If you follow me on my Facebook fan page or twitter (@sincemydivorce), you’ll know I’ve been away the last few days at Blissdom – a wonderful blogging conference in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ll be posting about what I learned there probably Wednesday this week and you’ll start see some changes to the blog in the week or so.
Before then, I want to finish up the Leap and the Net Will Appear series that features Carolyn. You’ll remember that Carolyn and her ex have two young children and share custody. That means although she and her ex are divorced, they are going to be tied by their children for quite some time to come. Carolyn sees that as a cloud looming over her future, even when everything else is falling into place. Here’s how she describes it.
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When I first moved out, I tried to move to New Mexico because my mother and good friend lived there. I thought moving there would help me get through the break up. I had never been alone before and I thought staying with my mother would make it much easier. My ex objected and so I took him to court. They said no. At the time, I was really upset but now I agree with the court’s decision.
I think it would be different if he was a deadbeat dad who didn’t want to see them all that much or was a bad influence on them, but he wants to see them, he loves them and they love him. So I understand why the court decided it was in their best interest for me to stay in the state.
Now, given how I’ve seen his relationship with the children develop, I wouldn’t go out of state even if I had the right simply because I didn’t have a dad and my children have a pretty good one. His interactions with them are really good and loving and I wouldn’t want to take that away from them.
My boyfriend and I are talking about getting married but it’s a big undertaking. He lives an hour south of me and that’s where his work is. But knowing my ex as I know him, I’m pretty sure he would take me to court to stop me from moving with the children. Even though the children would be gaining financial support, living in a house where they could each have their own bedroom, have better health insurance, I still think he would fight me and that makes me angry.
I really wish sometimes that my ex-husband and my ex-best friend would make some grand gesture towards making things right because I’m a very forgiving person. I could probably forgive them enough to have a pretty co-operative friendship with them as co-parents. But they’re not there and I’m not sure they ever will be.
Maybe, I never really knew them all that well because I feel the least they could do is relocate an hour south to facilitate me being able to have a stable, happy life after they completely derailed my life. If she can’t do that, I can’t ever forgive her and that’s really tough because she and I were so close.
I feel that if he really knew how much he hurt me and what he did to me, how could he begrudge me wanting to move 25 miles south so I could get remarried and have another shot at having a happy life? I don’t think he sees it all and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to take him to court. The thought of that is stressful but I try to remind myself that there’s nothing I can do about it. All I can do is proceed and hope that the stars will align so everything will work out for the best somehow.
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What this story captures for me is that even though divorce ends a marriage, your parenting relationship with your ex continues and honestly, I’m not sure when it ends. I’m assuming certainly not until college over. If you have a special needs child, then it could be much, much longer. And what do you do when you want to relocate somewhere and your ex says no?
I’m a transplant from England – I’ve been here for over 20 years. When my ex and I got married, we never really talked objectively about the possibility of moving back to England. His mom was not well and I accepted that that tied us to the U.S. I also thought we’d just be able to figure it out as we went along. Now, I’m no longer married, I have no family here in the U.S. and the thought of moving back to England has crossed my mind – the two ladies I consider to be my closest friends in the world are there as well as my sister.
However, aside from the likely (and reasonable) objections from their dad, I can’t see my teenage kids wanting to uproot themselves from their schools now. Even when they do go to college, I don’t want to be living on a different continent to them – I keep saying to them, “Please don’t do to me what I did to my parents.” So on some days, I feel stuck here. Other days, maybe when I’m being more objective, I question how realistic I’m being about being able to adapt to life in England after so long away. For now, my master plan is beginning to look like, once I’m an empty nester, trying to manage my life so I could at least spend a couple of months there each year.
Carolyn’s has just to posted about the ‘deep breath’ – the conversation she’s started to have with her ex about her possibly moving. Hope you’ll visit her blog and give her some support as that conversation progresses.
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