Moving date is coming up but we still don't know what city we're moving to.

enette

New member
Tldr: ex refused to talk about moving until it was important to him and now I'm trying to figure out if I should just move and let him get angry.

My ex and I separated in 2020 and I initiated the separation. For the most part it was ok but I did feel like shit for being the one to break up our family. Now, we have a decent co-parenting relationship and I'm trying not to mess it up. We do have a custody order in place in regards to how our girls split their time and it's 1 week with me 1 week with him.

I have a new partner (J) and my ex (X) has a new partner (K). By some crazy coincidence both of our new partners live 4-5 hours north of us so we decided to move there, however our partners still live about 2 hours away from each other so we've been trying to come up with a middle ground.

J needs to stay within one hour of City A because he has a kid there with whom he also shares custody. He's willing to do a max of one hour because he does take him to school so we can't be super far. K is willing to move closer.

I refuse to move my girls during the middle of the school year so it has to happen during the summer. I tried talking to X and K about the idea of moving since Oct of last year but they said they weren't ready and still working on navigating their relationship to talk about moving. Fair enough, I backed off. They got engaged in January and set their destination wedding date for end of June of this year. Suddenly they're pushing on moving because they can't be married and living apart. Oookkk fine, we start talking about cities but they don't like City A for personal reasons. Fine. I ask for a list of cities within the hour radius so that I can look with J. They have not provided the list because apparently K's ex is applying to different universities in the area so they want to wait for him to get accepted so that they can find a place closer to him. Universities take for-freaking-ever to tell you if you got the job for the upcoming semester. X worked in a university for a while and sometimes he didn't know until the month before whether or not he would be returning that semester.

initially I had told them I needed the cities by April so that J and I could start looking. When I visit him it's only on the weekends and every other weekend or so because it's expensive to drive up there for only 2 days. X works from home so he's able to spend the week when he doesn't have the girls so they've had more time to explore. But they keep insisting we have to wait for K's ex to get the job so I relented to wait until May 21 and that's really pushing it because they won't need to get a place until they come back from their honeymoon in mid July. J and I had been hoping to get a place by June 1 so that we could have time to get settled before getting the girls for 3 weeks while they were on honeymoon. Also, J and I will be traveling to their wedding country for 4 days to pick up the girls so that they can enjoy their honeymoon (we aren't going to the wedding, we're going to a different city they will be traveling through to get to their honeymoon destination to do the switch.) X was trying to get the girls to come back with a friend or family but nobody wants to come back quickly, they also want to take advantage of the trip for themselves which is understandable so I said I would go because they're my girls and I wanted to help them out so they could enjoy their time without kids, his or hers.

Now, I own a home and had been planning on leaving it to my parents which they were on board with. However, it's become clear that they wouldn't be able to afford the payments and my mom doesn't even like the area after all so she wants to leave. We're behind on payments so we need to just sell it but the houses in our area only stay on the market for 1-2 weeks before they're sold. This means I would need to find somewhere to stay until school is over June 8 which is something I can do. But when I brought it up to X that we really needed to decide on a city before so that I could find a place to live because of these changed circumstances, he just said no we have to wait. He did offer his apartment in the intermediary but he's refusing to think about the fact that neither I nor his girls will have somewhere to stay once school ends unless we by some miracle find and get accepted to rent a place by June 8 and if we could start looking now, I'm sure we could find something but he refuses to talk about what city to move to until May 21 which makes the June 8 deadline more unrealistic.

J and the friends I've talked to about this tell me to just move forward with moving into City A since he's already planning on moving in that general area anyway so it's not like I'm taking the girls away. I honestly really want to do this because K's ex has a car so he can visit his kid when he has time the way he does now. Their kid is always with K and Dad only visits because he currently lives 2 hours away so it's really annoying that now they want to stay close to him and are forcing us to wait until he gets accepted somewhere. I'm also feeling frustrated because now I have the added pressure of the house being sold, the girls are with me half the time so I need a place for them and I can't make a plan to move because they won't give me a list of cities!

What would you do??? Move to City A and deal with a co-parenting relationship potentially going sour because they wouldn't decide and now it's rushed because of their wedding date and her ex. Or just wait it out until May 21 when they agreed to give me the cities even though that means I'll probably end up having to stay in a hotel until we get a place?? Or something else???????? Please ideas anyone because my partner and I are frustrated that we can't start looking and I'm just angry that once again X's unwillingness to plan ahead until it's important to him is affecting me.
 
@enette Why does X get to make the rules? It sounds like X is already making everything sour and it seems like you’ve changed your shit for them quite a few times. How many more times will X change the date and get away with it? You’re bending over backwards to help them.

Personally, if I was legally allowed to move and take the girls with me… if that’s something the girls were on board with… then that’s what I would do. Like you said, you’re not taking them away from him. And during trade off’s, it sounds like you’ll possibly just have to meet halfway between old city and new city.

Oh… fuck X. It’s not cool to just hold information. That’s bullshit.
 
@nbffan That's the main reason that my partner and friends give me to just move as well. The girls are excited about moving actually. I've always encouraged them to try new things and they see this as a new exciting adventure.

I'll be talking to a lawyer legally to get a clear answer on whether or not I can move without repercussions. Thank you
 
@enette You’re welcome.

Definitely don’t hold me to this, but as far as I know you just can’t take them out of state without figuring it out with X. At least that’s what is in my court order/state. Again, I’m not 100% on that.

So, to me, if you’re able to move with them legally, the fact that they are so excited is the number one thing that would personally settle it for me. I’d be moving. I’d be giving my girls that adventure they see it as.
 
@enette Can’t you sell your house with a closing date in June? It’s already mid April.

If I were you I would just move to city A.

You have to give dad your notice of moving and you are already cutting it close. It’s really not fair to your boyfriends kids to have a 2 hour back and forth commute to school. If he’s ex was to fight this she would likely win and your boyfriend would end up with drastically less parenting time.

Do what you need to do and then dad can figure out what he’s doing.

There are way too many people involved in this to plan it out perfectly, and there’s no way everyone is going to be happy.
 
@heavensvoice I'm not sure if I can wait until then just because we are already behind on payments. Honestly this just really threw a wrench into our previous plans because I wasn't planning on selling at all but this just came up so now I have to figure out what to do.

Yes, I'm definitely grateful that my partner is willing to have the 1 hour radius but now that X is dragging his feet about this I really want to just move and he can figure it out after. I did set up a legal consultation to see if there would be any kind of blow back if I just move and I'll just take it from there.
 
@enette I would make it clear in your legal consult that dad had already given you notice he is moving out of your child’s current residential area after his wedding.

He’s already notified you he is moving.

If you have anything in writing showing he’s agreed to you moving as well you should be good to go.
 
@enette Are you in the us? If so and you move without permission it could cost you custody. I would stay put. If the other parent moves, fine then I would start looking. I wouldn’t risk custody over a relationship though. How old are these kids? It’s only been three years and they are about to have new partners in both homes and move to a new area? I’d get them in therapy, it’s an incredible amount of change
 
@walkerdavis She has permission to move. She just hasn’t been told where her ex is moving. It sounds like she has more than enough documentation to show that her ex is aware of this and in agreement.
 
@walkerdavis Exactly. So I have a county to move to but not the city. And the county we're moving to is relatively small so either way we'd only be up to an hour away from each other even if we went to opposite ends of the county. I highly doubt he would change his mind because his fiance doesn't want to leave that area but it would definitely put a strain on our co-parenting relationship if I move without his final input.
 
@walkerdavis I am in the US and that is my biggest fear in regards to custody. The only reason I'm even considering moving before he gives me cities is because we already are in agreement to move to the same city. That's why I was waiting for him to give me a list but they keep pushing the dates and it's not a rush for them because they won't need to move until mid-late July. I want to move in June so that I have the summer to get the girls in activities and hopefully make some friends before school.

As for my kids, they're 5 and 10 and so far doing well. I was worried about all the changes and I will be getting them into therapy once we're settled. I didn't want to have that be another change, starting with one therapist and then having to go through everything again with a new person. My little one does still occasionally make comments about their dad and I getting back together and that's another reason I don't want to mess up the co-parenting relationship but when i talk to her about my new partner and his partner, both girls seem very happy and they do express excitement about moving. My older one was worried about losing her friends here but we'll still be able to drive back for parties or long weekends and she connects with them on the phone so that helped ease some of that fear.
 
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