Moving 80 miles Away With Child From Ex?

[Notanotherchange]

Hi Everyone,

just wondering what your experiences are. Currently living in a big city, it’s expensive! I would like to move back to my home town. I can buy a house there, and my parents etc are there. It’s about 80 miles. Can get back to the city by train in 1hr 10 mins. I work from
home with the odd meeting in the city so can commute.

noy sure my ex is going to agree to this. Have 1 DC with him who is 16 months. I would not prevent contact. Anyone have any experiences or insights?

How often does the other parent have DC ?

I think you are right that they are unlikely to agree. 80 miles is not the other side of town.

Are you going to to consult with them or just do it ?

I guess you need to consider how you would feel if roles were reversed.

How involved is you ex? If you are going to move that far away I would suggest that you come up with a visitation plan that involves you driving your daughter to ex/ meeting part way.

I did, all be it 8 years ago when my DC were 1,2 and 7. I moved 200 miles to my home town, brother, sister and parents were there as I had no support where I was living. Exh did not argue as solicitors had told him that he couldn't really block it as he only wanted every other weekend contact and the fact that I had family where I was moving. We meet halfway eow still, it's a pain but I do it for the DC. Be prepared for him to contest if he sees child during the week and also be prepared for having to do all the travel, as you would be the one moving. (I obviously don't know if things have changed due to child access since my divorce). Being able to get back to the city in just over 1 hr is a positive, it's a 3.5 HR trip for mine.

What kind of contact does he have and what kind of contact would you be able to offer if you moved?

In all honesty, if I was in his position, I would fight this as much as I could if I wanted to be an involved parent in my childs life

Even if you manage to make contact work whilst lo is small, I wouldn't want to be 80 miles away from a school aged child as once they get older, keeping contact regular when distance is involved is tricky when they have school, friends, social lives and activities.

Well it’s tricky we have only just split. We didn’t live together just a brief spell of 2 months. Now I’m back at work he would come over at weekends and stay Saturday night.

baby has been with me 24/7 I’ve done it all pretty much without him, while on mat leave I’d pop by his house most days for a few hours.

prob is if I stay here I’ll have to rent and we need more space which isn’t affordable.

I know it’s not ideal, but we’d have a better standard of life back home, I’d also have more support.

I moved 85 miles home.

Ex had not been involved more than bouncing DS on his knee for the occasional hour. We moved 85 miles home when DS was two. I'd spent a year looking for work in the horrible area ex lived in and found nothing. So I applied for jobs in my home area, got the second one I applied for, and then told him I needed to move for work.

Ex drives to see DS most Sundays which takes 1hr, 20 mins each way.

He grumbled at first but I pointed out that I spend more time than that on the nursery run every week. That he could have DS full time if he wanted, meaning he would have to alter his hours, curtail his career, stay at home every night, give up tennis, give up going to the pub, change nappies, feed DS, bathe DS, stay sober and generally put his child before himself.

Haven't had a peep out of him since. That was 14 years ago 🙂

would he not take the lo back to his place at his weekend?

Sounds like you've got really good reasons to move back.

I think go for it.

He might try to stop you through court but with your support network there and the journey only being 1hr 10 mins, I don't know if he'd have that much of a case.

my plan would be DC could go to his every other weekend and extended time in school holidays. Also if he wanted to come up at other times and visit bit a problem. He could also come up and view schools and things.

I think you should go for it OP.

You will need a support network, and security of tenure which you will have. You are hardly proposing a move to the Outer Hebrides. Your ex can drive so it's no great hardship. If he was doing half of childcare, it would involve more than two and a half hours a week.

well I guess I’ll have to see what happens. He’s already been threatening court so any big change won’t be easy.

Take some legal advice. They'll probably lean towards telling you the worst that can happen, but may put your mind at ease.

And if the former, they can advise on how best to achieve what you want. You might want to start preparing the supporting evidence in case he does challenge the move: spend lots of time with your parents building up the bond, etc.

How will ur child feel when they're older? That's the question you need to ask yourself, and if you feel they will understand, then fair enough, but it's the you'll have to justify the decision to when they're older

Have you communicated this with your ex?

Not as far, but I've moved out of the city we started our family in. It's about 35min drive in a good run, but still a lot more travelling than if up the road.

When I proposed my move, I basically laid out the idea, the rationale, how I saw it working and showed that I'd thought ahead too, to school and teenage life. We dint know yet what will come when they're older, but it is working. We do 50/50 so it's a lot of tooing and froing but they just get on with it. What helps is developing friends on either side, so when the social life becomes important in tween and teen years, they get it in both places and can manage it. So my kids make arrangements according to where they are.

The train, make things as accessible as possible. Like the train, when they're old enough to take it themselves, are you close to the station etc. Future proof as much as you can.

All this is said though with a cooperative ex. He knew how sad I was that I couldn't go "home" as that's a plane and then some, so agreeing to this was a compromise.

If he usually only sees her when he stays one night a week, this could quite easily translate to every other weekend for 2 nights, at his house (or your new house if you're willing but that is unlikely to work when one of you gets a new relationship).
You are doing it alone so you need to go where your support system is.
I personally don't think you should tell him
Until last minute if you think there is a chance he would go to court to stop you moving. If you do move, they could either order you to move back (unlikely if your job and baby's childcare is in the new location) or order the baby to go and live with dad (but extremely unlikely as they've never lived together). Worse case scenario is that you'd be the one doing the travel every other weekend.

Your angle here is the support element. He needs to see that it's not you punishing him with some kind of agenda. That really, for you and your child to thrive, you need more support around you.