Ex wants me to travel halfway for child contact

[Nitika2]

I hope someone can give me advice on this

My ex lives about 90 miles away and travels to see our daughter for six hours but now he wants me to travel halfway. I can not drive and travelling halfway means travelling with my daughter by public transport which I can not afford financially.

he said he will take me to court if I do not agree and I can not afford going to solicitors as well.

I have never caused any hurdle in their contact/relationship and always kept him updated regarding our daughters development/life but I cannot afford to travel after every two weeks.

He also pays child maintenance now...

Will court order me to take our daughter halfway, even if I cannot financially do it?

He lives 90 miles away and sees her for 6 hours per visit - I think this is what the OP meant.

For those who have experience of this matter, would a court not take into account the interests of the child? If the father, who can drive 180 miles round trip in a car with some ease, is now asking that his child is submitted to endure a two hour bus trip/change in order to improve his own situation and that request is granted, then surely something is wrong.

If he started to request overnights.... full weekends with his child would actually back up his case

After all....he's progressed from supervised,to unsupervised

It's what is best for the child

would a court not take into account the interests of the child?

Yes, they do. In my case anyway. DD was 3 when he decided he wanted contact after a year. DV background, had to be in a supervised contact centre 100 miles from him and 10 from us.

When it progressed to outside the contact centre it had to be supervised by a family member and had to be local to us.

Then they ruled DD had to be kept local, wasn't to go home with him, wasn't to stay overnight and he tried getting me to take her to him.

I explained that she was very car sick and didn't know the man aside from an hour a fortnight for a few times. They said if he wanted to see her, he came here. He came twice and hasn't seen her since. This was 7 years ago.

I meant to say this was after people speaking to DD and her screaming and crying at the prospect of seeing him, getting hysterical when his name was mentioned and she refused point blank to get in a car with him. He terrified her and they went with her.

Tricky one. Whilst I agree it's not great for you or dc to travel so far on public transport I kind of get where you're ex is coming from.

If he is driving 90 miles to yours, 90 miles back to his with dc then 90 miles back to drop off at yours and then 90miles back home that is a lot of driving in one day. 360 miles. Also it is taking 6 hours.
Does a large proportion of the time he has with dc end up being in the car? Whereas if you take him he would get more time with him out of the car?
I don't know, just in thinking about needs of dc in this situation. It is to spend time with dad. Time with dad is not as great if it's largely in the car. Personally, I would be worried about accidents if someone is driving so much in one day. Would it make better sense for him to have the dc overnight? I know you mentioned dv so obviously this would only work if you trust him enough with dc overnight.

Say no. You can't afford it, it's not in your DD's interests. He can drive to you, take her out, spend time with his grandad and daughter and drive home. Or you can spend all day on publc transport you can't afford.
If you say yes he will probably move the boundaries again. Let him take you to court, you don't need a solicitor to say no for you.
Offer to do half the travelling when you can afford to learn to drive and run a car, not before.