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Lone parents

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Original poster

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

299 replies

troubledfriend · 23/07/2008 23:55

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?

OP posts:
LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 21:24

ps, don't be sorry for my children, they are beautiful, intelligent, happy, confident and secure. They don't need your pity. But thanks, I know you meant well.

paolosgirl · 27/07/2008 21:25

You can't empathasise any more than the rest of us - your situation was completely different!

LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 21:28

Huh?? Bitter? Because I pointed out that I was entitled to post?! Because I rightly point out the obvious truth that it would take some support network to rival that of a mother's close family???

I'm not bitter, I'm relieved. The weight of the World has been lifted from my shoulders. I gave LostDad some practical advice. {durr emoticon]

LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 21:32

Well I didn't tell you that you might as well not post on the thread, and in actual fact, it seems that I am the only one on this thread familiar with the Hague Convention and what constitutes Habitual Domicile. I didn't say I felt sorry for your children either.

paolosgirl · 27/07/2008 21:33

No, bitter at your response to LostDad. It wasn't practical advice (although I'm sure you truly believe it was) - it was snide and dismissive, and you came across as bitter.

silverfrog · 27/07/2008 21:39

GreenElizabeth, you are right that there is nothing to equal the mother's close family as support for the mother.

The children are just as entitled to a support network, and they are entitled for this to include their loving, supportive father, who would have been all too happy for them to live with him. In their case, i do not think that grandparents, however loving they may be, can come close to equalling what they have with their father.

LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 21:41

Well, in one post, you have judged me bitter. Happily you are not a very good judge of character. Although how anybody could presume to judge somebody's character from a couple of posts on Mumsnet is beyond me.

I was amused that he thinks his wife "divorced him for no reason". I'll admit, I did find that sadly familiar.

AbbeyA · 27/07/2008 21:46

We can't judge the 'divorce for no reason', but he wants mediation and a post divorce amicable relationship, for the sake of the child. The fact that she is refusing this shows that she in unreasonable IMO.

paolosgirl · 27/07/2008 21:48

And yet you managed to judge LostDad and his situation without any hesitation....

Anyway, let's not digress. Back to the more interesting OP.

Blandmum · 27/07/2008 21:51

Why is it that the very people who keep posting that family support is the best that there can be for the mother, are the same people who are very casual about putting 300 miles between the children and the support of their father?

If the support is needed by an adult, it is possibly needed all the more by children of 8 and 10.

And before someone posts, I am a lone parent, with no family support within 2 hours (fast) drive.

silverfrog · 27/07/2008 21:53

Sadly, MB, it is because when there is a split in a family, all too often, fathers just don't count anymore

I agree, though, it is odd to place the need for family for the mother above the children's needs

lostdad · 27/07/2008 21:54

I think the way you've claimed I said something I didn't says a lot about your viewpoint, LongLiveGreenElizabeth. Then again, I could be reading too much into it (sound familiar? )

I suggest you read my post again. I said without warning' and without saying a word to me'. I didn't say `without reason'.

lostdad · 27/07/2008 21:58

Oh and as for solicitors...used them, got the T-shirt and then sacked them.

I represent myself in court. Best decision I ever made.

LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 22:13

A serious question lostdad, have you a parenting plan already legaly formalised? I think it would be easier to challenge her removing your son from his HD if so. I am fairly sure that if your x moves she would be violating the HC, so you have a good case.

Martianbishop, if that was directed at me (and I'm not sure, so apologies if you are refering to a comment made by another poster that I have missed) I was not casual about putting 300 miles between my children and their father. Every night for 2 yrs, I went to bed worrying about the effect it would have on my children if I left their father. It was like an elephant on my chest, crushing me, I could hardly breath while I worried about their futures but pretended to be asleep. The enormous ten ton weight of that decision made me endure an unimaginably miserable relationship.

But we're all well and happy now TG.

nooka · 27/07/2008 22:14

I suspect much of this depends on what the OP's friend is moving to. I have a lovely family, but they don't all live close together and they all have busy lives. So when things got very tricky with dh and I and we separated, I leant on my family for support. The best support I had came from my brother and big sister, despite the fact they live at least three hours drive away, and I see them pretty rarely. My parents were lovely too, but moving nearer to them would not have made much difference to my day to day life, nor would it in any way have replaced their father for the kids. But maybe if all my family lived within a few streets from each other, provided mutual childcare, and supplied a group of cousins for my children to be friends with etc it would be different.

There is too little information here to know whether the mum is making a sensible decision for both herself and her children. The only thing that is clear is that the children would effectively lose their father, and the father his children.

Blandmum · 27/07/2008 22:14

No, it wasn't directed personally at you. If it had been I would have named you.

LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 22:16

Fwiw, nothing really, just setting the record straight here because people have got the wrong impression, my children's Dad does see them whenever he wants.

Blandmum · 27/07/2008 22:19

The worrying thing is that the father in the OP will not be able to do that.

300 miles, with no home to stay in at the other end will limit him to being an occasional dad instead of the hands on dad the kids are used to. And that is going to be really hard for the kids to cope with

lostdad · 27/07/2008 22:26

No parenting plan, just a court order. That is in place because there has been no discussion, mediation or agreement at all - because she refused from day one. I took her to court in the absence of all of these.

She's moving within juristriction so I can't stop her. He's very young so there is little disruption to his routine. But he is being moved hundreds of miles from his father and all of his paternal family.

Judy1234 · 27/07/2008 22:29

LLG, despite what you posted I still think you did the wrong thing. How would you have felt if your ex took the children away and you were not near them? I don't know why mothers don't think of it from that point of view whether the father pays or not. Money and contacf are separate issues and I write as a single divorced mother of five who has not moved the children away from their father despite him paying nothing and only seeing 2 of them (and then only 2 days a week).

If mothers do do this then I think it's incumbent on them to take on night and wekeend work to pay for the father's fathers, also that they do most of the driving on a regular basis and make the children visit and they set up skype and MSN and web cam links so their children can be in touch every day with their father the mother has so cruelly and morally wrongly deprived them of for her own selfish ends.

The mother's don't seem to consider the father's human right to be near their children. I also by the way feel it is also just as morally wrong for a father to move abroad after divorce. Just as many choose to give up seeing their children as mothers deprive them of it.

Anyway now 3 of mine are at university stage you can see that the longer term relationships are adult ones and childern who love their father can if they choose spend more time then or move near him particularly if they leave home for university.

LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 22:29

What is the distance regarded to be within jurisdiction? It must be very wide..

Is it just "England", regarded as one jurisdiction whether from Cornwall to Berwick-upon-Tweed?

Judy1234 · 27/07/2008 22:31

ld, I thought you could get a prohibited steps order even within the jurisdiction (but that the main problem was as long as the mother says the child adn I will be fine the father's feelings seem to be an irrelevance because the law is wrong).

If someone moved my children I would move right near them actually although I know that's not possible for some absent parents.

LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 22:39

Xenia, I didn't really have the luxury of doing 'the right thing'. I would have loved to have stayed in England. It broke MY heart to leave. The children were the ones who didn't mind. I wasn't married so I had no rights, no money, no pension, no income, no savings,,,,,,, nothing. A lesson learnt the hard way!

I had two choices 1) continue to live in misery with the children's father, 2) go to my parents. I tried to discuss splitting up with him but he wouldn't have it. He actually attacked me the morning I left.

It's very easy for an educated woman who probably owns her own home and has the security of a career and a good income to judge me and tell me I did the wrong thing... but my needs were more basic, more immediate. I needed a roof over my children's heads.

In a perfect World, I would have stayed in England. I didn't plan this.

LongLiveGreenElizabeth · 27/07/2008 22:43

ps Xenia, just in the case of my x and me, not generally speaking, he prioritised his career over his children. He would not move to the country where we now live as "his career would go down the pan". Up to that point, every sacrafice made for parenthood had been my sacrafice, so when we split, it was appropriate that the children came with me.

My x gives his children nothing but he can see them whenever he wants to.

nooka · 27/07/2008 23:28

I suspect without all the facts, from all sides, in these sort of cases it is impossible to judge whether any individual's actions are right or wrong. But I do think an important issue (which often gets lost) is whether the children get to see their fathers whenever they want to. With older children in particular it's not about mum v. dad alone.

When my dh proposed emigrating I was horrified that he would think his own happiness was more important than that of his children. He is a very hands on dad, and for a while was their primary carer, and yet he could not see that his plans would be hugely disruptive to the children's lives, and might cause them real harm. He on the other hand was very upset that I didn't see the opportunities that would be available to the children in the new country, that would make what he thought would be short term pain worthwhile.

I am guessing that the mum in this case is viewing things in the same way as my dh. Only time will tell if she is right, but I do think it a big risk to deprive children of all that is familiar without their full support network of both parents.