thedivorceworkshop.com

Unfortunately, this is one of the toughest questions in a Divorce scenario…

And even more unfortunately it is usually never fully answered until your children all reach 18.

Even if custody is agreed to in a divorce settlement, things change, people move and kids can express an interest in changing where they live.  

How do you deal with this?  I really don’t have a great answer for you because every situation is different. 

Recently my Girlfriend’s 10 year old daughter’s father announced he was moving 500 miles away from where she is living with her mother and said he expects my Girlfriend to drive half way every other weekend to transfer and hand off their daughter.   She said no.  He said see you in court.  The Daughter said I want to live with Dad.  This has broken my Girlfriend’s heart.   This is her baby daughter!

My only advice to her was to try not to take it too personally.  

Think about it from a 10 year old’s perspective…  Her dad spoils her (in my opinion in an irresponsible manner - cause he doesn’t have the money to do it and I think he is moving largely because the people here know he is a financial flake.)  Still, the little girl believes life will be better with Dad.  She gets what she wants there. 

I cannot tell my girlfriend what the right thing to do is.  I cannot know her true pain.  All I can do is try to comfort her in this tough time and help her understand the other peoples perspectives.

Could it be a ploy to avoid paying child support?  Probably.

Could it be a ploy to exercise control and power over her even though their relationship is over?  Probably.

Does it matter or change the situation?  Probably not!

Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 2:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.