Am I wrong for wanting to move in with my partner?

[Skyeblue91]

I was married for 10 years and we have two boys together. We divorced several several years ago and the boys are 13 and 16.
i now have a serious relationship with a woman that lives 4 hours away.
my ex husband is married and stays in a city near by.
me and my kids live with my grandmother.
i brought up wanting to move in with my partner and you would have thought the roof caved in.
i said the boys had two options, live with me or their dad.
neither one of them want to live with their dad they want to stay at my grandmothers. Since we’ve been there all these years.
but now I’m being told that I don’t love my children enough to be around them anymore. I’m being told that my happiness doesn’t matter. My youngest told me he hates me because I want to do this. Can someone PLEASE give me your opinion. I’m back into a corner.

I wouldn't want to sell my house and have to find a new, likely lower paying job moving 4 hours away to be with someone and their two teen boys, and i doubt OP's girlfriend does either.
Absolutely the kids need to come first until they have both finished secondary school. They don't want to move and don't want to live with the shit parent, you made a commitment to them, their wellbeing and best interests when you chose to have them, so you need to suck it up, stay put, and either GF moves to you, it stays long distance til the kids finish school, or you split up.

My ex lives entirely according to his own needs too, which is why we divorced.

Don’t be the kind of parent to your kids that your ex was like as a partner to you. Families survive and thrive when the adults are committed to thinking as a family first, individuals second.

He's doing everything except moving 4 hours away from his children. Get a hold of yourself.

Can you put yourself in your kids shoes for a minute? They must feel like they are nobodies priority. I jist thibk once we are parents that has to come first. And I get its a pain in some ways. But yes their happiness and needs are whats important especially at 13 and 16 which are such fragile ages. I expect its a huge blow to their self worth and self esteem being told yoi can live with me and give up everything you know or your dad who they hardly spend time with. I wouldn't have felt very loved and cared about if Id been told that at that age. I think you have a lot of repair work to do now. If yoir partner really loves you, they will help you to love and prioritise yoir kids. Not encourage you to abandon them and make them feel they dont matter.
I dont know how anyone would think that was OK.

You are not wrong to want happiness but you would be wrong to uproot your children’s lives just so you can live with your partner. Your happiness is not more important than theirs. Your current attitude is very selfish and not in line with being a good mother.

If living together is so important, then your partner should move. It’s her relationship, not your children’s, so why do you think they should make the sacrifice over her? So what if sh has to sell and take a pay cut?

Your poor boys

This

This genuinely has the potential to ruin your relationship with your kids, your own flesh and blood, why would you do that? It makes you sound like a love struck teenager and not someone who has commitments to their kids. They’re teenagers so all you have to do is wait a few years then you can do whatever you like. But right now your teenagers need your support and not to be palmed off with someone else so mum can go live her own life. They should genuinely be your priority, not your girlfriend

I get that you’d like to do that but realistically it’s very unfair to the kids who would lose everything and gain nothing. It won’t bode well and it may well ruin your relationship forever as they are unlikely to ever forgive you for taking them away from their, grandmother, dad and friends.

Define serious relationship - have you met, how often do you see each other, how long have you been dating?

Of course you can't uproot your children like this. What happens if it goes wrong? Have your children even met her?

I’m not saying I agree with the OP but this is once again putting ALL the parental responsibility and moral obligations onto the mother while the father is off leading whatever life he chooses with merely a shrug and a ‘you know what men are like’ eye roll from most people. He sees his kids ONCE a week and can be guaranteed to write them off if they were to move 4 hours away - which ppl have acknowledged by accusing the OP of preventing her kids from seeing their father if she moves. What’s preventing HIM from seeing the kids he brought into this world and presumably loves? He thought nothing of them when he married and started living with someone after he split with their mother. Didn’t disrupt his plans for a second, other than when he visits them ONCE a bloody week. But this set up is tolerated by our society bc - ooh men 🤷‍♀️ what can you do?

You are incredibly selfish to even consider this. Your poor DC. I feel so sorry for them.

I don’t think I care much about a useless dad seeing them maybe once a week, but moving the kids 4 hours away is no small thing for them and I’m not surprised they are up in arms. I’d hold off.

Your wants and desires are unreasonable. 13 & 16 are some of the most difficult years. Yes you are able to have a relationship but I'm afraid you are being selfish and not seeing how this will play out. Wait until they're at university.
You've just told them they are secondary in your life and if your girlfriend truly loves you she'll understand.

I have boys around this age and moved 1/2 hr away because one of them goes to school 1/2 hr away. The other chose to stay with his dad full time as that's where his school/life is.
It's awful but it's only 1/2hr away and I spend hours some weeks driving backwards and forwards to spend as much time with him as possible.
Put your kids first. I say this as a mother in a long distance relationship and my partner fully supports putting my kids first- it's really tough but in a few years the kids will be at uni and I can move wherever I want to.

You’ve not done a poll but you are being unreasonable. You need to wait til your youngest has left school to move 4 hours away or you ask your mum to be there guardian.

this isn’t about you starting a new relationship, good for you, this is that you are willing to put them above your two children’s wellbeing.

Asking you children to choose like that is cruel, and it’s not a competition between you and their dad who can give them the most unstable life. What you’ve already done will have an affect on Them, never mind actually moving away.

Yes, you are wrong. Your children come WAY before any relationship you want to have that involves uprooting your children. They need stability and their friends and their school.

If she lives 4 hours away how well do you even know each other? Going from that to moving in together, with children? It feels like you've missed a few steps.

And I'm gobsmacked that you'd rather uproot your children than put your partner through any inconvenience. Those kids must be feeling really unloved right now.

You can’t see at all why they’d be against this? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to live with your partner, and of course your happiness matters, but your children and their needs come first.

Whats the rush? Wait until they’re moved out and then you can live together. You can’t suggest uprooting their lives and all they know in their crucial school years and expect them to be fine with it.

I’ve always listened to my dc on big life changes. When I melt dh after a few years of dating we discussed moving in. I checked kids were ok with that. When we decided we needed a bigger house we wanted to move a hour away dc didn’t want to as their dad lived in the same villiage so we didn’t. We discussed the possibility of a sibling.
They didn’t ask for any of it I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing it if they didn’t want to.
Can you continue as you are until your dc are older?

Put your kids first

You can't drag your children 4 hours away for your relationship. And to just dismiss their feelings with "you can come with me or live with your dad" is vile. Poor kids must feel so unwanted

Just because their dad is crap, doesn't mean you should be as well.

If this woman really is a keeper, wait until your kids have their own lives before making such a huge move.

Look into using the money you were going to use to move 4hours away to renting/buying a home close to your grandmother with your kids and give them some stability

It doesn't SOUND selfish. It IS selfish.

You have zero clue if this relationship will even work long term.

You are willing to hurt your children, that you claim to love so much, so you can go shack up with a new DP.

I feel so bad for your children. They deserve so much better. I think you know this as that is why you haven't been back.

Sorry OP in this scenario you are going to have to wait until your boys are older.
I'm in a similar position. I have similar aged DC and have no plans to live with my partner for several years. There is no way I would uproot them from schools, family etc.
My partner understands and he's looking at moving closer to me.
DC should always be the priority.
I know it seems unfair that exH can do what he wants but that's we signed up to when we became mothers.

Not anything close to the same. The father may be a twat waffle and a lousy dad, but he did NOT move four hours away from his children, as OP wishes to do. He stayed close.

OP can stay close to her DC and do whatever she wants when they leave home.