Tell him that he needs to follow the papers. Maybe you can compromise every once in a while. It really depends on how often he is supposed to visit. If it's not that often it probably wouldn't be a big deal.

"Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege"

and that if he wants to change it then he needs to talk to his attorney, and that an official change needs to be made in writing in front of a judge. I would give your attorney a phone call just so you can discover what the chances are that you'll have to do 1/2 of the driving. He is the one who is moving.

You cant be expected to drive 100 miles back and forth twice to drop and pick up your kids every visitation because he chose to move. Thats 400 miles, 6+ hours in the car. Is this EOW EW?

Go by the papers girl!! It has been my experience that once you give an inch, they will ask for a mile. Other things will come up that he will then expect you to conform to. It's not your fault he is choosing to move. Is he changing jobs or something? If that's the case, then maybe you need to speak with your attorneys.

My ExH is constantly trying to get me to change the rules. He had the nerve to try to get me to let him claim BD on his taxes last year even though it was my year to do so. He tried to bargain with me. With him, it's all about money. My opinion was that he had all that year to figure out how to pay his taxes. In fact, he has had since July 2004 to figure that out. Seems like he was the only one that was going to benefit.

"OCD sucks"
Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to destroy.
--Henri de Lubac

It was his choice to move, so I say the responsibility falls on him to do the transporting, especially if that's what it says in your agreement. You could compromise and tell him, if there is something he has to do every once in a while and needs you to meet him, that's ok, but not every visit.

This also may sound mean, but since it is his time and his responsibility to pick up, if he doesn't come get them, that's his fault and you could report that to the judge or keep notes on it.

Stand your ground though whatever the decision. Before DH moved to the town we now live in, BM moved here 6 months before he did. He was driving 6+ hours round trip on Fridays and Sundays, every weekend for 6 months, because BM decided she wanted to move. Instead of telling her NO, she would have to wait or help with driving, he let her get away with it, and it's been downhill ever since. Now we're stuck living in a blah rural town because she wanted to move here. And the kicker is - she doesn't live here anymore! She moved away in January and DH refuses to change the kids school. So I'm stuck here for another 6 years. God help me!

situation. And I really believe it depends on the situation. DH and I moved about 30 minutes away from the city, and my SD. We did all the picking up and dropping off before, and we do it now. I don't think it would be fair to make the Human Beast Bitch drive that distance because we chose to move.

Not to mention I don't her around my house AT ALL!!!!!!

but I think you should meet him half way. My son's dad lives 7 hrs away, and we have no court orders. We work everything out ourselves (visitation, cs, travel...EVERYTHING) Everyone think about it if you were in the situation. If your DH and you moved further from the kids (yay! in some cases) but BM wouldn't agree to meet half way...another reason to hate BM! I don't know how often he's wanting to do this, but my sister lives 3.5 hrs from her SKs and her DH is responsible for 100% travel. We of course think this is unfair. Her Dh has no license right now and works, my sis stays home. So every other Friday she spends 7 hrs in the car, picking them up & bringing them back, then every Sunday another 7 hrs! Which means she has to leave in the middle of the day to get back by 8pm. If her DH didn't have her, he'd never see his kids! If BM would meet half way, they could both meet after work evry other Friday. My exH only gets my son on long weekends, school breaks and summer breaks, cause its too far for EOW. Now in my DHs case, he has to provide 100% travel for SS, and he lives so far its in the form of unaccompanied minor plane tickets (pretty penty) which is why we only see him onc a year. If BM paid half, we'd get to see twice a year. But she won't. I think she's crap. I just think after all the times people say both parents should be responsible for 50% of everything for their kids, it sure changes when they are the ones that have to give. Don't be like that, do whats right for your kids and their relationship with their dad.

"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy"

My DH was in the same situation. When he live 5 1/2 hours (one way) from BM - He drove 11 hours in one day to pick up sd (as she was in daycare and he could get her early before her mother got off of work.)AND he met her halfway on Sunday to help her out. He has always paid half of everything on top of his child support. Even to the point where he was pay $3.50 for a prescription because BM asked. She had absolutely no problem with him paying for half of everything and i mean everything. Even a toy if BM bought her one in the store.

So when sd stated school (kindergarten this year) and DH moved two states closer to his daughter. He took her to court so they could both just drive 1/2 way to meet. Instead of like the old court order would have been him getting her on Friday (driving 3 hours both ways) and the mother getting her on Sunday driving 3 hours both ways.

1 1/2 hour both ways on Friday and Sunday would be all they both had to drive. She told the judge that my husband should have to drive all the way to NC on friday and then meet her halfway on Sunday.

Well that was a no go. The Judge has them both drive 1/2 on Friday and Sunday.

It kills me how some times people on want it to be 50/50 when they are not required to give up anything to do it.

If it makes sense and keeps will help facilitate the relationship for the kids better.... do it. The kids will appreciate seeing their mom and dad work together instead of always aruguing in the end.

We do the driving to get SD. If we moved across the country it would be a given that we would have to shell out the money and the time to get her. And it would be more than once a year no matter what!! Of course, we can't afford that and won't move that far from her. We want to be a part of her everyday life, not when it's convenient for us ya know.

My x on the other hand who sees my son once a year is a idiot. The only way I can get him to see him at all is to help pay for the ticket. I don't think there's any excuse for not being a part of your kids life, and once a year isn't being a part.

Melis~no offense to that. You and I've talked personally several times about this, I know your standpoint and you know mine. We agree to disagree about the above.

"It kills me how some times people on want it to be 50/50 when they are not required to give up anything to do it."

But why should her weekends have to change, or her time with the rest of her family, or anything at all for that matter because he decides to move? Now she has to change everything to be fair to the x who decided to move? I don't think the above statement was relevant to this blog. She shouldn't have to give up anything because of a choice he makes.

I'm not arguing, just asking.

BM in our case moved, only about 15 miles away, but our parenting time order is ridiculous. She has them MON,TUE,FRI, and EOW. We have them WED,THURS, and EOW. The kids go to school in our town, and it is supposed to be that whoever's day it is to have the kids it's their responsibility to pick them up. The only nice thing BM has ever done is that she offered to just take them to school every morning after her overnights on her way to work, so we only have to take them THURS. We pick them up on our SAT mornings for our EOW visit and that's the only time we do. She didn't even tell us she was moving until the day she was moving so we had no way of making plans and figuring out how to do everything not to mention the discomfort of the kids being left home alone when she wants and us not being close enough to pick them up if something were to happen. I would be mad if i had to drive there and back WED and still try to make it to work, but i also think about how much i would like to move FAR AWAY and if BF ever agreed to it i would hope BM would cooperate, though i know she wouldn't. After reading everyone else's opinions i'm torn.

"Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege"

I also know, however, if someone on here blogged that she and her DH are mad at BM because she decided to move away and wants them to meet her halfway now and they refuse, they would get all the support under the sun.

Just because it's a "dad" doesn't make it right. If it were the exact same thing, just flipped between families I don't think anyone would say that she should change her life because he decided to move.

And what's best for the kids is the main goal. However, pleanty of BM's decide to do whatever they want with no consultation of the DH and SM, and expect favors in return and no one obliges. And rightfully so.

You can't just say it's for what is best for the kids because in that case the other parent could do whatever they want, demand whatever they want, and the other party just has to agree and go along. Sometimes you have to put your foot down and stop being railroaded by the x.

but I find it interesting your ex moved so far away.. also interesting this issue was not covered in your divorce papers.

My husbands divorce decree states neither parent can leave the county. If one of them does, they have to go back to court to negotiate visits. Maybe you didn't have a very good lawyer to cover that issue if one parent moves far away, how visitation will go ?

rules in your County that you can leverage from to manage the visitation transportation issue.

My SS's Custody/Visitation/Support Judgement says:

"That at all times in which petitioner and respondent live within 200 miles of each other, respondent shall have visitation with his minor son, XXXXXXX DOB XX-XX-XXXX, pursuant to XXXX County Supplemental Rule X.XXX. ( Rags words: eg. EOWE, Alternating holidays, X weeks in Summer, etc ...)

That at all times in which the petitioner and respondent live more than 200 miles from each other, respondent shall have visitation with his minor son, XXXXXXX as follows: Spring break, Five weeks in Summer, etc ......... (Rags words: Visitation is a total of ~ 9wks per year 5wks Summer, 5days Fall (never taken by BioDad), ~7days Winter (fluctuates yearly depending on even or odd numbered year), 9days Spring break)

Times for beginning and ending visits shall be flexible to accommodate transportation. Visits shall begin on the the first day indicated in this order and end after an amount of time less than or equal to the period provided in this order. Thus for this example a visit from Sept 28 through Oct 8 is a visit of two weeks, and petitioner is entitled to the return of the child after 336 hours (24X14)has released the child to the care of the respondent. Said differently, petitioner shall be entitled to the return of the child on the final day of the visitation, at or before the time at which she released the child to the respondent's care on the first day of visitation. (Rags words: this section was added in the first few days after the original court date due to liberties SpermGrandMa took in interpreting that the kid traveled on Mom's time and not on Dad's visitation time. The Judge clarified with this verbiage that basically says travel is on Dad's visitation time. The Judges stated reasoning for this clarification was that the child cannot travel for visitation until school is out and must be back home in time to rest and prepare for school the following day.)

The cost of transportation for all visitations shall be handled by the parties as follows: Each party shall be responsible to provide transportation to bring the minor child from the minor child's location to the party's location ......."

If your County has similar rules and responsibility for transportation is not clearly specified in your judgement then you are probably liable to pick the kids up after visitation and bring them to your location while your X is likely responsible for transporting the kids to his location. (A half way hand off is basically the same thing) Supplementary Local Rules for your County (the county with jurisdiction) are fairly easy to locate on-line. I would print up the Supplementary Local Rules for your County to see if they help clarify the transportation issue. We keep a copy of the Supplementary Rules along with a copy of the judgement in our desks at work and one in our home office so that we can roll them up and beat BioDad and SpermGrandMa about the head and shoulders with them when they get out of line.

I think the distance is potentially a big deal in your case (200miles). If your X moves 200.01 miles then you could push to go from a EOWE/EOW visitation model to a long distance visitation model.

If you want to push it.

Some won't agree with me but I am a big proponent of following the Judgement/Supplementary Rules particularly in situations where one side or the other tends to be manipulative or creative in how they interpret the rules. The rules are exactly as they are written though you may want to make minor one time agreements when something unique applies.

Just some thoughts.

Best regards,