Co parenting. Want to move

[Feelingtrapped100]

I know INBU but I feel like AIBU gets more traffic. I Left my abusive ex years ago, this prompted an assault where he had stalked and waited for me and I was convinced I was going to die. I was bullied into not going to court but he was convicted.
contact with his child was sporadic originally, a few years later he sees his child 3 weekends out of 4. He has done other awful things to us but I have little evidence and didn’t report.
Years later I have moved on and have a boyfriend of 3 years that lives miles away. He lives in a place that I have always wanted to live and we would love to buy a place there together. I have wanted to leave my home town forever and the perfect opportunity would be during the transition to secondary school. I would only do this if my child was happy to which he is. I desperately want to get away from here for a fresh start.
I finally mentioned my thoughts to my ex who exploded, informed everyone he could and threatened court and prohibited steps order.
I feel like he has held me back so much already and the move could potentially mean much better prospects, finally owning a house and being happy and independent. I currently rent a relatives property.
sorry this is so long, I just want to know if I have any hope at all of this going my way and I don’t want to stop my son seeing his dad. I just can’t believe that one parent can sacrifice so much and go through so much at the hands of the other and it have no bearing on a custody hearing (which is what it is increasingly seeming like). I have had some free legal advice. TIA

How would you facilitate near weekly contact for your son and your ex?

I would go for it! You and your child only live once and what really is the worst that can happen? Your ex can figure out how he'll have future contact with your child. You've got this!

It won't be up to the ex to figure out. She will have to transport the child to him because she will be the one who moved.

Parental alienation by deliberating moving to restrict contact is likely to result in a court order,especially if the father argues moving in with the new boyfriend a significant distance away isn't in the child's best interests. They don't live together now.

@Feelingtrapped100 Father could get a shared custody order if there is nothing abusive in the relationship with the child. He has access, presumably reliably, almost weekly. That will go in his favour.

Not always and OP is getting legal advice.

Showing up to 'most' weekly visits is top notch parenting. I get the bills paid 'most' months, I get food for my child 'most' days, I make sure my child has a warm, loving and secure home 'most' of the time.

They are separated. He doesn't live with his child. He could fight for 50/50 and get it. You telling her to do what she wants and ignore the father isn't helpful. She will find out she can't just do that from her legal advice.

Why did you tell him, you should have just done it and dealt with the consequences later. No matter what you do this beast isn’t going to be happy. Move and let him go after you. Just don’t tell him where you are.

Your kid won’t want anything to do with him soon

If her child is going into secondary school then he is old enough for his wishes to be taken into account. Whether he wants to move or not. She may have to facilitate weekend visitation but I don't see why she couldn't move and live during the week somewhere else since he doesn't seem to see him or be involved otherwise.

OP said she is getting legal advice... On the back of that should all be good (that she can) I would still say go for it! Boo hoo he might go for 50/50 care, CF hasn't yet, why? Because he mostly gets to visits at the moment 👍🏽

You carry on like I don't know it's her EX. You carry on that I don't know she is getting legal advice. By all means carry on...

He does have a good relationship with his dad. As far as I know. But would be happy to move. I would like to work out a different contact arrangement that would be the best for everyone involved. I don’t care about him but I do care about DC and what he wants.
seeing him at weekends for all the good stuff is hardly parenting.
I know that a judge will not care about my MH or what I want and the courts are still biased towards men.
He uses 50/50 as a threat which shows just how much he actually wants to do that. But with DC becoming older it is probably something he could feasibly do now with no consequences on his career.
I regret telling him. I just said it as a thought/ asked his thoughts and he just blew up. He is a very nasty character and I stupidly tried to appeal to his non existent better nature.

The thing is, legally with no order in place currently I can just do that. But he could of course and likely would immediately apply to court.

You don’t seem to be offering any advice just arguing with women in the comments and rambling about “parental alienation” which I’m sure you know is a controversial topic.

I don’t care about him but I do care about DC and what he wants.
seeing him at weekends for all the good stuff is hardly parenting.

It may not be, but if he’s seeing him 3 weekends out of 4 there’s clearly a relationship there that, if you move away, you’ll need to facilitate. Your child has the right to a relationship with his dad, however hard that understandably is for you

How old is your child? It makes a difference in terms of contact, the older they are the more weight their opinion holds. As you mention high school I assume 11ish.

how far away do you want to move and what proposal do you want to make so that the parent/child relationship can still be maintained? If they have a pretty good relationship you really do want to encourage that, it is healthy for your child to have both parents involved.

are you looking at moving out of the region, e.g. England to Scotland, that makes a difference too. They are governed by different laws.

The problem I have is that the non resident parent can always move where they want with no thought to impact to anyone, they can just decide not to see their child and maybe pay more I maintenance to make up for the no contact 🙄 but a resident parent has to jump through hoops to move for better prospects when the NRP is often just objecting for control issues rather than care for the child.

Yes, I totally understand and agree with that. There has been regular contact for a few years so of course he needs to see his dad.
He could easily move and earn more money by moving. If he doesn’t want to I can’t force him. He moved a similar distance away a few years ago actually but hardly saw him then and then moved closer to us.

3 weekends out of 4 is 78 nights a year.
Tell him, fine, you can have 1 weekend a month (24 nights), half summer holiday (21 nights) all half terms and half of Easter and Christmas. Same number of nights.
Then he'll have to find some childcare.

He is 11 and I have spoken to him. He would be ok with it. But dad has a history of manipulating him and making him feel bad for decisions that he feels aren’t fair on him :(. Making him write apology notes for stupid things, making him cry because he has “upset dad” because he was feeling upset and wanted to go with him the next day instead of a night time. “How do you think that makes me feel”? Etc etc. He has already told him I only want to move there because of my bf who “doesn’t care about you”. This isn’t true. He could move closer to me, I desperately just want out of here and as far as possible. I think my son would be very reluctant to go against him/ knows to behave perfectly with his dad now.

Exactly, and he has moved miles away previously. (Best days of our lives)

Why do people give advice like that?? It really isn't that easy. She can be prevented from moving with a court order.

It isn’t out of the country forgot to add. Still England

If he takes you to court, they will only look at what's best for the child, not for either parent. You need to think about how you can show that this would be best for your child, not for you. How will you facilitate contact with his father?

How many hours away is it?

Do you drive? As you'll be the one who will drop off and pick up your child if you're the one that moves away. Is it doable?

Has your son stayed in a house with your partner snd you've all don't family stuff together or will that all be new to both? You'd hate to move and find out they can't cope with each other.

He is doing the nice act now and wants to meet up to talk. I wanted a civil discussion in the first place. He blew up. Reported me to school etc and bombarded me with emails and texts. He then sent a calm message to which I replied with suggestions and stated I wouldn’t do anything without his consent and he blew up again. Do I meet him still? Either not on my own or in a busy cafe? Or am I going to look stupid the more I let him have contact with me. (Child would not be there and I do not want him involved at all, have protected him from the knowledge that his dad is a horrible person for his own sake. Not dads)

How long would the journey be if you left? And what is public transport like between?

How far is "miles away"?

We moved miles away from my wife's ex... an entire 5 miles, with a direct train connection. He literally called it "miles away" and filed for a PSO - which as you might expect went basically nowhere. Different people have different ideas of "miles away" - if it's less than 1 hour travel time, that's not a big deal and has minimal impact to contact. If it's more than that, it would still be allowed, as long as it doesn't overly impact contact, but it'll mean more travel.

If you have no court order presently, you should just move. He may take you to court but it will likely go your way because:

• you informed him and made an attempt to work out an arrangement but he has made that difficult (but key point is you didn't just surprise him)
• there is no court order stopping you
• once you move (literally, within days) that will become the new status quo

He may or may not actually take you to court. If he does, you might get a bit of a talking to that in an ideal world you wouldn't have moved, but the reality would almost certainly be "well, you've moved, it wasn't illegal, and now that you have moved, we figure out the arrangements from this point forward".

You could try to pre-empt him with a Specific Issue Order granting you permission to move, but actually you have a higher chance of that failing than just doing it anyway.

In any event, you will most likely have to facilitate travel and take the responsibility for more than 50% of the travel, so keep that in mind.

Ok @DisneyTokyoNewbieDitzy 👍🏽 I noted OP was getting legal advice and should she get the green light, she gets the green light... Why would I say what I said? Because I've done it, I've lived it and it was one of the best decisions in my life. WTF have you done Ditzy... nevermind IDGAF 💋

@Feelingtrapped100 Your post are definitely coming across about all you. ( now I know you deserve happiness after all you have been though )

The thing is . How long has this weekend order been in place ?
How often does he not show ?
Does he let son down ?
What age is son as by high school age two things happen .The child tends not to want to spend time away at dads as they want to see friends .
2nd thing . He has a voice in court . He can say he doesn’t want to see his dad at all and the court would know doubt say that’s fine .
I think your worry he will take child 50/50 would never happen . A judge won’t force a child old enough to have a voice that’s their own .

Seek legal advice and ask the solicitor what they think about you applying to the court to move . Take the control away from the ex.

I will say though . Can you honestly say you think this is the best thing for your son and why?