Meeting ex half way for child handover- too far

[boredwfh]

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?

I think he needs to organise breakfast club on Monday and afterschool club on Friday and do all drop offs and pick ups from school. Alternatively, he could talk to the school about if there's a taxi service they use for school runs.

If he wants to have her until Monday he must drop her off at school then. I would keep this simple and clear with him. He is choosing to move so far away he needs to prioritise his daughter in this. Either he allows you to pick her up Sunday evening or drop off at school Monday morning.

Haven’t read the full thread yet but my SD lives 5 hours away.

It all got very messy and it actually went to court in the end.

DH always used to meet halfway and paid for all travel (for ex etc too, she doesn’t drive so train tickets). She then refused.

Court order is now in place that they meet halfway but ex now has to pay all travel for her side.

We used to do EOW and all half terms and half of summer and half Christmas (alternating Christmas and new year). Now it’s no weekends as the travel was too much for SD with school etc.

SD is now nearly 13 and has started to stay with her mum a lot more in half terms etc this year because she wants to see her friends etc.

Its all tricky!

Just say Sunday evening pickups not Monday.
If you went to court they would agree Monday morning before school is not sensible for your child .

It’s also worth mentioning that they would not discuss maintenance at all in court.

Friend of a friend lives in Somerset, kids dad lives in Hampshire, they meet half way every other weekend.
It's about what's best for your kids.

He doesn’t sound ready to handle the weekday load and give you every weekend so it won’t flip!!

What would you have expected him to do if you had been the one who moved further away?

In reality, the handover should now move to Sunday night.

given that you moved away and he gracefully did the half way commute, you should be willing to adjust. Yes, the commute now in a Monday morning will be too much and too risky to get to school on time, the two of you work on time. So should be moved to a Sunday night hand over.

do this until such time your daughter may not want to go because if her developing more independent life of friends/actuvitues. Then that is another discussion for another time. Not now. Not relevant to now as Much can change in that intervening time frame.

I think who moved where is not the point. The point is the journey between you is now an hour, and that is too long on a Monday morning for your daughter. It is not about tit for tat between the parents, it is about what is best for the child, given the new circumstances. And in this new world of a one hour commute, the best thing for your child is to be home on Sunday in preparation for school the next day. If that means he needs to pay maintenance so be it. I would get this formalised. Perhaps see at that point if he really wants to have her every weekend.

on the basis of that I'd be getting a court order on how much time she spends with you/him and putting all the previous behaviour on record. What if he relapses?
Also.. 8 years of child support in a child savings account.. could have made a significant contribution to your DD's future
Different if he contributes towards her upkeep, school trips, clothes etc.?
As a pp said. He has a new partner now.. maybe a new family... you need to make sure that he meets his obligations towards your DD.
It does sound as if she will need more time nearer to local school/friends as she gets older... so its a good time to reconsider what works best for her.

Best advice here. Couldn't agree more.
Court won't sort cms, however once a court order is in place you would submit that to cms as evidence and they would sort it.
Get the court order. After seeing your updates you need to have something concrete to stop him having control. Include birthday, Christmas, Easter etc. Then you'll get every other weekend and get some time with your daughter, giving you time to be the Disney mum!

I ended up in court with my ex, when he refused to sign the agreement we'd draw up after 3 months of mediation. It really simplified things for us - he got every second weekend and half of the holidays, not that he actually used the full holiday time.

I think you're right to formalise it in Court, he's being unreasonable, and won't communicate properly with you.

I was broke so represented myself, but i would recommend that you get a solicitor, it was so stressful doing it myself.

My DS stopped going every second weekend when he was about 14, he's 18 now and sees him once every month or two - his Dad moved 200 miles away, and DS not bothered to get the train to see him.

I agree with others, she'll have to come home on a Sunday night now. I'd also say that it's his choice to move and you're happy to meet him 15 mins away as before but no further maybe?

To the person saying she's resisting getting up, she'd be dropped home at 7.30 after an hours drive, she'd have to be up at 6. That's unnecessary if school starts at 8.30-9, it's not her fault her parents live so far apart.

Do the sxhool have breakfast club he could drop her straight to on monday morning? If you did friday drop off?

Your whole post is me centric, and his whole position is me centric - you need to think of your daughter in all this - so the impact on her. I also would suggest you do one of each run but pick up on Sunday (or drop whichever way you do it) so her schooling is not impacted. You are right re later on and teens not wanting to go away every weekend but that's his look out to be honest.

I think if you focus on the impact on your daughter then he won't have a leg to stand on - you could also get court to agree the arrangements particularly with regard to the move but be prepared for backlash. To be honest I think you have bent over backwards to make it work for you all, now he needs to think about the impact on his daughter and his time with her going forward and moving that far away if he won't come over and visit in the week is going to be tricky

Not the point of the thread, but why does he have her every weekend? You never get any of the fun times!

I also worry he’ll try to convince her to move schools to a secondary near him when she gets to that age & have the whole arrangement flip round.

This will very depend on how she gets on with her dad's girlfriend and her 5 year old, if he is as awful as you say, their relationship may not even last very long, or it may not be a very nice environment for her to stay in, so you may find it naturally sorts itself out, plus her time with her dad will now be split, so may not be as appealing to her anymore.

I really think you need to push for Sunday night returns, if he refuses to bring her back on Sunday nights so he can have a drink in the daytime evening (rather than just wanting her that extra night), then you should offer to go and collect her, as long as he can collect from you on the Friday, either that or you take her on a Friday night and he takes her straight to school on the Monday morning.. if he really wants her for a genuine reason till Monday morning than he should have no problem making that happen.

Your court idea to firm everything up may be the best idea though if he is being awkward, if he doesn't want to go to court he'll have to compromise somewhere, an hour long Monday morning meet up in rush hour traffic when she doesn't even want to be getting up that early herself sounds hellish.

If he changes her football club that means you trekking a long way on a weekend for the whole season for her to attend training & playing. This can be seen as a deliberate ploy to keep the status quo of him having her every weekend whilst you get zero quality time and all the daily grind. What happens if she does move to his for school? It’s not going to be much of a weekend you trekking backward and forwards for football.

You need to start thinking about what is really in your DDs best interests medium and longer term and start fighting for it.

i think I’d go to court (mediation then court) for every other weekend and on his weekend he drops her at school on Monday. He will not be able to argue he deserves every weekend (you have to show willing to drive her to footy etc) , offer a midweek where he collects from school and returns to school, and he will look like a royal douchebag saying I accept I am only going to get every other weekend but it is too disruptive to my precious life to drop her at school on Monday every other week, all boring adminy parenting must be done by her mum, I will only do FUN THINGS and only on weekends.

Don’t you miss having weekends with your daughter Op?

what’s he like re CMS?

We have had another convo which was more productive. We’ve agree on Fridays to meet half way, Mondays at the same place we have always met so only 15 mins for me. It is still a lot for DD I think & have said she should come back on Sundays. I’m going to let it play out for a few weeks and see how my daughter is & take it from there. He has agreed to one weekend a month where she is with me. I still think it needs formalising through mediation and the point about CMS and saving it for my daughter is a good point as is protecting the routine for the future.

His new girlfriend is younger & it could be that they have another child together in the future whereas I’m one & done & my DP’s children are older (17/20) so no chance we’ll have more.

I’m in an identical situation (actually worse, in that the distance between us is 1h15 to 1h45 depending on traffic).

There are only two alternatives: one, you meet half way; or two, you take it in turns to do a full trip. Take your pick.

No court (not that it would come to that I’m sure, but to give you a sense of what is right or wrong) would order anything different and there will be hundreds of thousands of couples in a similar or worse situation than you.

This sounds more reasonable than getting up earlier on Monday morning