Problems with my ex - help please? (sorry long)

missimaxo

My ex husband and I seperated around 4 years ago, and when we seperated we signed a aeperation agreement done by a solicitor stating that he would pay me maintenance as per the CSA guidelines and I would allow him access to our daughter. Over the past 4 years he has had her every other weekend (fri - sun) and one evening per week.

I divorced him last year 2 years after the seperation agreement was signed. Neither of us used a solicitor and it was a simple divorce. I believe he had to sign something about our daughter, but I can't remember what. In the end I got my decree absolut, but there was no court order about either custody or access rights.

I currently live 3/4 hour drive from him, but due to lack of family support where I live, I would like to move to Doncaster, which would mean we were 1 - 11/2 hours from his house.

Last weekend he began moaning that I didn't do 50% of the picking up/ dropping off of our daughter. Our agreement has always been that one would take her and the other pick up. Most of the time he picks her up on friday, I pick her up from his house on sunday. On wednesday evenings, he drives to where we live, takes her out for a couple of hours and then brings her back for bed time. In the past few months she has been invited to loads of kids parties, some have fallen on "my weekends" and some on his. Before agreeing she can go, I always check he is willling to take her as they are always near our house. His moaning set off an arguement, and I ended up telling him that our long term plan was to move to Doncaster. He then said, its not just up to me, and he will fight me all the way. It was bad enough I moved to where I live now, and if I move to Doncaster, he will fight me to stop me and withdraw maintenace payments.

Can he stop me from moving? If he stops maintenace I presume I can chase him through the courts/ CSA. He is angry at the moment anyway as I am getting married again in Feb, but I don't think we can carry on living where we do now long term.

Can anyone advise me or help?

Thanks

piper5

i dont think he can stop you from moving, its your rights where you live. with regards to the csa and maintenance, why should that stop his payments? just because you are moving away, and come on lets face it, its not like you are moving down south, or hundreds of miles away, doesnt mean he has stopped being her father!!
hopefully he will cool off, and come to his senses, and reason with the decision you wish to make!!
take care
piper5xx

Scarlett1

missimaxo your ex cannot stop you from moving so dont put your plans on hold regarding moving on with your future new husband, if he threatens to withhold maintenance then say you will go to the CSA.

I assume that if you did move you would still be sharing the driving when the ex has your daughter, I cant see the problem with an extra 20 minutes or half hour driving, its not as if you are planning on taking her to Australia

tanith

I am sure that no court would stop you moving where ever you want to... He sounds as though he is just lashing out and angry... it will make life more difficult and maybe you could come to another arrangement.
My daughter has the same problem and now her son's dad has to travel by train and bus to collect him..they have a flexible arrangement whereby he has him every 3 or 4 weeks for the weekend and then half of most of the school holidays....
I am sure when he has calmed down he will see that by some good will on both sides it need not be a problem.. also you both need to take into account that at some point your daughter will be wanting to spend more time with her own friends and not want to spend so much time with either of you..... but thats another story...:eek:

missimaxo

Thanks everyone.... I'm relieved to hear that!

I have already tried broaching the subject of her friends with him. He is very selfish and his current attitude is pretty much "well, she will still have to see me". He won't let her take up a weekly sport either if it falls at a weekend as it is too much hassle for him bringing her (I tried dancing lessons!)

In 4 years, he has never once offered to take her on holiday (he goes 3-4 times a year) and has never shown an interest in her schooling. He then had the cheek to tell me that I never tell him when her school holidays are! I know they vary a little in different regions, but he has never asked.

He still seems stuck in the past. I have moved on, I have another little boy who is nearly 2, yet he refused to agree to a divorce until the 2 years were up. He does try to make life as hard for me as possible. I'm not going to let it stop us move when we can get things arranged.

tanith

missimaxo the school are obliged if asked to send all info , reports, holiday dates, in fact anything they give you they can send to him... if he asks for it... as you say sounds like he is not that interested there is no need for him to rely on you for this information , one call to the school from him would sort it out........ the time will come when she will be brave enough to speak up for herself and tell him that she has a life outside of the family :T :T :T

elona

It sounds as if he is going the right way to have his child dislike "having" to go and see him!

It is very sad and he is "cutting his nose off to spite his face!"

hobo28

I was in this exact situation late last year. A court can never ever stop you from moving. That would be against your human rights.

What they CAN do is impose a condition which would make it nigh impossible for you to. For example, your ex could apply for a prohibitive steps order on a specific issue. So perhaps he could argue that removing your daughter from her school would be detrimental to her education. If the court accepted that then they could say that she MUST go to same school. In effect you'd have to live local.

That all said and done. I don't think you have much to worry about. The pattern of contact he has had means you are indisputably the resident parent and natural mother. In my situation, I wanted to move from a 10 min drive to a 1.5 hour drive away from my ex. The judge in our case said to my ex: "....its not the other side of the world is it?"

He also cannot stop maintenance payments. Access & maintenance are not linked. Ever. However, the CSA are as useless as a chocolate teapot so if he stops paying, I wouldn't count on the CSA to recover any money in the near future. I'd plan on moving without that income.

To be honest, if there are no other factors involved, I'd say he's on a hiding to nothing if he took the matter to court. However, it would cost you both a lot of money so its always worth talking it through before the legal parasites (aka. solicitors) get involved.

Perhaps a good compromise would be increased time in the holidays or meeting up halfway? Its not really fair that you are doing this. It wasn't fair on my ex either. But that said, I also didn't want to put my life on hold just so it was convenient for her to visit our kids as it suited. As adults we must realise that sometimes life isn't fair.

Oh one last thing I just thought of. What is the journey time in rush hour? My agreement was drop off on a Friday at 6pm. Usually journey takes 1.5 hours. On a Friday, this can take up to 2.5 hours, which is quite a trek for the kids. Plus of course your own journey back. If there's one thing I do feel bad about, its the amount of time the kids now spend in the car.

Prudent

Despite the general incompetence of the csa, I would still put in a claim with them. If you rely on the money he pays you, you will need it whatever happens to contact. If he sees less of his daughter, he should pay more not less money to you. His obligation to make csa payments starts from the date they contact him, which should be within 28 days of you getting the form to them. If you are persistant, and he is not self empolyed, you should eventually get the money.

He may cool down. Is this partly reaction on his part?

Remember he may spend more time driving, but it is nowhere near the amount of hours you spend caring for your child.

Crazychik

He cant stop you from moving. You have moved on and he cant accept that you have. Thats his problem to sort out.

Hobo advised me previously that you cant make him into a father you want him to be, try not to rely on him ref access. Its a shame for your daughter - I know and I sympathise with you.

My ex keeps threatening he will move back to his home town (2hr drive away) deep down inside - I know these are threats and realistic - I dont think he'll do it. I have full parental rights to my kids (DD 7YR & DS10YR) He uses them as bait to wind me up, changing his plans etc not to have them.
I used to react to his every text, but now I dont give in. If he says he wont have them (for what ever reason) I say ok, I'll make other arrangements, after a few days he calms down and agree's to see them.

I do hope you get things sorted, but dont let him put you off with moving

Mics_chick

Not got any experience of this myself, but wouldn't this change his access on the weeknight? Isn't a 3 hour round trip a bit much to expect during the week? Could you offer him a different arrangement such as extra time in holidays instead - as a sort of sweetener?
Also could you ask school to send him info on his behalf - I know it's extra effort/hassle for you but it would give him one less thing to throw at you!
Are CSA able to put a claim directly on someone's salary? If so, couldn't you tell them about his threats and they might be able to do this to take that worry away from you.
About the weekend activity, did you just pay weekly or have to pay for a course of sessions? Could you ask if your dd could attend fortnightly at a reduced rate for the course? If just weekly couldn't your dd go fortnightly rather than miss out altogether? And if she felt she was missing out on tuition during missed weeks ask the teacher for some 'homework' on the weeks she was able to go?
Keep my fingers crossed for you, MC