Alienated step children-dilemma

[lastminutewednesday]

We are in a really tricky situation-sorry this long but just wanted to get some perspective if possible from people who aren't in it themselves and who therefore might be able to see the wood for the trees.

A year ago my now Dh's ex wife decided she was moving 52 miles away to move in with her new boyfriend and she was taking his boys (my DSS's 9 and 10 with her).
DH had at that point had them 50/50 since his divorce 2 years prior.
DH attempted to get a prohibited steps order to prevent this. His ex wife made false allegations of drug abuse, domestic violence, stalking and financial control. These were disproven in court but as the ex wife had already purchased her house in the new town and because historically she had worked part time (though is now full time) whereas DH had worked longer hours during their marriage, the court allowed the boys to be moved but awarded us 40% time with them. There was also an extremely flawed cafcass report and a lot of the time in court was spent, from both sides, trying to iron out the issues with it.

The court order meant that we have to take the boys to school on our mornings with them ( a 3 hour round trip) and pick them up half way back on our nights with them.
This is a huge amount of time for us and cost in travel.
The court order also stated that they must continue to play for the football team where we live. The ex wife wanted to enrol them in the team local to them in which her new boyfriend is active. The court said they must continue to play for the side they always had and she must endeavour to bring them on her weekends to play there for a year and then they can choose. She has never done this, and instead enrolled them in the team near her-so they played every other weekend for each side. The football was important to dh-it was 'their thing' and it also meant they would maintain friendships and have some link to where we live and where they grew up still.

During the year that this arrangement has been in place the ex wife has
worked hard to alienate the children from us. Withholding contact for silly reasons,
refusing to Compromise on dates where family events fell on 'her' weekends, refusing to allow them to come to our planned wedding with a years notice, then going mad because they didn't come to our eventual tiny wedding (which was just Dh and I because by that point the stress was too much to do anything else), bad mouthing Dh and I, refusing phone calls and taking DSS1's phone from
Him so we can't call
Him (we go weeks at times without hearing from them), etc etc

Unfortunately the boys have succumbed a bit to this (they don't know any better, and at times they seem quite scared of her). It comes out in the way they speak to DH and the way they behave.

She emailed us last week to say the boys have chosen to stop playing football local to us and want to play for the team near her, so we will need to bring them on both Saturday and Sunday of our weekends. And we will
Need to change our routine of days in the week as training falls on one of them.
Dh and I have already altered our work schedules hugely
To accommodate the current routine. We spend 14 hours in the car a week travelling between places. It costs us about £400 in petrol. This will only increase if we have to take them on weekends too, plus we will have no family time to speak of at all (I have two older DD's that love their step brothers).

The ex wife has said the boys are 'desperate'to play for the team up there and it will ruin their football 'careers' if we don't facilitate this. She has passed that hyperbole onto the boys themselves and so now we are in a no win situation-if we agree to it it will have an awful effect on our family life and finances. If we don't she will
Use to it further turn the boys against their Dad and to a lesser extent me.

We have begun to feel the only solution is for DH to rent a flat near her, live there with the boys on our time with them, and spend the rest of the time home with me. This will be expensive but we will
Save so much on petrol etc and I can go back to work Full time as I won't have to do the long school runs, so will
Be earning more towards it. It's just about doable if we cut anything nice in life out and work like the clappers. It will obliterate our savings.
Dh would also ask for more nights with the boys and Could be involved more with the life they have in the new town-as is we pick them them up and drop them off but it's too far for their friends to come and see them on our weekends etc-and without the link to local football they won't really have friends near us anymore (which is why we wanted it in the first place).

But: This means that we won't be together half the time. We will never get any family time with my girls (after two more years they will be off to uni so I can move to the new town too, but we can't go now as they are doing a levels where we now live and their own dad is here). We will be getting absolutely rinsed on running two houses. DD2 has some mental health issues and it's going to be harder to manage those if I go back to work full time, though her Dad might be able to help. She feels a bit upset that I won't be around over the summer as much as would be at work. (I went self employed a year ago-gig economy stuff that meant i could
Be where was needed for all the kids).

The ex wife will oppose it if we choose to do the two houses and will inevitably make life as hard as possible.

But We either do this, or we lose the boys one way or another.

We just can't decide what to do, and we need to and Quickly as I've been offered a new job that offers a bit of flex which will help-and if we are going to do anything it needs to be asap before school etc starts next year .

Dh and I have both been in bits all weekend.

Had anyone any other suggestions of what we can do or how this might work?
It's so bloody stressful .

You need to go back to court. This is ludicrous and I think a judge would agree. She's just controlling your life in every which way and the children are going to end up being damaged. Apply for a variation asap before you make such a huge commitment and ruin yourselves financially.

I think it makes sense for him to get the apartment. You need to stay put for your girls. Hopefully he could get 50/50 again and be there for a week then back with you for a week.

It isn't the boys that are being difficult but it is them and your DH who will lose out if he just lets her win and stops seeing the boys. Their resentment will grow if their contact with him is miserable due to the distance from friends / activiites and that will only grow as they age.

It is a massive sacrifice for him but that is the reality of life. Sometimes parents have to make big sacrifices for their kids (especially when there is a difficult adult involved). This way too it gives him more power as she isn't winning and he is able to keep bonding with his kids. If he doesn't do this and just gives up contact , won't he be miserable anyways?

DH has a meeting with a solicitor this afternoon to see what they advise.

It just seems we have to choose between living together all the time with financial stability and some family time but increasingly resentful alienated boys who will eventually choose not to come, or having the chance of maintaining a decent relationship with the boys at huge cost financially and to our lives, and there is nothing in between.

Don’t do this.

Go back to court

Go for a more realistic contact schedule

It just isn’t worth the drama and hassle

The woman won’t change and that’s because you can’t change other people only your reaction to them

Moving closer will not change this woman or her hatred towards you both.

To be the bigger people you need to look beyond your own wants here.

Go for weekend contact and school holidays, go for Christmas Day you get to collect at 3pm and they sleepover

Birthdays should also be agreed by the court and any other minute detail

@Freefall212 yes exactly. He is miserable because of the way his relationship with them is already going south-and we can stick out the living apart for two years at a push, shitty as it will be.

That is all fair enough OP but you don't seem to be grasping the fact that things will not change. You would literally be throwing money away. You do you but no way would another woman ever dictate my life to this extent. He needs to go back to court. It isn't working. She will not suddenly change her tune if he gets a property closer, in fact she will definitely mess with contact to teach him a lesson. No its not fair but its the reality. This is the mother of his children amd this is how she wants to be.

As everyone else has said, you need to go back to court and figure out a better schedule. You get longer in the holidays or something. That drive all the time is ridiculous for both you and the boys.

Don’t get a second place. You’ll throw away so much money and she’ll find other ways to mess him around. She won’t change.

If you push ahead with the property then he def needs to go to court before he goes ahead. She will withhold contact so get something watertight written down so it's not a waste of time and money.

But can she though? If he has then more 50/50, drops them at school and picks them up?
The times she has withheld contact over the last year, she has managed todo so because on our nights she picks them up from school (well they get a taxi back actually but that's a different story) and she drops them half way back to ours. She uses that time to message us to say one is tired or unwell (unspecified how) and so it's better he stays with her-then usually just drops one of them off. By the time she has let us know we are usually half way to pick up.
If Dh is getting them direct from school the chances of her messing with contact are surely decreased?
I mean I know she will still be in their ears all the time but surely the more involved DH is with them the less that will affect them? Or is it really just a lost cause?

Could he rent an airbnb or something and give it a trial run for a couple months before you commit to buying something? He also needs to go back to court as well but could rent until court gives him a 50/50 order.

Is there a train or coach service to their mum's village? Although they seem young some kids at their age are old enough to catch the train or coach and there will be two of them.

We were only ever going to rent for these two years anyway-we woudnt get a second mortgage.

There is a fast train between the two towns but they are a bit young yet for it, and they would have to get from the town centre to the suburbs where their two separate schools are-it might have worked in s few years time but it won't help us for the next two years unfortunately.

This is an inevitable outcome OP. Of course they’re not going to want to do a ninety minute commute before and after school, and of course they’ll want to play football with their school friends.

I feel for you because it’s a shit situation entirely of your husband’s ex’s creation, but the safest thing to do is drop the midweeks and go for EOW and half the holidays. The boys will have to play for two teams (sell it as boosting their skills because they can be adaptable and learn from two coaches). When they’re 13, they’ll probably start dropping weekends and that’s the time to consider a house move, if it suits your DDs too.

We did suggest that they continue to play for both teams. It's worked fine for the last year. Their mum has told them it's impossible and as the team they play for near us is 'rubbish' (it isn't) it will harm their 'football careers' if they don't play every week up there. So now they are dead set against playing down here and annoyed that we have said we might not be able to take them up there on our weekends to play.

We suggested we pick a new team between our two houses as a compromise to make it easier for both families on their weekend, but she said no-it has to be her local one (because her boyfriend played once for their senior team and tells everyone he was a pro footballer-even though it's non league and he didn't get paid but he's basically the ace face there by all accounts).

Personally I do not think its a lost cause, yes it will be a battle for another few years but it always is when there's an ex determined to cause ructions. Where I think your husband and you have gone wrong is pandering to it. I know your DH wants as much access as possible, he sounds like a brilliant father BUT you cannot let someone dictate to you like this. She will not stop, especially if he gives in and gets a place, she will just up the ante. If she can't mess with the access due to DH picking straight up from school she will try something else. Play her at her own game. Sit the boys down and say you want them to be happy so will just have them eow to see how it goes, stress that mum thinks this will be for the best. Tell her you are going to do this. Take the bloody wind out of her sails. She will always push and push but your DH needs to try to take back a little bit of control. It isn't working now is it? Because when you give in and do what she wants she moves the goalposts.
I hope your DH appreciates you because the second home wouldn't be an option in this house. No way would money or a parents time be taken from the rest of the family so we would come up with another plan. I feel for your DH but he is fighting a losing battle. He needs to remain consistent and honest with his boys not pander to their mother.

With all due respect you are just as petty as they are.

Stick to your plan then and see how far it gets you

The football thing is not as important to these kids as you think it is

How is it petty to want to maintain involvement and a relationship with your own children? It's not about point scoring against the ex wife-we don't gain anything and she doesn't lose anything here.
Football is very important to the boys. Even more so now they have been whipped up by their mum to believe we will be preventing them from having premiership careers if we don't facilitate them playing week in week out for the club she has picked. I get that from an adult perspective it's not a big deal. But to a 9 year old it is.

And it's not just about that-it's about being in their lives. If you don't have involvement in school, their friends, their sport what binds you? What do you talk about? It makes it really hard to maintain even a previously very close bond.

Some people on the thread seem to be more focused on trying to stick it to the ex...but at the expense of the boys having a father. I don't quite get that perspective.

What a challenging situation OP. I hope you are able to get some legal help to figure out best next steps.

This!

So what if she has convinced them they’re going to be premier league players!

It is absolutely stupid to make them play for two teams and you are lucky that their current teams tolerate this

If you want to be involved to the extent you have described then it’s simple - move your family there

otherwise accept that being separated means just that and including from your children

You wanted 50/50 and you got it. She moved and the judge allowed it.

once the boys are teenagers they will lose interest in being away from their friends they won’t want to come all the time and rightly so. Kids need a solid base not to spend hours travelling each week.

Your proposal seems sensible OP. I think you’re being very considerate to your DHs relationship with DSSs. If he can rent somewhere asap then she stops hold all the cards. You can always get the fast train to visit them too so you aren’t missing everything.

Thanks @quitelikeit. Helpful. I hope that if you have children, your spouse decides they want out of your marriage and then decides apropo of nothing to move them away from you, you will be as accepting as you are suggesting DH be of playing a very reduced part in their lives going forwards.

Look you sound quite defensive about this, but this is the reality for a lot of separated parents. You don't need to be sarcastic about the possibility of there being a limit to how much stress and sacrifice you can take.

And it's not just about that-it's about being in their lives. If you don't have involvement in school, their friends, their sport what binds you? What do you talk about? It makes it really hard to maintain even a previously very close bond.

This is what it's like for EOW parents. You make it work, you can still bond. We don't have involvement with any of those things with DSS, really, we just talk to him about them.

Your OP made it sound like your life was pretty miserable because of this, not to mention that of your DC. If you would literally run yourself into the ground just to support your DP having 50/50 contact at all costs that's your choice, but it doesn't sound worth it to me.

Well each to their own I suppose. But as a person who got divorced myself I wouldn't have been happy to go from being an active parent to accepting seeing my kids 4 days a month EOW just because my exh had an affair, and then decided to move 50 miles away. And as those kids Mum, I would never have done that to him in return either, no matter how I felt about him personally.

I think it's really important that children see plenty of both their parents and I think it's worth the effort to do that. As does my Dh. And indeed my exh with our two DD's.

If I'm defensive about it it's because I'm watching DH who I care about, go through it. And it's obviously impacts the rest of us in numerous negative ways whichever way we end up going.