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After lengthy court battles, and numberous court orders, last Sept it was said that I would see my two children (aged 8 and 10) every 3rd weekend. I have moved away and remarried and got another child now - I drive the 100 miles to collect the children from school, and then their mother was forced by the courts to agree to driving 1/3 of the way to meet me on a Sunday evening. My ex wife didn't seem to mind the idea of them driving to meet us once a month but her husband got extremely angry and aggressive about the fact that they might have to do any travel at all, and thought I should always return the children to their home.
I do see the children during the school holidays, but I return them to her door. She never has to travel to my home.
Currently we meet a village, on a main road, in the car park of a family pub, 2 hours (one way) from my home and 1 hour (one way) from hers, This is at 5pm on a Sunday evening once a month. She always meets me with her husband. We have been doing this for about 2 years now.
My relationship with my ex-wife is not good, despite many efforts, she it extremely jealous of my new wife and I believe ideally would like to stop all of my contact if she could (she has previously done this). We only really communicate via email, I started this as she started to say I was harrassing her with phonecalls or would make up things to the police that I had said face to face.
Things had settled down in the last 12/13 months and I felt things were getting easier, and I even managed a couple of phone calls and face to face discussions about the choice of secondary school for our son.
Last week her husband has emailed to say she is 16 weeks pregnant and he no longer wishes her to meet me at the village stated in the court order. He wants me to drive a further 15 minutes to meet them in the centre of a town. He states this is purely because she is pregnant, and that he wants them to be in a safe place. He feels that this village pub, on a main road, is in the middle of no where!
I am not keen on doing this, because I often have to travel with my 17month old daughter (as my wife is in work), and my journey is already 2 hours (one way) so I am reluctant to agree to travel any further.
I also think it just adds unnecessary time onto the journey for the children, as we would both will have to take a detour off the main route to go into this town. The children have never been bothered that we meet in a pub car park (they often during better weather play in the play park there).
Secondly, I am concerned that if I agree to even temporarily travel that bit further, this will set a presidence, move away from the court order, and then once their baby arrives they will start demanding it is permanant or that i drive even further. (As i know that having to travel at all was not something that her new husband wanted to do and he doesn't shy away of getting involved!).
I tried to explain that I didn't want to alter the meeting point, that I felt the place was a safe place on a main road but that I was happy for just her husband to meet us if she didn't want to travel, or even they could send a family member if they needed to as long as they let me know. They are now threatening to take me back to court.
Where do I stand? what do you think I should do?
I feel that if they were asking this near the end of the pregnancy (i.e the last 3 months) then i might to willing to negociate those weekends individually, but I am reluctant to agree to a change now.
My wife and I had a baby, and we never asked to alter the contact arrangements, we just sorted it out between ourselves. Is it reasonable to say that they knew the contact arrangements before she got pregnant, therefore they should sort it out so it does not impact upon my family.
HELP!
Hi ShaneandDiane
I can understand fully the way you feel, but I have to ask whether the added hassle is worth the fight that you could be up against. While you are technically correct in what you are doing, if it went back to court, there is a chance that a judge could agree with your ex and you'd lose face in court.
Is there any concession you would like from your ex in any other respect of contact? (extra week during holidays for example) If so, perhaps you could do a "deal" - you do the extra bit of travelling and your ex gives you the concession you would like.
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