moving away with my children

[robynwin]

Hi, im after some advice, i live in the north east i have 3 children to two fathers, my first marriage broke down after my husband had an affair, he left and moved in with his new gf, we have 2 children and they have 1 child together now. My last relationship gave me another beautiful child unfortunatley my ex didnt turn out to be very paternal, he resented my children and there father and and along with his family made a divide between my children, i am now in the northeast with no family as my mother passed away and my father and siblings moved, the only thing keeping me here is the fact i have 3 children who need so see there fathers, i am hoping to move to the south to be closer to my family and give my kids a better life, can my exes stop me ? i wont restrict access to the children and am willing to travell wherever possable to allow them access, school holidays, weekends where possable e.t.c, please help x

Hecubas Is there any chance you can take it back to court and get the decision overturned or anything? Is there any appeal process?

No appeals process. No money now anyway.. Dh's contribution based JSA will run out soon so we may be bankrupt by Christmas :(. It's a lot of worry about the prospect of having dds taken away from us when we become homeless.

No process to take it back, ever? Thats disgusting!!

Is there any self employed work you can do from home, or cleaning - anything to get WTC fast before the piggin' crap that is Universal Credit comes in?

Yep that's right, never.

Not much call for cleaners due to how deprived the area is. Just applying for everything and anything I'm capable of.. Helping with DH's search too.

Oh i wish i could help somehow, but i'm pretty buggered too tho' nowhere nearly as bad.. I wish you so much luck.. Fat use i know- but my fingers are crossed, hope something turns up fast x

latemates, no id stay here if that was the case

Then can you understand why fathers may not happily let you take their children away also.

Can you see that you not wanting to leave them, may be a similar feeling that you children may feel at having to leave where their dads and siblings live.

Wow I have never heard before about people not being allowed to move because of where their ex's live! Moral issues aside I can't believe someone can be forced to stay in a area they don't want to be in because of an ex partner, so they are not able to move for work etc what if they promotion or company relocation, is this not a free country??!! What would happen then if someone just decided to move anyway, would they be put in jail or have their kids taken away? Am genuinely shocked

Not totally free, mrscoob, no. You are not free to kill people. You are not free to assault people. You are not free to break the speed limit. You are also not necessarily free to move someone's children away from them.

The court will look at your case on its own facts, and will decide what is in the best interests of your particular children. Family law isn't "one size fits all". If you can show that you've got a good plan for work, housing, schools and contact with the children's fathers, or contact with your eldest if he stays with his dad, you'll give yourself the best chance of success.

Have you tried talking to the dads? You might not have to go to court at all, and it's less stressful for all concerned if you can avoid it.

If talking doesn't work, see a solicitor.

Surely someone has the right to live where they want too though, it isn't like this is a massive country anyway you can get to most places in a day. I'm not saying it is right or wrong .I would never move my son away from his Dad personally. I am just shocked that people are not free to move when they want too, I didn't know that happened.

People are 'free' to move where they want to scoob - plenty threads on here talking about NRP's moving halfway and losing touch with their kids. It happens. The point is, is it the right thing to do for your children? In this case, it seems to involve splitting up sibs so it's not something I would do, no.

You're not 'free' when you have kids, if by free you mean able to do exactly as you like. Their interests have an equal (I don't say greater) weight. And what about parents who want to take their children abroad after a divorce (sorry, getting a bit off topic now, I know you're not doing that OP) - should they be 'free' to do that if it suits them?

It's not entirely the same late as going and leaving your children is likely to cause feelings of abandonment which are less likely the other way round.

People can move NRPs can do what they want. RPs have a choice stay and potentially face severe hardship or lose their DC.

Mrscob we were in that position DH was offered promotion and relocation, I was offered a job, it moved us close to family support (DCs grandparents, aunts and uncles). We had housing,schools and plans for retaining contact with NRP etc but we were not allowed to move. Staying has led to redundancy, we are facing bankruptcy and homelessness, can't allow dd to go on school trips, not sure where food is going to come from.. Live in fear of DC being taken away anyway due to homelessness. Not really great for DC either but I was being selfish wanting to move .

You could have moved.... Youcould have changed residency and become the NRP. This is not abandoning the child, as the child continues to live with a parent and see the other parent. Exactlythe same situation the only difference is which parent is RP and which is NRP

It IS abandonment and it would not be good for dd to live with her abusive dad full time, it's bad enough with visits. He would also have blocked contact for me.

Legal(ish) answer is that with all those reasons for moving, your exes don't stand a hope of stopping you going.

Moral answer? It's a tough one. You seem to have some really good arguments for moving but I would urge you to think about the following:

• it would not be fair to ask your exes to contribute towards travel or cost, although in all likelihood if you pushed the issue, they would have to. This could breed resentment or lead to lessened contact.
• HAVE you thought about the cost of all this travel?
• have you considered what your children would miss out on, on weekends when they are with their fathers a long way from their new homes? Eg not easy to have regular football matches/sports lessons, may miss parties, may resent not being able to hang out with their new friends.
• have you thought about the time the children would spend travelling? They would miss every other Friday evening after school and every other Sunday afternoon when they could be doing more interesting things than sitting on trains etc.
• will your exes play ball? You have to take into account whether you think they will put in any necessary effort to maintain relationships. It's reasonably unrealistic to think that you will do it all (although I commend you for starting off with that approach, given that it's your choice to move). Also, they may (rightly) resent that their weekends are cut short at each end by the travelling.
• be honest about whether you will be prepared to make the necessary sacrifices eg lack of flexibility as you have to arrange so much more in advance, whether you are prepared to encourage things like contact phone calls in between, and the impact it will have on your life to be tied to these travel arrangements and additional cost if you met someone new.

You can make it work if you have to, but it will be just that - a lot of extra work...

Hucub - not all fathers are abusive, not all fathers would block contact. Some mothers are abusive, some mothers block contact. Their are many many different types of people.

But generally speak a NRP has not abandoned their child. A NRP may have no choice but see child limited amount RP allows. This is not abandonment. So therefore it is not abandonment if the child parents change roles due to work commitments, health, child wishes etc. If the child chooses to live with the one parent and visit the other they are not abandoning the other parent. If the parents decide that for now the child will live with the mother or the father and visit the other x amounts in a week or month the parent who the child spends less time with has not abandoned them either.
If one parent blocks contact then the other parent also hasn't abandoned the child. If neither parent is able to look after a child for any reason (such as major health problems) but makes adequate provision to ensure their child is looked after in their hopefully sort absence. This is not abandonment.

Abandonment is leaving a child with no care at all, leaving the child to fend for them selves

I am the RP and had to go to court because my XH was refusing to sign the school application papers for the new area in a bid to avoid me moving. The judge ruled that he was not in a position to tell me where to live now that the marriage had broken down (there had been a well-publicised case the week before, setting legal precedent) and basically ordered him to sign the papers and let us move. He said 'if she moves, she makes sure the children come to me, I don't see why I should have to make the effort to travel all that way to visit them' (considering he struggled to make much of an effort when they lived a mile round the corner, I could have seen that one coming, and he's been true to his word!). The judge's face was a picture .

In my case, it was deemed that I had to be allowed to move, for my mental welfare. Moving elsewhere in the UK was the lesser of two evils, anyway - my DP is from another country, but my solicitor told me that the chances of being allowed to emigrate to be with him were very low.

X-post - needinstructions makes several very good points. I have spent the past few years battling all those things.

• The judge ordered my XH to make "a contribution" to travel (on top of our financial arrangement). Unfortunately that can be as little as he chooses, and is actually usually nothing.
• For the first few years either I had to drive them to see him, or send them by plane. Only recently has he deemed that they are old enough to travel by train. It has cost a fortune, which I'm still paying back.
• The DCs very quickly grew bored of having to go and see their dad on random weekends. Huge rows ensued, with him insisting he had a contact order and he MUST see them and that parties etc. would have to go by the wayside. The DCs now only see him in the holidays.
• My XH has always put his relationship with his wife (he left me for her) above the feelings of the DCs. And they know it. He is forever telling them what dates are "convenient" for him to see them, because he and his DW are away/busy at work etc.

That said, I still think it was absolutely the right choice.

See, what I don't get is why posters - and apparently the courts - assume that the RP should limit their movements until their child is 18, rather than the other way around.

So often it is the NRP who leaves in the first place - why not place an order on them, requiring them to stay within ten miles of the RP? And if the RP needs to move for work or family support, the NRP should have to move too. Surely that would be more in the interests of the child than vice versa??

I think you're being selfish, sorry. You shouldn't take your children away from their dads. That would make their lives worse, not better. Flip the scenario - what if their dads wanted to move them away, how would you feel?

The way I see it, your ex partners chose to leave and so shouldn't be in a position to prevent you from getting on with your life. I would disagree with you moving abroad, but as things stand it is entirely possible for them to have contact. If you had been the one to shag around, then I would have more sympathy for the ex, because I think the person who didn't behave badly shouldn't be further punished by losing everyday contact.

I think that I would ask my solicitor what could happen if you moved without telling the ex husbands. If there is no existing court order requiring you to stay put, then are you doing something with legal repercussions if you just moved and informed everyone afterwards?

I would not agree to pay all the costs of getting the dc to their dads either - I think the father who cheated on you has to accept that as one of the consequences of not keeping it in his pants.

Karma - um it about the children!
The children are innocent - regardless of who is to blame for marriage break up (mother, father or both) the children aren't.
So if you think it is ok for a cheating husband to be punished by reducign their contact with the child. Do you also think it is ok that the big punishment in all this is given to the child who wll also lose daily/regular contact with one parent.

I was referring to my situation specifically. Yes I'm bitter I've bent over backwards to comply with exes wishes. He left me and as a result of the restrictions I'm in a position where I am going to lose my DC permanently, Yet I am selfish and unreasonable.

I know you were talking about your situation hecub but I am trying to give a balanced generic view. I can't comment on your situation specifically apart from saying have you tried appealing the case. I didn't say YOU were selfish and unreasonable because I wasn't commenting on your situation specifically.