HELP! Stepkid's birthmom might force us to relocate!
my fiance and i both work long hours in manhattan. his ex doesn't work and has a nanny's assistance for 35 hours a week. the divorce proceedings are on-going and custody hasn't been hammered out yet. my fiance's #1 priority is having 50/50 custody so that we can have the kids half of the time (and i'm happy with that -- they are fantastic kids). problem is that his ex has decided that she wants to move to the suburbs so that the children can have a backyard, and my fiance doesn't want to live more than 10 minutes away from the kids. i love my life here, i have a great network of friends and my family lives in manhattan. i really don't want to leave the city. I don't want to commute for an hour each way to get to work -- i will never see my house in the light of day (or, when i have kids -- which is imminent-- i will lose two hours a day with them)! I was raised in the city, and I want to raise my family here, too. My fiance's main priority is access to the kids, at all costs, and although he wants to stay in the city i know that he will give it up if she is able to figure out a way to move (or if she uses it as a bargaining chip in the custody arrangement negotiations). I am getting the feeling that a move is imminent and we are having big fights at home about it (when the kids are not with us) because i am worried about the future. He seems to think that this is just one of those things that we need to adjust to -- i can't understand why we can't arrange a compromise. Has anyone had a similar experience? DOes anyone have suggestions?
Welcome to marrying a man with kids
I don't mean to be cavalier. I was and am in the same situation. My husband made it clear when we were dating that he would follow SD wherever she went, even if that meant leaving the state. So I knew, going into this, that if I married him that was something I would have to accept. I did.
However, it means giving up a lot of other things. I can't live where I want to, I live where I have to. That doesn't mean I can't make the best of things. You will have to decide if following your husband's kids around is worth it. How old are they right now?
Here is what I have done:
* Married husband when SD was 8. He and BM had equal custody (weird every other day schedule that added up to seven out of every 14 days).
* BM re-married when SD was 4 (divorced when SD was 2) but lived less than 10 miles from us. SD went to a private school between the two houses, rather than being in one school district or another.
* When SD was 11, BM decided to move away. She moved an hour from us, still within our state. Claimed husband agreed to let SD move as well, which he did not. They ended up in mediation, and BM agreed to let SD stay with us. (She couldn't demonstrate that her move was a benefit to SD, in that the school districts are no better and her husband still works in the town where we live.)
* At that point, I put my foot down. I was pregnant with first BD and was not going to run around the country following BM. Husband agreed, given that the move unexpectedly caused us to have primary custody of SD. Husband has no desire to live near his ex-wife.
* We moved into a bigger house to accommodate growing family. I chose (on purpose) a house in the same district as SD's school so she wouldn't have to go through losing her mom and changing schools in the same year.
So, as you can see, this is an evolving situation. If your fiance fights her right to make the move, he may get what he wants.
Put Your Foot Down
That is insane, he needs to cut the ties. What if she moves to China, actually my ex sisterinlaw did with her new husband, lol...so that could happen. Seriously, you need to stand firm and you cannot commute that far away or quit your job. I wouldn't fight about it, but I would tell him there is no way you will move and follow his EX!! Sorry but that is the craziest thing and I hope for your sake he does not brainwash you, good luck there.
thanks.
it helps a lot to hear that someone else has dealt with these issues. kids are 4 and 6, and they are in a good public school in nyc right now.
did the every other day custody arrangement work out well for your family? we are thinking through all the permutations right now, and i guess we are concerned that every other day might be too jarring for kids that are so young, even though we like the fact that it means that we'll have them more often, albeit for shorter blocks of time.
i think my fear is that BM will keep moving (or threatening to, and dragging us through mediation) on and on (she hasn't remarried, isn't dating anyone...who knows what the future holds) and we will be forced to follow after her across the country. she is a bit flighty and tends to romanticize what she doesn't have, insists that she hates her life her and will be happy outside of the city because she has (married) friends who made the jump and she looks at their life and covets it... i have trouble imagining why she would be happy outside of a city, alone in a suburb as a single mom without a job or any other way to connect with other people (her friends moved so far that fiance wouldn't be able to commute to work from their towns, so she'd have to relocate somewhere else)... maybe it would work for her and maybe i am just imagining a parade of horribles.
I don't think every other day
I don't think every other day is best for children... But there are arguments for doing alternate weeks... Or tea a couple of days a week at the other parents. I have the opposite problem in that I promised I would never take my daughter away from her father when we separated. So despite the best work being in London, I have to stay two hours away. I'd love to work abroad, give my daughter another cultural experience growing up... But my ex is settled with another child and it wouldn't be fair to take her away from half of her family. No legal requirement to do so, just being considerate to my exes new life... Maybe a conversation with the ex would help settle your fears...
You said yourself you’d be
You said yourself you’d be miserable in the suburbs. Do not let his past errors in judgment dictate your life and future. Also, your future kids are now becoming second class citiZens to his past mistake. Your future kids will have less time with mommy so that their dad can prioritize his other child. Fair?
We had a similar situation
We had a similar situation with my partners ex (and still do to an extent). She threatens every other month or so to move fiv hours away... Sometimes I think she's just testing us, trying to cause friction. I think there is room to compromise (half way), but I also don't think you should worry until she makes a decision (if). We've had this for almost five years now and she still hasn't moved... You can't uproot children every other year and if she does, the courts will side with your stable environment and grant full custody... Especially if you have children too.
Never in a million years
Never in a million years would I allow BMand stepkids to dictate my life like that.
Do what you can to stand your ground- you get a say as well, it's your life and you shouldn't have to be at the whim and mercy of him, his kids and his ex wife.
Why did he get divorced if he's just going to follow his ex wife wherever she wants
Nope, just nope.
Nope, just nope.
Don't be a puppet to anyone. This is your life not your boyfriends ex wife's.
this post is dated 2008
this post is dated 2008
I noticed that earlier.
I noticed that earlier.
Im wondering what she ended up doing
This is the price we pay for
This is the price we pay for tethering ourselves to a spouse -- our decisions cease being solely our own. When that spouse has kids and an ex, you have even less control over your life. You just have to decide what's most important to you: this guy or that city.
I don't think you'll be able to sway this guy from the sounds of it and he might not be able to sway his ex. Maybe he's just not the guy for you.
If I had the good fortune to live in Manhattan, there's no man who could pry me out of it. Men are a dime a dozen. There's only one Big Apple.
I married someone who had reason to stay where we are. Back then, so did I. But then my reason to be here went away. I've been paying the price ever since. Had I known how things would shake out, that I'd be stuck in this place all my life without the thing that used to keep me here, I never would have married him.
Things change. Don't give up the sure thing (the place you love) for something that's just a maybe.