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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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:
PigletJohn · 31/05/2011 14:00

"let"?

He's 14, he doesn't want to go somewhere and he has an offer to go somewhere different he thinks he will prefer. He will be 15 next, and 16 after that.

You can't chain him to the wall, you can't forbid the bus and rail companies to take him. If you use emotional blackmail and threats to prevent him he will resent you for stopping him having a successful relaionship with his other parent, even though it might or might not be true.

If he tries it out, he might not like it, and if things have not been made too difficult for him, will probably come back.

However it is worth remembering that people generally don't like being forced to move against their will, and they often don't get on with the parents' new partners, and they often have expectations and beliefs that turn out to be wrong. No less so when they are going through their difficult teens.

An experimental month in the school hols might give them both a taster. It's a pity all round that they haven't tried it before, but too late to cry over now.

NonnoMum · 31/05/2011 14:02

HAving heard more detail, I change my mind about letting him live with his father...
Yes, if he had a good, steady relationship and saw his Dad at least once a month and stayed there, but NO, if he is clutching at straws to try to stay in the same area.

Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 14:06

"and then proudly saying 'it was his decision" "

I repeat, I did not say it was my child's decision. I did make bloody sure of how the situation turned out.

I've no issue at all with people disagreeing with what I did, it makes no odds to me, it won't change either the situation or the fact that I'd do it all over again without a second thought if I had to.

But please don't accuse me of saying things I haven't. That's likely to get backs up. :) Thank you.

swallowedAfly · 31/05/2011 14:10

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Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 14:16

Thank you SAF. That's very much how I feel.

Piglet - "let?" Yes, let!

The OP's son is a child. It is down to her as the PWC to allow or disallow actions and behaviours which she considers damaging to him or other people.

Since when has it not been the parent's duty to refuse permission, direct or safeguard a child?

I just don't and, after 16 years and having raised alone more than one child never will, "get" the peculiar concept that an adult with care doesn't have both the right and the moral duty to treat a child as a child.

exoticfruits · 31/05/2011 14:18

OK you didnt say it was his decision but I can't see why you couldn't have a calm, logical adult like discussion.

Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 14:25

I didn't say that I hadn't had one of those either, did I ef? Wink :)

But when calm discussion wasn't sinking in and all my child could see was the prospect of a financially more attractive lifestyle from someone who was effectively bribing with phone top-ups, I chose not to take a different tack.

exoticfruits · 31/05/2011 14:27

Since your DS gets half his genes from his father I would be a bit worried about the long term effects of manipulation. He may not see it your way on hindsight.

Wellnerfermind · 31/05/2011 14:28

What do you think would have happened to your child if he'd gone to live with his Dad?

PigletJohn · 31/05/2011 14:28

and if he goes off in a huff, and gets on a bus (which he might well do), now, this year, next year?

swallowedAfly · 31/05/2011 14:34

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swallowedAfly · 31/05/2011 14:36

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Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 14:38

ef, long term is not a worry - when adults my DC can think what they like of me, it's here and now that they are children that I have a duty to protect them.

As a result of this thread and a brief chat about it, the child in question, with this situation two years down the line, has just said to me that had I not put up a fight the question would have come as to why I didn't fight for them and that I let them down and rejected them.

Well, this is the father who refuses to speak to or send a birthday card to my younger teenager, who like the OP has had sod all to do with my children and gone to extreme efforts to deprive them of money for food and clothing. This is also a violent man and a man with no genuine care for his children's welfare.

It would take to long for me to describe the negative effect that would have upon my children - both of them as my ex was seeking to tear the family apart and seperate siblings so close in age.

latitude · 31/05/2011 14:51

If he wants to go then let him go, its up to him. To use emotional blackmail in an attempt to manipulate him into going with you as some seem to be suggesting is despicable IMO.

swallowedAfly · 31/05/2011 14:54

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SardineQueen · 31/05/2011 14:57

I can well understand why rap did what she did. What is all this stuff about 14yo must be allowed to make their own decisions and parents just stand by and pick up the pieces?

"I want to go to an all night party mummy, with a lot of much older men" "OK DD well you're 14 now and you make your own decisions, if you're sure that's what you want then off you go"
"I really want to try cocaine mummy, I have heard it is really good fun and someone at school can get hold of it" " Well I think it's a bad idea but you do what you think best sweetie-pie"
"Hello mummy this is my new boyfriend. He's 42 and I want to sleep at his house from now on" "OK then sugar you know best you are 14 after all"

"Mummy I want to go and live with a man I barely know who has never shown any interest in me or supported me and actually was pretty nasty to you when you were together. Not that I can remember that as he left when I was a baby" "Well off you go then sugar-pie, have a lovely time, be sure to send me a postcard"

14 is 14 and not old enough to make big important decisions by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes parents, the ones with all the life experience, really do know best. Trying to stop a child doing something that might well cause them a lot of damage is normal human behaviour, surely.

piprabbit · 31/05/2011 14:57

Would it be possible to test the new arrangement temporarily?

I'm assuming that you won't be moving until the end of the school year in July.
Could your DS go to live with his dad during the summer holidays? Then they can see how they get on with the new arrangement. If it is not working out, then your DS could still start school in Norfolk in September.

If ExP is as useless as has been suggested, then 6 weeks might be enough to make him show his true colours, or DS might change his mind about the appeal of living with his dad.

SardineQueen · 31/05/2011 14:58

And what of the siblings in all of this? People think it is super-top to split up families in this way?

It's all a bit bananas, frankly.

latitude · 31/05/2011 15:00

The impact on siblings is irrelevant, its the 14yos life and he doesn't have to live it to please his siblings.

swallowedAfly · 31/05/2011 15:04

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SardineQueen · 31/05/2011 15:05

The impact on siblings is irrelevant?

How on earth do you lot run your families? In my family the siblings love each other. The younger children are going to feel a huge sense of loss with the unexpected sudden move away of their older sibling. That's not even something to be taken into consideration?

Bloody hell.

And if the younger siblings say they miss their brother/sister and want to move to be with them, I guess they just go too?

Easy come, easy go. All the kids want to go and live with someone they don't know, a hundred miles away, who has never shown any interest in being a parent to them before and so the mothers should just pack their bags and send them off?

Odder and odder.

Rapaccioli · 31/05/2011 15:07

My knee jerk reaction to that was to yell "FUCK OFF" at the computer, latitude. Shock Sorry, not at you, but at what you just said. There is no way I'm going to allow one child to deliberately and knowingly damage the other, for that's what would happen.

One of the problems society as a whole faces is selfishness. I don't desire to breed that unpleasant attitude by teaching my then 14 year old not only that they may do as they please and that I no longer have a say in it or a duty to protect them but that it's okay for them to deliberately and knowingly do something which impacts adversely on their own sibling.

It was shitting on the immediate family - i.e. his own children - which contributed towards making my ex so reviled in the first place. Under no circumstances would I countenance allowing my child to follow in the father's footsteps.

latitude · 31/05/2011 15:14

My parents seperated when I was 6 and I went to boarding school when I was 8 until I was 16 and then left and went and lived with my dad to go to college despite my mothers opposition to both. My brother was 6 when I went to boarding school and we haven't lived together since and the idea that I wouldn't have done it because it would have affected my brother is absurd to me.

razzlebathbone · 31/05/2011 15:16

I totally understand why you did what you did Rap. And I have no experience of an absent dh. Good for you.

swallowedAfly · 31/05/2011 15:19

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