can my friend's ex husband legally contest her decision to move 300 miles away to be near her family?

[troubledfriend]

Very dear friend , 2 primary school kids separated from husband 2 y ago.

In separation agreement kids live with her. Their dad is half an hour away and sees thm loads. They are reasonably cordial and flexible about it all.

he did initially want residency but she would not let him and .

She is v unhappy and wants to move 300 miles away to be near her family.She is currently in Scotland and wants to move to England

She is dreading telling him.

Could the courts stop her?

Would he have any chance of getting residency if he pursued it through the courts?

ditto AbbeA.

The ages of the kids will make this quite an unheaval for them. My two are this age. We have decided to stay 'put' rather than move to be near my MIL, because the kids, having just lost their father, need all the extra support that they are getting from school and friends.

Given that the kids are in school, and she is working part time, and the father is happy to have the kids, can the OPs friend not work on extending her circle of friends/ do things that she enjoys and stay put?

What does the see her family doing for her that the father of her kids/friends wouldn't do?

I can't see that her family can do anything that the father can't. I could see the point if she needed them for child care but the father is already supplying that.
I think that bereavement is the cause of the biggest stress in life, followed by divorce and I think house move is near the top. There seems to be little point in piling on additional stress. I think that you are doing the right thing MB, you are advised not to make hasty decisions after a partner dies. It is very early days for the OP and she should wait and see how things settle before making hasty decisions.
I don't think a house move would solve her problems. It is like a fat person thinking that being thin would make them happy/successful-once they have lost weight they are still the same person.
It isn't easy to rebuild your life as a single person but it has to be done and the place doesn't matter-getting out and about does.

I suspect that her family can provide a lot of emotional support which she is unlikely to get from her exh. I think that, when you are looking at things from a distance, it is easy to see what should be done, in the best interests of the children. However, she will be viewing this from a very personal perspective and has probably reasoned that the children will be just as happy with her and her extended family around them as they would having their dad nearby.

If she didn't want to move to Scotland in the first place, then she undoubtedly feels negatively about the place and this just compounds the whole divorce situation.

I think that if XH had custody and wanted to move 300 miles to get emotional support from his family she would fight it.Why is a woman a special case? As a parent she and XH should be giving their children emotional support jointly.

After 8 years living 300 miles away I can't help wonder if this woman is overestimating the support available in her home town. Her friends and family will have moved on with lives of her own. When she goes back to visit, of course people make a special effort to spend time with her and her DC. Living there might be very different.

Taking on her XH's share of childcare is a huge expectation to have of her parents. I hope she has discussed it with them.

I don't think anyone is saying that the woman is a special case. It's very easy to say what should happen when it's not you facing the choice. I'm merely trying to see it from her perspective. I suspect that, if relations between her and her exh are less than cordial, she isn't too concerned about viewing it from his.

Going back to the OP, XH originally wanted residency but she wouldn't let him. She got her way and they have managed, up to now, to have a flexible, cordial arrangement.
He compromised, in return she needs to compromise by staying nearby. It isn't fair to win and then change things.
If he had known that she was going to take them 300 miles away he wouldn't have given in without a fight. It sounds to me as if he would fight again (I certainly would if an ex proposed taking the DCs to a place where I couldn't have a daily part of their lives).
Freckle-if she were to view it from her XH's perspective there is no way she would take his children away!. The whole problem is that she is viewing it from her own perspective.
I also agree with upwind-people will have moved on in 8 years.

But we're probably not talking about a rational person here. She is lonely, homesick and very probably depressed, so is unlikely to be viewing anything from anywhere other than her own personal perspective - and that doesn't make her a selfish or inconsiderate person.

'I can't see that her family can do anything that the father can't. I could see the point if she needed them for child care but the father is already supplying that.'

As Freckle says it is a bit more about the emotional support for her than what they would do in practical terms.

The importance of having people 'on your side' who really care about you and acn listen and reassure should never be underestimated.

AbbeyA may I ask if you have ever been a single parent? Or if you can imagine being one, without a partner to confide in, discuss children-related issues with, or just talk to after a really heavy day so you don't go to bed stressed and anxious, knowing that tomorrow you face the world alone again?

It's not much fun. Please bear that in mind before making sweeping generalisations about what this woman might want or get from her own family - who presumably are more interested in her issues and daily troubles than her ex husband.

AbbeyA was a widow and a single parent, as am I.

I think she has a good grasp of how hard being a single parent is, without the possibility of the support of the father (which this woman has)

If you had read the thread ElectricFlightyBiteyrella, before commenting, you would see that I have had 6 years as a single parent. I was widowed suddenly with a baby so I know all about going to bed, crying myself to sleep and having to battle through another day!!
I didn't have the luxury of an ex partner who loved the DCs as much as me, to talk over their upbringing-I know all about loneliness.
I moved back to the place I had been living before, but on the whole I made new friends because people move on in the meantime.
I think men have as much right to their children as women and he allowed her to have residency because she lived nearby.

The simple answer is the courts rarely stop such moves and fathers are helpless. Many many mothers every week move children so far away they effectively destroy forever the relationship between child and parent. Sometimes they do it maliciously even. It's a very very common known tactic. If you love your children why would you want to hurt them by depriving them of a father? That's what I never understand with these mothers. It is as if they are more important than their children.

I agree with so much rhat as been said here about why she should not make the move butthe real life sitution has moved well past the debate stage.

She is going to move.

She now has to break the news to her kids and her x

Oh God I really stuffed up there

I am extremely sorry, AbbeyA.

I'll get my coat...

It is so sad that she is going to go through with it. I can't follow any logic that says the mother's needs come first. If she would be devasted to lose her DCs she shouldn't do it to the other parent.
To be brutally honest (which I wouldn't if the lady in question was posting)she has had a major upset in her life and has got the horrible task of adapting and making a new start. It is hard, I speak from experience,but moving near her parents won't solve all the problems,she will take them with her.
When she tells her XH he may well fight her through the courts-I hope that she is prepared to lose all the good will. The ones to suffer will be the children.
After 7 pages of threads it would be interesting to have an update later.

It's OK EFBrella-I'm afraid I got annoyed to be told all the worst of being a single parent and so fought back!
I take it that you are a single parent as it was written with such feeling. If so I hope that all goes well with you-there can be happy endings.

Have read this thread with great interest.

My belief is when you make the huge decision to bring children into the world, your needs should become secondary to theirs.
Children have the right to have 2 loving parents in their lives to help shape them and prepare them for the big wide world.
Many single mothers would love to have an active father around and to walk away from this could be detrmental to the children.
They must still be coming to terms with their parents split so to take them 300miles away from what IS constant in their lives is beyond belief.

Poor dad, and poor kids

There is an almost insoluble conflict of interest here. I just hope that, if the move goes ahead, the distance isn't used as a stick to beat the husband with. ("Well, he can't miss the children that much, he's hardly been to see them, blah blah, heartless b'stard" kind of thing.)

I know someone in a similar position, and even though the distance is only across three counties rather than 300 miles north, he is expected to do all the travelling, she never meets him halfway (geographically or metaphorically) and he knows it will look bad if he misses even one weekend. One time he drove all the way only to be told, by XW who has obviously never heard of the phone, that his child was ill and couldn't come with him.

I really dislike the attitude, already stated on here that XH can have more children with new partner and won't care so much about the older ones! This is never said to a woman.
It takes away from the father all the day to day stuff and leaves him with being a visitor. The grandparents should be the visitors, not the father.

Let#s hope the father gets a prohibitive steps order then and possibly gets residence of the children.That's what she's risking for her own selfish ends, loss of her children and alienation of them particuarly if they're old enough not to want to leave their friends.

UD, these mothers never then facilitiate contact, never take a second weekend job to fund the father's new fare expenses, never drive the children every other Friday night at their own expense to where the father is.

I hope the father takes her to court. I really and truly do.

My best friend's mother did the same thing.

Well, guess what? At the age of 42, my friend has NO relationship with her mother, who never put my friend's needs about her own.

By contrast, she has a wonderful relationship with her dad, her stepmother, her half-sisters and their kids.

Her mother moved them from the state of Florida to Washington state (a feat which wouldn't happen in the US nowadays because the courts there actually recognise that both parents' have rights and that most of all, so do the children), a distance of about 3000 miles, when she was 10.

It effectively destroyed her relationship with her mother and deprived her of stable contact with her father until she turned 18 and joined the Navy.

I hope this gal realises just how much her kids may well and truly resent her decision.

Oh, and she'd better watch out, because Scottish courts are less likely to be of the opinion that children are always better off with the mother.

I hope that he fights it, and that the court puts the children's needs first.

I hope it doesn't get to court and that they work things out amicably through mediation

Well I'd echo what expatinscotland has said and hope that dad;

• immediately challenges mum's unilateral decision to attempt to change the children's circumstances by removing them from jurisdiction, uprooting them from their habitual residence, changing their schooling and their friends, their support network, and most importantly their father.

• if the OP has any contact with the father then I think she has a moral duty to pass on these posts and his options.

• He should immediately (i.e the next or same day as he finds out the ex is deciding to move) make an emergency ex parte application to court for a Prohibitive Steps Order (contrary to what others have said here, as she is intending to move 300 miles away and out of jurisdiction I think he has a good case).

• He should question whether mum has made any provisions for accommodation / job / schooling / parenting arrangements

• As no residence order is in place both are equal legal parents and she has made this unilateral decision WITHOUT any discussion with him.

• He should immediately apply for an Interim Residence Order, if mum wants to move, fine she can do so, but the children should remain in their habitual residence, with minimal disruption in their schooling, remain where their friends and social network is and paternal family support network. There already seems to be a working shared care arrangement and this should not be altered by mum deciding she wants to move away.

(or the scottish equivalents as my legal knowledge is based on english law)

I'm totally disgusted by this 'mothers' approach and decision. She is acting in her own selfish reasons, don't give me any crap about "because mum is stressed, therefore kids are" argument, this is used day in day out in courts to deny a proper meaningful relationship between child and father.

I hope she gets the knock back I really do. Maybe it will shock her into some sort of reality check.