimum disruption possible. She also states that if her ex had provided financially for her DS she might not be in this position, though it's interesting that those criticising the OP haven't commented on that.

TheLadyEvenstar · 31/05/2011 11:12

Wow I am shocked. My parents always told me it didn't matter where I moved to, my home was always with them and if I ever needed to go back home the door was always open.

Millie, the OP won't answer why her new husband cannot get work in the area they live in or why he cannot commute. Plenty of people do that.

latitude · 31/05/2011 11:12

If he wants to go and live with his father then he should, its his life and you only live once. If you want to break off contact with him/ offer him no way of moving back in the hope that he will give in to emotional blackmail and do what you want him to do then go ahead. Beware that it could spectaculary backfire on you.

StayingDavidTennantsGirl · 31/05/2011 11:13

TLES - that part made me go Shock too.

We moved to Scotland from Essex when ds1 was 15, ds2, 13 and ds3, 11. We discussed the move with them before dh even went for the job interview, and made sure that they were all OK with it - and it has worked well for the family. All three have made new friends (in fact ds2 has a huge crowd of friends, when at his previous school even his best friend was joining in with bullying him). All three managed the educational transition with no problems, even though the curriculums for the GCSE/A levels (Standard grades and Highers/Advanced Highers in Scotland) were very different.

I'm telling you all this to show that it is perfectly possible to move children at differing stages of education, and to make it work without causing them huge amounts of stress. In fact, we put ds1 back a year - otherwise he would have had to catch up over half the first year of his Standard Grade courses - and this has actually benefitted him hugely, as he was one of the youngest in his year in England, and is one of the oldest now, and has had extra time to mature.

StayingDavidTennantsGirl · 31/05/2011 11:14

Rapaccioli - would you have carried out your threat if your dc had gone to live with your ex and it hadn't worked out?