i split with my ex who I have one DD8 and originally I rented a new house in the same town only 10 mins away from my ex.
I then met a new partner and moved to a village 30 mins away from exes house. Better village, nicer school etc. This was a place that my ex had always wanted to live or the surrounding villages & he talked for a while of selling up & moving nearer to us.
The child arrangements have always been that he has her every Friday around 4.30pm till Monday at 7.30am. I do school drop offs and pick ups mon-Fri. He can’t have her in the week due to schooling & even when we lived in the same town it was always every weekend he had her due to work. If either of us want a weekend off or I want a weekend with her we swap about but generally means he just loses time with her as he can’t make it up by having her in the week. I don’t claim any child maintenance off him even though I do have her 4 nights a week & generally more nights over the course of a year. Both high earners & I just cba. That’s a story for another day.
Anyway we currently meet halfway between our homes so about 15 mins each way for each of us, maybe 20 mins each way for him dependent on traffic. However about a yr ago he met a new partner who lives over an hour away & has a child who is 5. He has now decided to sell up & move in with her nearer to where she is currently living. This is an hour away from where I live further up north, completely different county & will be rubbish commute in rush hour traffic.
He now wants me to do an hour round trip to meet him at a new half way point to his new house. This is too much on a Friday night and a Monday morning. I personally don’t think he’s thought this through at all. My DD8 already hates getting up earlier on a Monday for the 30 min trip to get to mine & she’s going to hate doing an hour or more going forwards on a Monday morning. I also said in a few years she’ll not want to spend every weekend with him & will want to spend it with friends and he’ll see less of her- but still he plans to press ahead & move.
He thinks I’m being completely unreasonable not meeting him half way to his new house as he did it when I moved. My point is that I only moved 30 mins away. Not more than 1 hour or more in rush hour traffic & it’s not my problem he’s decided to do this. It’s simply too far and is too much for me especially when I have work on a Monday & it’s already a rush to wake up early to pick her up at 7.30 am & then do the school run all before work.
So am I being unreasonable to say no ex should do drop off to equivalent distance/time as now or should I say yes I’ll do an hour round trip on a Friday night & Monday morning to meet him?