Wow thank you everyone for your quick responses!#
Ill try now to answer all your questions.
To clarify, I am father, ex is mother sorry for being vague, it wasn't intentional :)
My ex wants to move to her parents so she can get their support. She wants to move away and I can't exactly stop her! I have suggest that she buys a house somewhere in between which would mean that we could co-parent and have a mid week hand over. If we were both within 20-40min commute, we could share PR equally. This did not go down well as she doesn't like the areas in between. She also complained that she wouldnt get as big a house for her money as she would near her parents (still a 2-3 bed house, but not as big).
We have both been primary carers. Since birth, we have both worked full time until about two years ago. My ex worked in London and had long commutes so up until the age of 5-6 years of age, I did the drop offs and pick ups from Childminder or my parents who picked him up from school. In Jan 2019, my ex kicked in her job and started her own business where she joined a franchise. I joined in as director in the hopes that the change of pace would help reduce her anxiety, stress and depression as the new business was a Creative/ Arty party organisation and activity focused business providing classes for kids and adults to do messy art. This allowed my ex to take over the dropping of and picking up of our son from school, which was one of the reasons why she wanted the change.
Unfortunately after the first year, optimistic me found that nothing had changed at home. Rows were still frequent. Home life was still a mess, I was still depressed.
I went to CBT for 6 weeks and came out with a different mindset. I started the gym to get healthy, improved my diet and decided that enough was enough. The constant rows at home were not good for our son. She has been threatening to leave or repeatedly asking me to "get out" for years. I had attended some domestic abuse training at work and had come to the realisation that I had been on the receiving end of verbal abuse and coercive control for years and not realised it. The last straw was she when during an argument she threatened to commit suicide within ear shot of our son. That was something I had to resolve and assure him she didn't really mean it (she has said it a few times in the past and I have reasoned it out with her). So I decided to make the decision formal and broke it to her over an email that I wanted to separate (I wanted her to know I was serious, rather than being a empty threat in an argument)- outlining some ideas I had on how it could work (one being the one above about her moving locally). This was in November 2019.
I had no intention of this impacting her/ our business (I just helped with the finance as this is my expertise in my day job). BUT, with my decision to separate, she decided to close the business down. So that was £20k down the swanny (we had saved for some time, we are not in debt because of it). Never-mind I said, move on. The plan was that I would support her and we would stay in our house until she found a job, had stayed in it for 3 months and then we could sell the house as she could get a mortgage. Then Covid hit and that went down the proverbial loo!
Then the Stamp Duty change happened and she said, lets sell now. I agreed!
As it stands now, as previously mentioned she has just started a new job (this is her first week). She purposely sought a job that was near her parents so it fit with her plans. Both of our jobs are flexible in hours. As such, my plans are to drop him off to breakfast club before school, but this might not be totally necessary as I can start work a bit later and make time up in the evening after I have put my Son to bed. Likewise, I can pick him up from school, but I have already made arrangements for afterschool club on a Tuesday as he has Cubs at 7 near school so we can go straight there after I pick him up. So that should work once things get "back to normal". My parents have also agreed to help in pick ups and drop offs. This wouldn't be anything new as they help already.
I am moving back to my parents because they live in a large house that is split into two flats. Their flat has 4 bedrooms, and the downstairs flat has 2. I plan to buy the downstairs flat which is possible within the next year or so to make the whole house one property. My parents who are in their 70's could then move downstairs and I would live upstairs with our Son. I plan to renovate the property as well. Bare in mind, I am moving only 6 miles away, in the same town which is also where I work - but I am Working from home and that isn't like to change. She is moving 58 miles away.
There is absolutely no chance in hell she will agree to rent.
I don't mean to underplay the little things, all I am trying to get at is that I have no problem taking responsibility for these. In the past, she has indeed done the admin.
My goal is to retain some stability for our son in keeping him at his current school when everything else is changing around him. She wants to change it all.
Thank you @TW2013 for your insight onto Secondary schools. I didn't know that. On that regard, I am hoping to have our son try for our local grammar schools first and was hoping that the secondary school that she wants him to go to would serve as a backup plan. One of these grammars is one of the top boys grammars in the country.
Her concern is that if he doesn't move down with her and move into the local primary school that he wont get in as they do indeed feed into the secondary.
She will be moving out of her parents once she can secure a mortgage but will remain very local to them as the town she is moving to is small.
I feel that mediation is her way to try and get the upper hand. Now that I "Cancelled" our pencilled in Mediation, she is now trying to do the same thing via her solicitor but threatening the various orders.
She says she doesn't want to go to court, but if I refuse to consent in him moving school, I guess she doesn't have any other way to get what she wants.
I asked her last night to at least go with a "trial" period and not push for anything until he finishes his current school year. Could we then evaluate after this as she might see it working... She said that's going to happen anyway. When I asked her whether she thought that if she saw things we working, that she might change her mind, she blanked me. Perhaps I was pushing it a bit there :)
Our son is fully aware of the separation and move. My ex says that he see's it as an "adventure". My understanding is he would prefer to stay at his current school and move with me and see his mummy on the weekends.
@KittenCalledBob + @FortunesFave The idea of 1 weekend a month for resident parent is that the other parent isn't seeing the child at all during the week (doesn't help she is moving so far away).
Jeepers, this message got long.
For everyone who is reading and responding, thank you ever so much for your time. It's such a relief just to be able to talk about this with people who are not biased one way or the other.
Its not like I don't get her side of the argument. Yes it would be good if be at a junior school that is 8 mins away from home that feeds into an outstanding state secondary. But why force it when he can stay where he is and have some sense of continuity and stability.
I don't see the commute as an issue, I used to be driven to primary & secondary school. Many of my friends at secondary used to have an hour & half bus ride to and from school.
Anyway, I'll leave it there for now... back to work. Phew!