Marriage and single parents
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Anonymous
| My XH is dating a woman who lives about sixty miles away. We have week on/off custody right now. His GF is delightful and great with our two kids (5 and 8) and she has two kids of her own. Any ideas of what could happen to a custody schedule if they get engaged/married? I'm super worried about it! |
Anonymous
| It might depend on whether he moves to her. |
Anonymous
|
Yeah, the engagement/marriage isn't the thing here, is the location.
Does she have sole or at least primary custody of her kids? If so, hopefully, she'll move to him, and then there shouldn't be any changes to your custody arrangement. If she has joint custody too, with an even split - that's harder. Maybe they'll try to find a place in the middle? Does your divorce agreement say anything about this? I know my parent's (joint 50/50 residential custody) agreement said that if one of them moved out of the school district, they lost custody. So I guess that's a risk? |
Anonymous
| Don't worry about it. Just accept it'll be a shit-show. I mean, they're not even engaged and she's already spending time with two young kids? Hot mess. |
Anonymous
| How old are her kids? |
Anonymous
Ah, one of the bitter ex wives who wants her husband to have the social life of a monk has arrived.... |
Anonymous
It would be far worse to wait until right before the wedding to see if everyone can manage to get along. I say this as someone whose ex-DH moved in with someone way too fast (now that was a shitshow!), but waiting too long is risky, too. |
Anonymous
|
Parent relocation of that distance generally means forfeiting 50/50 custody in favor of the every other weekend and holidays model.
Parent relocation is contemplated in the UCCJEA followed by most states, with some modifications. Since your kids are school age they obviously can’t attend two different districts week on week off. An hour long commute to and from school would be unreasonable and I can’t imagine your spouse could work that around his work schedule anyway. So unless he plans to challenge you for primary custody, he’ll likely have to relinquish his half time in favor of the weekends/holidays model. Unless she is free to move to where he lives. |
Anonymous
| Your kids probably won’t see Dad as much. The tendency is for men to focus on the new household. |
Anonymous
| He will likely only see the kids every other weekend. Once they have a new kid it will be less than that. |
Anonymous
| Nothing will change. Just ask him, OP. It’s a valid question. |
Anonymous
Typo This should have said ex husband. |
Anonymous
This, talk to him. Maybe she'll be the one moving with her kids. Or, he commutes back and forth. Lots of options here. |
Anonymous
Commutes while married? |
Anonymous
| DH and I live in Annandale and his kids live in Baltimore. On the weekends we have them, he drives up to Balt to get them and brings them back. If the kids have school activities in Balt he takes them. We have two young kids. We usually all have dinner together but the big kids and dad do age appropriate activities and I do the same with the little ones. If the kids have a basketball game, dance recital, orchestra performance DH leaves work early to be there on time. There are also the evenings when his ex is at wits end with their daughter and he has to go to Balt to either make peace between the two of them or bring her home to us to give them both time to cool off. The next day he’ll drive her to school in Bat and pick her if she and mom are still mad at each other. |