Kids don’t want to travel anymore

onwards&upwards

Michele2711 wrote: »

I do see my children thank you, this is the first time in 6 1/2 years that I haven’t. I asked for advice not approval, I haven’t made excuses at all, but it’s not as if I haven’t gone down all avenues, people have asked me questions and I have answered them.
Everyone is assuming they know my life, it’s easy to sit behind a keyboard and judge someone you don’t know.

Ok if you genuinely want help then why don’t you reveal the locations? There are excellent money savers on this site who can probably find deals and solutions you would never have known about.

I do wish more people considered the impact on existing children before jumping into new relationships and committing to new families though, sorry.

Michele2711

zagfles wrote: »

All that travelling won't be doing them/you any good, not to mention the expense, and the environment. It was a different situation, but a friend of mine had problems physically seeing his daughter, their solution was to simply Skype regularly - that was their main form of contact, and the daughter (now grown up) says she had a far closer relationship with her Dad over Skype than her Mum who she lived with! They would Skype almost every day, sometimes for 5 mins, sometimes 2 hours, which they found so much better than rigid contact times.

So with the kids at that age you could Skype/facetime them regularly, even daily, and then save physical meets for occasional long weekends or holidays. Don't kill yourself travelling at ridiculous hours or after a long day's work.

PS ignore all the judgemental rubbish you always get on this board.

Thank you, i do face time them all the time, The older 2 have phones now which is a lot easier as my ex would a lot of the times ignore my calls.
I know the distance thing is rubbish, but I would happily do it every week if I had the money I’m really not trying to make excuses.

Michele2711

I live in Southampton, they live in bacup, nearest airport is Manchester, which my ex has confirmed she won’t take them to. I wasn’t withholding their location, I just had already checked.

POPPYOSCAR

Michele2711 wrote: »

Thank you, i do face time them all the time, The older 2 have phones now which is a lot easier as my ex would a lot of the times ignore my calls.
I know the distance thing is rubbish, but I would happily do it every week if I had the money I’m really not trying to make excuses.

Were you doing this every week?

If so could you not just go every few weeks?

The older ones will be wanting do do their own thing at weekends now anyway I would of thought.

Michele2711

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

Were you doing this every week?

If so could you not just go every few weeks?

The older ones will be wanting do do their own thing at weekends now anyway I would of thought.

I do it every month and have them every school holiday. Funny thing is at one point my ex wanted me to do it every 2 weeks and is now saying once a month is too much.

The older one does want to do his own thing sometimes but he is extremely close with my step son and has his own circle of friends here too now

zagfles

Michele2711 wrote: »

I do it every month and have them every school holiday. Funny thing is at one point my ex wanted me to do it every 2 weeks and is now saying once a month is too much.

The older one does want to do his own thing sometimes but he is extremely close with my step son and has his own circle of friends here too now

At 14 he could travel by train on his own, my kids did at that age and I did at 11 in the days before mobiles. If he's responsible enough he could even take the others! There are direct trains Manchester to Southampton every hour, and there's express buses from Bacup to Manchester.

Obviously it depends on how confident he is and what the ex thinks!

swingaloo

Well I think you are being given a hard time Op. We have been in exactly the same situation as you and for over 12 years travelled from near Manchester down to London to pick up a child and have 6 hours with them and then drive back.

Mother wouldn't let her come up to us apart from in the summer holidays when she wanted to go away for the week.

Those who think you can do 250 miles travelling in 4 hours after finishing work on Friday have clearly never done it.


The only thing I can say is that your children are getting older and we found that they quite understandably get to an age when they don't want to waste some of their precious time with the other parent as they want to hang out with friend etc at the weekend. I would suggest that until that day comes you perhaps cut out the staying overnight etc and perhaps try doing as we did - Leaving on a Sunday morning at about 5am, traffic is much lighter which means you are there for mid morning, then spending the day with the kids and drive back at night. Its a hell of a long tiring day but it does mean you get to see the children, they know you have made effort and you are not paying out for hotel rooms.

Michele2711

swingaloo wrote: »

Well I think you are being given a hard time Op. We have been in exactly the same situation as you and for over 12 years travelled from near Manchester down to London to pick up a child and have 6 hours with them and then drive back.

Mother wouldn't let her come up to us apart from in the summer holidays when she wanted to go away for the week.

Those who think you can do 250 miles travelling in 4 hours after finishing work on Friday have clearly never done it.


The only thing I can say is that your children are getting older and we found that they quite understandably get to an age when they don't want to waste some of their precious time with the other parent as they want to hang out with friend etc at the weekend. I would suggest that until that day comes you perhaps cut out the staying overnight etc and perhaps try doing as we did - Leaving on a Sunday morning at about 5am, traffic is much lighter which means you are there for mid morning, then spending the day with the kids and drive back at night. Its a hell of a long tiring day but it does mean you get to see the children, they know you have made effort and you are not paying out for hotel rooms.

This actually makes sense except I could probably leave on the Saturday morning and leave at night and get home for early hours sunday.
The 14 year old is already at that stage, I totally understand if he has other arrangements, I knew it was going to happen but my ex said he is too young to choose if he comes or not so he had no choice, except now we have had this argument she has let all the children choose not to come down. Thank you though I didn’t even think of doing that, you really helped

Dasa

onwards&upwards wrote: »

Ok if you genuinely want help then why don’t you reveal the locations? There are excellent money savers on this site who can probably find deals and solutions you would never have known about.

I do wish more people considered the impact on existing children before jumping into new relationships and committing to new families though, sorry.

What's he supposed to do, be on his own for the rest of his life? Poor sod.

maman

Michele2711 wrote: »

This actually makes sense except I could probably leave on the Saturday morning and leave at night and get home for early hours sunday.
The 14 year old is already at that stage, I totally understand if he has other arrangements, I knew it was going to happen but my ex said he is too young to choose if he comes or not so he had no choice, except now we have had this argument she has let all the children choose not to come down. Thank you though I didn’t even think of doing that, you really helped

I spent years doing a similar journey (200+miles each way) on a Saturday. I got very familiar with the farming programme on the radio early in the morning! I arrived by 10 without fail and left late afternoon. It was worth it.

This was on top of being in touch during the week.