My sons biological dad moved 6 hours away and wants to split commute times
My wife has a son from a previous relationship. He's lived with me since he was 1. His biological father has always lived about an hour from us. We have always split driving responsibilities for any time he spends with his son. We will either drop off or pickup depending on schedules.
A few months ago, he moved 6 hours away from us. He is demanding that we still drive 50% of the time. I do not think this should be our responsibility.
I do not know if this forum can accept legal questions or not, and I don't want to post something off topic.
So if legal issues are allowed, then feel free to comment on this situation. If not, then my question is simply to ask if others are in this situation, and what you have done to try and resolve it.
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If there was a custody settlement, it should cover this situation, ideally specifying where pickup and dropoff occur.
If it's not specified, the most normal arrangement is for each party to pick up the child for their custody time, since that prevents a delivering party from delaying and cutting into the other party's time.
This means that the noncustodial dad should pick up on Friday, and you should pick up on Sunday. The pickup times should be the same - 6pm, midnight, whatever - so the increased commute cuts into both parties' custody time equally.
With that as a starting point, you could negotiate something else - perhaps an intermediate turnover point - if that's more convenient for both of you.
One parent shouldn't necessarily be "punished" for moving away. They have their own life, needs, job opportunities, love interests, etc. that impact their decision on where to live. It's unrealistic to expect the parent that doesn't have the child living with them to stay tied to one geographic area.
Making the parent that moved carry a bigger burden may seem fair, but it's actually as unfair as telling the parent that didn't move to also move. (Which also happens, when the primary custody parent moves hours away. The secondary custody parent often has to "deal" with it by putting up with increased driving, or moving themselves.)
It may be an unfortunate situation for you, because of increased driving time and expenses, but that's not how it should be looked at. This is really about the child and his ability to visit his father. If you have the financial and physical means to drive to the father's, then you should be willing to do that. You've been very fortunate thus far that the father has been closer, and you've been able to split the costs. That definitely makes it easier on your son. But that luck does not confer a right.
I think it's also important to keep in mind that the father's decision to move wasn't because he isn't dedicated to his son. These days, a 6 hour drive isn't really that far. His attitude of "demanding" is definitely poor, but you'll need to try to be objective about it.
In summary:
You should be willing to split the drive, or even do most of the driving, if that's what's necessary for your son to maintain a healthy relationship with his biological father. Any set up that requires you to do less than 100% of the work should be considered a perk, not a right. Ideally, the father should also have this same mindset.
Your son is 12. It seems to me that he is old enough to make his own decisions about when to visit his dad and also old enough to use public transport on his own to cover the majority of the trip.
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