I'm not sure if this should be in the Family court forum or elsewhere, but I am looking for advice from people who have BTDT with Step kids. My husband has 4 children. 3 are grown. The youngest is now 16. When she was 13 she came to stay with us and after a couple months, my husband and his ex went to court and custody changed to him. No child support b/c at the time, their three youngest were under the age of majority and one chose to keep custody with his mother(he was in college) and the youngest two were in our home. Since then, the second oldest aged out, the next one moved out and we are left with the now 16 year old.

My husband has a fantastic job opportunity that will double his income, the catch is it's about 2.5/3 hours away. We are set to move next month and will be able to live in an awesome school system, she has 2 years left of school. (Her mother lives in a different county than we do now, and lives in a terrible school district. Years ago, living in the same district she does now, she had the kids registered to the one half way decent school in her county using her mother's address, they got busted lying, she had to move, then all that other happened, and she is back in the original zone)

Also, since SD came to live with us, she would go months without seeing her. She hasn't spent more than 2 nights there in the three years she has been with us. Since we have been talking about moving, we have assured her we will bring her back to visit her mother. She had one instance where she showed hesitation on wanting to go, but apparently has been talking to her mother about it. Last month, my husband sat down with his ex to discuss moving. She told him she didn't know why SD couldn't come live with her again. He asked her if she could support her, her response was "well can you pay child support and let me claim her on taxes?" He asked her about schools, and she told him she plans to use the SAME address she used before to get her in the one decent school. He tried real hard to get her to see what a great opportunity this was for SD, with the schools, and asked her to think about it, and assured her we would not ask for child support and would bring her back every 4 weeks or so, and give her as much time in summer as she wanted.

So, in the last month, SD has been talking about moving, seeming really excited about it. Two weeks ago, her older sister, the oldest of the bunch, asked if she could spend the night to go on a beach day trip. Of course that was fine. She went, the next day we texted asking when she was coming home. She said her mom asked if she could stay the week. That was fine. That Friday, her mother texted my husband and said "Hey!! Just letting you know SD wants to live with me so we will need to take care of some things." He told her he would talk to SD that weekend. He told her to have SD ready on Saturday, bc he was coming to get her, and ex told HIM, she had gotten SD a job and she was NOT coming home. SD had avoided all attempts for my husband to get in touch with her, and he finally told his ex she needs to have SD call him. He finally got in touch with her and she told him "I've been trying to tell you but you wouldn't listen, I figured this was the only way to get through to you". There has been a lot of back and forth ever since. He has spoken to a lawyer that said legally, she can't keep her, which we knew.

Saturday this week, they came by to get the money from her savings account, and as they were leaving, ex told my husband she had custody papers drawn up, so they need to get together. He told her he wasn't signing anything b/c there isn't any rush. He was informed her attorney told her she needs to get them signed before he leaves. He hasn't signed anything. During this time, we invited SD to come with us the next day to go to church in the new town. She said she would be back if she could go. Later on, ex texted him about some medication he owes her for for one of the other kids, he said he didn't have it right that moment (we do, and it's petty but we still have two weeks per the court order and she has really made him angry in the last two weeks) she informed him maybe he shouldn't be wasting his money going on day trips if he can't pay his bills.

Now, we have been back and forth on how to handle this. Obviously the easy thing is to let her go. We can go on and enjoy our lives, and not rock the boat. We are 99.9% sure the oldest daughter is in on this, and she barely tolerates us anyway, but after his ex said that, he lost it.... he is now wanting to enforce his custodial rights and bring his daughter with us. Our plan was to try to get her over for this coming weekend and just simply tell her "you are 16. You were able to choose to live with us b/c your mother let you, NOT because you chose to. you don't get to make that choice until you are 18. So, we can do this one of two ways. You can either peacefully come home and do visitation with your mother, and move with us. OR, we will fight this and we do have the resources to do so, your mother will lose, so the only thing you will accomplish is costing us all thousands of dollars. Your mother has no legal standing to take custody, and the choice of a 16 year old who already sat in the same judge's chambers and chose to live with us is not going to hold much sway."

Please understand, when I say he was considering allowing it, it was due to saving the relationship with the rest of the kids, however, the only one it will affect is the oldest, and like I said, she barely tolerates us anyway. She and her mother are BFF even though her mother kicked HER out at 16.... the other child who had lived with us, did so b/c their mother couldn't handle him. I'm just at a loss for this.

Any advice? Anyone BTDT? Should I have posted this in the court forum? I'm just at a loss for how to encourage him to go. Thanks in advance! Sorry this is so long and probably jumbled.