emotional blackmail by ex husband

[Curlyred76]

My son is 15 and has lived with me his whole life. Me and his dad split when he was 2 and I remarried when he was 4. My other half is a serving military personnel and we have been posted 200 miles away. My ex wants my son to move in with him - he has not lived with him or stayed more than 3 days since he was 2. Because he says im being selfish making him move that far away. He already lives an hour away and he sees him as agreed every 3 weeks, I’ve said I will continue with arrangement wherever we live but my son has come home from his visit to dads in such a state. His father has started the mud slinging about me and my husband. I just don’t know what to do.

How long til the move? Stop contact until you have moved, see a solicitor about getting a residence order.

Beginning of next year. I was worried about the whole stopping contact thing because he has caused problems before I.e stopped paying maintenance and csa took him to court. Would they look at me in a different light - the courts I mean - if I stopped contact?

If it went to court, your son’s wishes would be taken into account (regardless of the financial side)

How will the move affect journey time to his Dad’s house?

What does your son want to do?

It will make a difference to CSA straight away because you moved. They will take that into consideration.

All of that aside your soon is old enough to decide what he wants. Had he said how he feels?

What does your son want? At 15 this is crucial. Is he going to have to move in the middle of his GCSEs?
You need to talk to your son that it isn't his responsibility to keep his father happy. In fact at 15 he can decide not to see his father and the courts would accept his decision. And contact should have nothing to do with child support (it is not pay per view).
You might want his school to give him some support - maybe he could see a counsellor there to talk through his feelings about it all? Or do the military offer any support?

We will be a 3 hour drive away from his dads - however, he doesn’t do any of the pick up drop offs now and we only live an hour away. I do both drop off and pick up and have said I would continue this on the same 3 weekly intervals so the distance is of no relevance really cause he doesn’t do it now! He doesn’t pay through csa, it’s a private arrangement now so that he didn’t have to pay csa fee’s but he stops the standing order whenever he feels like it and I have to go back to csa to chase him. It’s been like this for the last 12 years. I’ve just about had enough

Sorry I forgot to say that my son has continually told him that he wants to go with us but Dad doesn’t/won’t listen and says I’m selfish by moving.

Far as i would be concerned that would be end of discussion. Your son gets to choose nobody else. Make it clear to ex or tell him to go to court...he'd still get the same answer

First of all the cms operate a direct pay system so you can arrange the amount etc through them and they take no fees. If he doesnt pay they can then escalate to a collect and pay where he would pay 20% on top of the amount to you and you would pay 4%. Depends if he's paying you what they advise he pays or more or less.

Secondly the courts would take your sons feelings and wants into consideration. He's old enough to make that decision himself. He needs to be firm with your dad with what He wants. It's about yours sons time with his dad not the other way round.

It is fine if you DS is happy, otherwise I would agree it is a selfish time to move - I wouldn't uproot my DD as such a critical age for exams. Could you stay put and then move to join your partner when your DS has finished his exams?

Entirely up to your ds. No court would force him to live with with his father at 15, unless he has SN.

That said year 10 or 11 it is a pretty dreadful time to move educationally and I'd defer for that reason alone.

Using emotional /financial black mail on your ds by exh will be looked upon less favourably by a judge than stopping contact.
He is messing with his head and you are entitled to act.

At 15 your DS' views are paramount. Nobody will force him to live with his DF if he doesn't want to.

Moving at 15 is tricky though. Is he going to be able to do exactly the same GCSEs with exactly the same syllabuses in his new school?

This may be the time to negotiate a new visit schedule. Although you say you are happy to continue driving your DS back and forth, I can't imagine many teenagers will go along with 6 hours of their weekend being spent sitting in a car. At 15 - 18 girls, parties and friends will become increasingly important and your DS will need to juggle that with his school work, coursework and exams.

Does your XH take DS on holidays? Perhaps he could do that a couple of times a year? Or perhaps he could come to where you are going to be living half of the time to see DS?

Even if you weren't moving, things would likely have to change purely because of DS' age.

there’s a lot of hostility to the father on this thread which is nt helpful. The op say her son wants to live with his father,and to be fair to the father moving hundreds of miles and stopping contact is unfair