I live in the UK and my dh has residency of his 3 kids from his previous marriage. The court granted residency 7 years ago when the kids were very young and they've lived with us since then, are healthy, happy and doing well at school. BM was granted regular contact which she's always had, but because she's a self-confessed alcoholic with mental health problems and a history of emotionally abusing the skids, the court said she wasn't fit to have them full time and gave custody to dh. BM has never got over the fact that "evil" dh got custody and has whined and felt sorry for herself ever since, and has this year tried to drag dh back to court for a change in residency. She's now had to admit defeat and drop the case because she's been advised that there's no way in hell a judge will order kids who are settled and doing well to be uprooted, moved 70 miles to live with said alcholic psycho who has been proved an abusive parent in the past.

The thing is, now she's realised she'll never get them back to live with her, she's desperate to move nearer to us. At the moment she lives 70 miles away and dh has to drive 2 return journeys eowe to drop them off and pick them up again. She also has half the school holidays so he has to do all the running around for that as well, all at our expense as bm claims she can't afford to contribute to our very expensive petrol costs. He has told her that she either starts contributing or it goes to every 3rd week as we just cannot do it anymore and she says she wants to keep eowe and will give him half our fuel costs, though I don't see that lasting long as BM cannot budget to save her life.

If she were to move nearer, it would save us hundreds of pounds a year and would get dh off the pain in the ass eowe journey he hates so much. It could also spell trouble if she were to live too near, as when they lived near each other before when the skids were young, she would constantly interfere, turning up unexpectedly at school embarrasing dh, being really loud and rude in front of people including the skids, dragging skids to doctors for every little sniffle etc and telling dh how to parent despite the fact he was the one with residency. The last thing we want now the skids are older and getting their confidence back is for her to come along and start sticking her nose in again. They're old enough now to get embarassed by her loud and obnoxious behaviour and we don't want her telling us how to look after the skids as we've been doing okay without her for the last 7 years.

Because I was born and brought up in this area, I know it pretty well and am wondering whether I should get more involved with BM to try and steer her towards finding somewhere close but not close enough for her to be on ours or school's doorstep every day. She doesn't drive and claims never to have much money for bus/train fares so 10 miles or so would be quite a nice distance, as it would be easy enough for me or dh to drive skids there and back without putting pressure on our finances or taking 3-4 hours per round trip like now, but would make it difficult for her just to randomly turn up where she's not wanted. It might sound selfish, but it suits me at the moment for bm to have regular contact so I get a break. They're not bad kids at all and are quite easy to be around these days, but they're still kids who aren't mine and I love having the house and dh to myself. We like our couples weekends away when we can afford it, so the thought of bm being nearer to reduce our travel time/costs is really quite appealing.

I'm used to dealing with difficult people as I do it in my job as a support worker and have, over time, managed to win round even the most obnoxious clients by being understanding and supportive but staying firm and not buying into their bullshit. I'm not saying it's guaranteed to work with bm but I think it's worth a try. She is an attention seeking, controlling, selfish bitch who loves to put on the poor me act, but having her on side could be really useful when we need her for extra babysitting duties, as well as letting us keep more of an eye on how she treats the skids as we've had concerns about that before. I've already made a point of e-mailing her details of housing for people on welfare in my area with phone numbers and where to go for more help, and she says she really appreciates it.

Has anyone ever done this, and if so how did it work? Any suggestions/words of warning etc?