How do you make this work?

[financialwizard]

This probably will be long, so I apologise in advance.

My DS is 11. I have been separated, and finally divorced for 10.5 of those years.

In the meantime I have married and had a daughter (2). My husband has a son from a previous relationship (not married) who is 13. Due to my husbands job we have had to live overseas until very recently. During that time we paid for my DS's travel to see his father, and also for my DSS to travel to us including arranging all pick up and drop off for both of the boys in the UK. I have no problem with this as we were the ones that had to move, and therefore should pay for the travel.

We are now back in the UK, and struggling a bit on deciding what to do with regard to contact. We live approximately 2.5hrs away from both our exes, in different directions. My husband wants to pick up his son every other weekend and see him at ours. My exh wants to see our son once a month and wants me to drive down to his to drop our son off and pick him up again the evening of the next day. We simply cannot afford to do this diesel wise. Also, maybe selfishly, that would mean every weekend (opposing weekends)travelling with our 2 year old daughter who we are still carrying a potty around for in the car in case she needs to go to the toilet.

My parents think that I should tell my exh to get lost and that he can pick our son up on a Friday from mine and drop him off on a Sunday, and even though we agreed to reduce his Child Support to half to cover these costs I know he won't do it, and he'll either let our son down or I'll get a call from our son telling me I have to pick him up from his Dad's.

To add to all of this my husband is due to go away soon for a couple of months with work, and next year will be away for a minimum of six months with work, and I will need to get a job as soon as my daughter starts pre-school so will be working full time. Plus when he is away I will continue to pick up my DSS so he can spend time with his DSis.

I should point out as well that my exh is very inconsistent with contact. He is always promising our DS that he will visit and then doesn't, or turns it around to make us do all the travelling. Eg This weekend he is at a match 40 minutes away. He asked DS if he would like to go. My husband said he would take him as he had his son this weekend and he would take his son to the cinema whilst he waited for ours. Exh called last night and said that the match would not be on longer than 90 minutes and that he had to get off straight away, so now my husband and DSS have to spend a good 90 minutes hanging around because there are no films that will start and finish in that time. There have been many times that he has promised to pick him up/phone him that he has reneged on.

Sorry, turned into a bit of a rant.

What would you recommend?

He is torn because he wants to do his 'activities' (he is a very talented Rugby player and in Karate) but his Dad puts a lot of pressure on him (on the telephone/text/email) for him to visit, and to tell us we have to drop him off. Sigh I have told his Dad time and time again but if I went into every detail of what his Dad was like and why I left it would make a long and boring read, but sadly very common on here.

It's a tricky one. Was your ex unhappy about his contact being reduced when your DS went to live in another country, and so feels justified in getting you to "make up" for that now by you doing all the travelling?

I think the only good solution would be a shared arrangement where he does a bit of ferrying and you do a bit of ferrying. Like you do one way and he does the other, or you both meet at a halfway point, or you take it in turns on alternate weekends to do the lot. But I don't know how you can get your ex to agree to that. I guess you just have to state clearly how much travel is possible for you practically and financially (i.e. hopefully roughly half) and then it's clear that if he wants to see his son once a month, he has to be prepared to do some ferrying too. Otherwise it goes back to holiday time arrangements.

I do have one other idea - how much driving would you have to do to get your DS to a train station where he could get a direct train (or at least a train with less than 2 changes one of which is in London) to, or near to, his dad's? Hopefully it would be a lot less than 2.5 hours for you to drop him to such a station, and then he could make the rest of the journey on the train alone, and his dad could pick him up at the other end.

The rail planner often insists on directing you through London at all costs, but if you do a bit of digging you might be able to find some other possibilities.

Is his dad the type to actually be at the other end waiting for the train?

If he's as unreliable as he sounds then I can't see him waiting patiently on some station platform somewhere.

riverboat when we were overseas we did all the travelling to ensure exh maintained a relationship with DS. At times it has felt as though we had 'inconvenienced' him because he has 'had' to have DS (he wanted that amount of contact). I am sure that isn't the case, but that is how it came across to us. We could have been oversensitive at the time though having just driven for 20 hours.

National Rail website isn't playing, but it looks like there is an option for him to go via Northampton with 2 stops from a station 40 minutes from our house. Would need to talk to his Dad though because he can 'never guarantee' to pick him up.

theredhen this is another fear of mine. For DS to get there and for his Dad to be late/forgotten/gotten someone else to pick DS up.

Actually theredhen on more than one occasion DS Dad has called and told me I need to get someone else to meet him the other end (flights).

Well, I think I wouldn't even suggest the train at the moment then.

Ultimately, it's just as much his responsibility as yours to enable contact that's consistent and fair. Don't take on all the responsibility because when it fails, you then end up feeling responsible.

Shame though it is, I think you will have to explain to DS that it's just too difficult to get him to his Dad's every other weekend. You could suggest to both of them that he goes for longer (a week?) in the school holidays instead of going for weekend visits, and that would be less stressful all round.

You've made it clear that whatever compromise you suggest your ex won't agree to, so you either keep on doing what you're doing, or stop.

It will get easier as DS gets older, when he's able to travel by himself - but until then.....

I think you're right. I think I need to start saying no and make exh figure it out.

Personally as you moved, I think your parents suggestion of him collecting and dropping off is very very unreasonable.

Clearly you're DH is in the services, so there will be many more moves and I don't think it's far that your exh should be expected to drive potentially further and further distances to facilitate your DH's career.

SuperScrimper

Actually we are on a static posting until my husband gets out in 3 years now, so the only move we plan to make is into a family home within the next 2 years. When we move it will be slightly nearer to my exh but not by much, and we will still suffer with similar transport issues.

As a matter of interest what is your suggestion to work the travel out? I have never said I want exh to pick him up and drop him off but if you read the whole thread you will realise that my exh is not exactly interested in picking our DS up from anywhere more than 10 minutes down the road. We, as a family, have gone out of our way to 'deliver' and 'pick-up' DS to his fathers over the last few years and now we have a young child ourselves it is taking it's toll.

Yes but you have made the choice where to live, not him. When my friend married someone in the army and moved away she realised that it wasn't fair to ask her ExH to start driving hundreds of miles so she drives back to their home town every other weekend and drops him off and then picks him up.

And I said your parents made that suggestion, which you write yourself in the OP.

Incedientially DH is in the army so we know plenty of people in this situation. One man is driving from North Germany to Denmark every other weekend to collect his daughter. He moved so he feels it's his responsibility. Another drives from Essex to Edinburgh every other weekend. When you decide to move with the army and make your husbands career the priority you cannot suddendly expect other people to make up the slack.

SuperScrimper

When we moved to Germany we drove back at every opportunity to enable DS to see his father. When we moved to Cyprus we paid for DS to fly back (and incidentally DSS to fly to us) at every opportunity. Whilst overseas though we had the money to do it because of LOA and the fact I had a job. Now back in UK we don't have as much disposable cash (no LOA - no job for me)and simply cannot afford to be spending over £300 per month on diesel at the moment.

If we could do it time-wise and financially we would, but we can't.

Actually you can expect others to take up the slack on occasions.

DH's ex moved abroad and took their children with her and her DH. It all went through a court and it was agreed that they would do half the travelling each.

So she brought them to Portsmouth by ferry and we met them there. After the visit to us we then took them back to St Malo and they met us there. Both car journeys either end were about the same.

When they came over for the whole visit and did all the travelling then we paid half the ferry costs.

When they moved back the UK, their mum had the responsibility of bringing them to us and then we did the return journey. So everything was shared.

As the boys got older, the visits got less as they were more involved with activities where their mum lived and we left it to them to agree with DH when they would come down. They tended to come less often but for longer spells which worked better for them.

So i think asking your ex to do some of the travelling is feasible. At the end of the day if he wants to see his son then he needs to show willing sometimes as well. You are doing your best to give your son a stable lifestyle and encourage him to be independent as he grows. And there is nothing wrong with that.