I’m trying to look at this as both a NCP (SP) and a BM, and I feel that I’m being reasonable, but I would like some outside opinions.

DH retires from service soon. He has not had any luck locating a job in our area and has been offered a job that would provide comparable income to what he is making now. He would have a 2 hour commute, one way, not taking any traffic into consideration. We are looking to move to an area that would cut his commute in half, but would keep us within an hour drive from where we currently are. (I would be able to transfer to a facility within the same company that is close to the new area). This would add approximately 30 miles distance between us and exH, so about 35-40 minutes drive time.

I have spoken to exH about this, offered to continue to meet him in the same place we currently do. I also offered for him to have DD one week each month during summer vacation (he’s supposed to have her 2 weeks during summer now anyway and doesn’t do that)since it wouldn't be convenient for him to see her other than on weekend. I also agreed to his recent request to have child support lowered to help him out because he kept complaining about having $ prolems. I later found out that his wife quit her job, but that’s beside the point.

He is throwing a fit about this move. He keeps pointing out how inconvenient it will make it to see her during the week (which he doesn’t do now) and to go to school functions (which he also doesn’t do now). He sees her every other weekend, that’s it, and half the time I get calls on Sunday from him wanting to meet earlier than the scheduled exchange time.

He wants her to come live with him. I know him well enough to know that the motivating factor behind that is that he wouldn’t have to pay child support any longer. I am not exaggerating when I say that everything for him revolves around the almighty $. (There was another time that we were facing a change in orders and he was okay with me moving with her if I dropped child support completely). I’m not agreeable to her living with him for a multitude of reasons, including the fact that he has shown poor judgment involving DD (leaving her (8 at time) and her SB (7 at time) alone without a # written down in case of emergency, teaching her how to feed their pit bull a treat while holding it in her (DD’s) mouth, driving around with 4 people (including DD and her SB) in the cab of a truck without seatbelts on…the list goes on. Not to mention that fact that she is like a 3rd wheel when she’s there (she has had to sleep on the floor at times in favor of her SBs each having their own bed). All of these things have been witnessed by me and/or discussed with, and confirmed by, exH.

The last weekend he bribed her into saying she wanted to live with him (by promising cable TV, etc in her room and that he would bring her to see he friends in her current school…you know, the same school he can’t come to for functions and stuff because it’s “too far and too inconvenient”.) When she got home and told me that she wanted to go live with him I just asked her if she could tell me why, to which she responded she would be able to see her friends. I told her then (because I hadn’t seen her to tell her yet) that DH and I decided to hold out on the move until the summer so she wouldn’t have to change schools mid-year and she would have opportunity to make new friends before the school year started. She got a huge smile on her face and told me that made a big difference and that she wanted to keep living with me then. I have not mentioned the fact that 1) she talked to me and 2) she changed her mind, to her father yet. She doesn’t want me to say anything to him and she wants to talk to him, with me there, when she comes back home this Sunday.

Her dad keeps pushing for us to talk to her together so that she can tell us what she wants to do. I felt that, at 9 years old, it was putting her in a terrible position, basically asking her to choose between her parents. But, he took it upon himself to put her in that position when he told her what she could have if she came to live with him. I’m not saying that her opinion shouldn’t be taken into consideration, but I just felt strongly about not putting her in the position of her being the one to make the choice, especially not in front of the two of us.

So, we haven’t reached an agreement yet, and although I don’t want it to come to that point, I’m afraid we might have to get attorneys involved. If a judge tells me I can’t move with her then so be it, I will just stay here and DH and I will have to figure something else out. If the move would at all interfere with his schedule I could see his balking about it, but it doesn’t, so I’m having problems understanding. We currently have nothing through the courts, so even if we can come to a mutual agreement, I am going to hire an attorney to get something drawn up and entered into the court system.