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

[womanwholivedinashoe]

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.

I think thats the thing that has shocked me the level of emotional blackmail. If a woman were to post of a situation where this was being said to her - an ultimatum being given then posters would be shouting "Leave him this is an emotionally abusive relationship" yet because it is suggested to do this to a child some posters feel it is acceptable.

At the end of the day he wants to live with his father in an area closer to where his friends are than Norfolk. Because of this the father is branded a "shit" and its suggested to emotionally blackmail a young man. Very sad situation.

The more of a fuss you make over this the more likely you are to lose your son to his fathers, if you give him your blessing you may find in 6m he wants to return to you.

TLES - the difference being that my DC have only ever had one parent and one home. Me and mine.

As I said, I have no regrets and would do it again in a heartbeat. Others may disagree but they aren't in my shoes or mother to my DC. It may just possibly be another option for the OP. I don't know, it depends on circumstance, only she can be the judge.

I do know that I would recommend it and that I feel very much for her if, as it did so much for me, SAF's post at 9.05 rings very loud bells for her.

SDTG Yes. For various reasons, undoubtedly.

Rapaccioli, would you have carried out your threat?

I am

TLES, the OP speaks of her ex having very little to do with her son. For some of us it wouldn't be like losing your child to their father, it is giving your child to a stranger. Personally, I could count in days, not weeks, months or years, the amount of time my DC have spent with their father since he left when they were babies. To them, as he is now to me, he is a stranger, not a father.

I don;t understand why people are determined to see the OP in a bad light and saying of course he should go and live with his father if he wants to, he is 14 and well old enough to make that decision.

The father didn't discuss the idea with the OP first (which is appalling)
He has lived with his mum for the last 11 years
The father has not paid any child support
And has only seen his son twice in the last year, the longest the son has ever been there is two nights. He doesn't actually really know his father. His decision is not based on the fact that he wants to live with his dad, but because it is less far from his current friends. He will still need to start a new school etc.

And the response is that the OP is being utterly unreasonable and what on earth has she got a problem with. Easy come, easy go or something I guess.

Rap, it is the same with my DS1's father however if he expressed a desire to live with him then I would let him as preventing him just would widen the distance between them and make me the bad guy in it all. If it were to happen and I gave my blessing with the understanding that if DS1 ever needed me or wanted to come home then the door would always be open, then I really feel this would benefit him more than saying go and you won't be able to come back.

Agree with SardineQueen. I don't think, after 14 years, that biology does have equal weighting to someone who has cared for and nurtured their child. So I think those who are suggesting that it's fine because it's his father are missing the point.

Each to their own, TLES.

My ex has done enough damage, physical, emotional and financial, to this family and was not going to be able to do any more by playing Lord Bountiful and leaving my other child ignored and out in the cold. This is the case with the OP too I believe - that she has other DC whom the father chooses not to see.

My child had to learn that with each decision in life, particualrly those which might have such a devastating effect on others, there are consequences. It was a lesson well learned and a disaster averted. How it's received by other people is as you might imagine the least of my concerns. I accept that others might not agree with me but I think that it's an experience worth sharing with the OP.

I could not reject one of my own children like that, Rapaccioli. Children make the wrong decisions, do things that we know are going to end in tears, because they are children and don't have the experience and mature judgement that we do. I absolutely accept that if your dc had gone to live with him, it would have been the hugest of huge mistakes - but at the point when it hadn't worked out, your child would have been devastated, would have felt rejected by his father - and to then even contemplate telling him that you were rejecting him too, he was on his own - is beyond my comprehension.

"Children make the wrong decisions, do things that we know are going to end in tears, because they are children and don't have the experience and mature judgement that we do"

Exactly. Which is why I made sure that my child was never going to be in the position to make that decision in the first place.

Knowing there is no way back is a good reason to have a long hard think about how much you want to go in the first place.

YANBU - your son is being a teenager, your ex sounds like a selfish, thoughtless arse. I hope DS stays with you but if he doesn't I hope you are there for him.

Exactly. Objective achieved.

I don't think it was-you seem proud of the fact that you made your DS take a decision and then sit back and say it was his choice. I would always say that my home was open, and a safety net. You may be happy at the moment but I think it may badly backfire. It I was the DC I most probably wouldn't want to live with the father but I would resent the emotional blackmail placed on me.

I still think that you should forget the 'sides' and think how you move a 14yr old to a rural area after London.

You are right, I think, exoticfruits - Rapa's dc didn't make a choice, he was manipulated into his mum's choice. Sometimes you have to let a child make a bad decision, even when you know it is a bad decision, and then help put the pieces back together - making bad decisions, and dealing with the consequences is part of growing up.

Anyway, no way could I turn away my child, no matter how bad the decision they had made, nor how many pieces needed reassembling. My children know that I will be there for them no matter what. If they have done something spectacularly bad or stupid, I will tell them so, and make them deal with the consequences, but I will be there for them.

Rapa - are you not worried that your dc now knows that there are some circumstances where you would reject him? How must that make him feel? I bet it has not made him feel more secure - indeed, it may have made him feel he has to keep you onside, for fear you reject him/stop loving him. And what will you say if he realises how callously you manipulated him (for the best reasons, I do accept), and rejects you for it?

ef nowhere have I said that I made my child take a decision - I made my child realise that there are consequences. Neither did I sit back and say it was my child's choice. I manipulated a situation because it was in my DCs best interests that I did so.

Anything else is your interpretation of the very brief outline of my experience here, not my description of it.

I did what I did to protect my DC. I have no regrets, it worked, I would do it again but I don't foresee it ever arising again nor do I foresee a backlash in later years. If that does happen so be it, it will be too late by then for my DC to be harmed by their feckless ex. Anyhow, I don't need to defend my choices about my children.

I'd like to add that this is not the first child to move out of London to a more rural area nor would he be the last. (and FGS Norfolk isn't all fields and tractors! Is there any mention of RURAL in the OP, I can't remember, but Norfolk does have towns and cities too you know!) It is perfectly possible to cope, as other youngsters give good example. Nor would he be the first to move school at that age. The choice of new school will very much depend on the level of support he gets. My children moved schools when we moved house - my elder child was just shy of 15 and in the middle of GCSEs. Despite the change of school and location - and despite poor support from the school - my child has done exceptionally well and is predicted to get very good grades in a few weeks time.

A move with mum is not necessarily the disaster predicted - in fact, for many teenaged boys, depending on area they currently live in, school, the company they keep, likelihood of them being led astray and so on a move out of London might be a blessing in disguise.

You manipulated your child, Rapa. You manufactured a consequence that was so awful that your child could only make one decision. It may well have been in your dc's best interests - but I still don't think it makes it a good thing to do. Basically, you threatened him.

Manipulated, yes. Threatened? If that's what you want to call it, SDTG, that's fine by me. Where I come from children are exactly that and it is not for them to make such monumentous decisions which will impact so adversley on not just them but others too. I'd far rather that than be the liberal parent who lets a child make their own decisions regardless of the consequences to all concerned. In my book that latter makes a parent irresponsible and encourages a breaktaking selfishness on the child's part whilst saying there there, it doesn't matter because I'll be a martyr and pick up the pieces for you when it all fouls up because of my unwillingness to stop this nonsense right here and now.

Like the OP, neither of my children have had anything but the briefest of contact with their father for 11 or more years. Like the OP my ex chooses to ignore completely another teenager to the family. Like the OP my ex has for years deliberately deprived my children of the means to feed and clothe themselves. In what parellell universe is letting one child move out to live with this feckless man, whom the child doesn't know, leaving the other feeling and being all the more rejected?

As I said, I don't need to defend my choices about my children.

I'm saying this now though as I feel that in the face of so many claims that children have a "right" to make adult decisions that somebody has got to show the OP that they aren't alone, that the stance that you take, SDTG, isn't the only option and that imho it's down to the mother and parent with care to be the adult here.

14 is a disastrous age to move. I did it, a close friend of mine did it. I have to say it totally fucked me up, for years and years. And London to Norolk? CHance are he will hate it.

I think your ex is unreasonable to raise it without having a private talk with you first.

But I think you really need to look at how to avoid the move or at least postpone. (for 2 or 4 years)

*breathtaking, not breaktaking!

God I need some breaktaking! :)

Oh FFS!

"In what parellell universe is it good parenting to be letting one child move out to live with this feckless man, whom the child doesn't know, leaving the other feeling and being all the more rejected?

if it was me in your situation ,i wouldnt even dream of offering my 14 or 16 yr old a choice and would just take them with me as i would with my 12 and 7 yr old.
as for leaving him with a man who hasnt proved his worth-no chance.

but ..if his dad has just decided to wake up and become a father to him let him try .let him go for weekends ,pay up ,ect and see how it goes.
that can go 2 ways
either he still acts an arse and your son can see for himself
or he might surprise you and your son gets a proper dad/
so id move, take kids,
work something out with dad for weekends/holidays and child support

It isn't good parenting to manipulate a DC to your way of thinking. I can't stand people all the time saying my baby, as if it is a possession and certainly when they get to teenage they are not my DC, to be manipulated. They are a person, to sit down calmly and discuss the situation in an adult way, listening being as important as talking.
I daresay your ex was feckless and no good as a parent, but had he been a wonderful father he doesn't stand a chance against such blatant manipulation.
I'm sure that your DC, talked to in a reasonable manner, would have decided to stay, but I don't agree with backing a DC in the corner and then proudly saying 'it was his decision'

I am very glad my parents put my schooling first and worked around it, with considerable difficulty-and I didn't get 'you are mine -you are coming-full stop!

At 14yrs you only have 4 yrs left before they can leave, and possibly stay away, if you insist on saying you are mine and there is no need for your feelings to be taken into account.

I agree that the only option may be Norfolk, but OP needs to think around it and if no alternative find ways of making it easier.Moving area as a 14yr old isn't easy-unless you are massively popular and a leader with bags of self confidence-even then the move might give it a huge knock.