Life's a mess... what to do?

firestar-2 · May 2017

Hey everyone,

So, I've been lurking for... ever? Like, since crazy-mod Lucy and Eddie were around, back in the days of Stage and Linger.

I've seen you ladies give out some immense advice, and now I'm hoping you can do the same for me.

I'll list the info rather than writing it all out in the hopes it's a little easier to follow.

I live in the U.K.
FI lives in USA.
We've been together a little over 3y.
He has two (teen-ish) daughters.
I have a son (4yo).
We have a nearly 2yo daughter who lives with me.

My sons dad lives two hours away. He took me to court for custody (I moved away to live near my parents). He's ended up driving down to pick son up every other weekend, and back to drop him off.
OH lives (could be) walking distance (I guess it's like, across town) from his ex, and the kids go to either house 50%ish of the time.

OH has a good job.
After 9 years of 50 hour weeks, I ended up on benefits after maternity leave with our daughter and although I technically support myself, it's via government handout.
(I hate being a "benefit bum", but when I looked into going back to work, it turned out I'd lose more money in what they'd stop paying out than I'd earn. Basically, I can't afford to go back to work right now).

So, basically, we're just in one big mess here.
We're missing out on time together.
The kids are missing out on time together.
The paternal grandparent/granddaughter relationship is (great, but) being missed out on.
Our daughter is missing out on half of her family.

We fly back and forth whenever we can (3-4 times a year), but... it sucks.

Financially, it makes more sense for me to move to the US. (It's certainly where I plan to end up eventually).
However, that then means that the two young kids will lose the (pretty much daily) contact they're so used to with my parents (FIs mom lives ~6 hours away from him).
It also means my son is left in limbo. Do I send him to live with his dad and only see him holidays? (Uhm, nope, I fought to be his primary carer, and courts awarded me that, no way I'm "giving him up"). Do I go back to court to fight to move him overseas? (Not too convinced I'd win that).

So FI could move here.
And basically swap two teen daughters for a child (who he thinks of as a son) and a toddler daughter?
Along with giving up a well-paying, long-service job? (If it was just the job, he'd have been here yeas ago, it's just an additional point).

There's a road-block at every turn, where do you get off?

If you've read through that, thank you (and congratulations).
If you've any thoughts (I know advice is a bit too much to hope for and answers are out of the question, but, please post. Outside perspective could help.
Any questions I'll gladly try and answer.

I've been here long enough to know I can't tell people how to post, however. Please know that we are aware of the unfairness of the situation to the children (never mind ourselves). We know that having a baby and raising a child 4000 miles apart is less than ideal (for her and her siblings sake).
She wasn't planned. Protection is still not 100% effective.
I wouldn't change her coming, even if I could.
We have daily FaceTime, and all parties on both sides of the Atlantic have a good relationship with each other.

Thank you for reading.

STARMOON44 · May 2017

Wait until his teenage daughters graduate high school, then he moves to the U.K. He starts figuring out now how he will find a job over there. You start figuring out a plan to get yourself a job, even if you know it's going to take a while.

CMGragain · May 2017

firestar-2 said:

Hey everyone,

So, I've been lurking for... ever? Like, since crazy-mod Lucy and Eddie were around, back in the days of Stage and Linger.

I've seen you ladies give out some immense advice, and now I'm hoping you can do the same for me.

I'll list the info rather than writing it all out in the hopes it's a little easier to follow.

I live in the U.K.
FI lives in USA.
We've been together a little over 3y.
He has two (teen-ish) daughters.
I have a son (4yo).
We have a nearly 2yo daughter who lives with me.

My sons dad lives two hours away. He took me to court for custody (I moved away to live near my parents). He's ended up driving down to pick son up every other weekend, and back to drop him off.
OH lives (could be) walking distance (I guess it's like, across town) from his ex, and the kids go to either house 50%ish of the time.

OH has a good job.
After 9 years of 50 hour weeks, I ended up on benefits after maternity leave with our daughter and although I technically support myself, it's via government handout.
(I hate being a "benefit bum", but when I looked into going back to work, it turned out I'd lose more money in what they'd stop paying out than I'd earn. Basically, I can't afford to go back to work right now).

So, basically, we're just in one big mess here.
We're missing out on time together.
The kids are missing out on time together.
The paternal grandparent/granddaughter relationship is (great, but) being missed out on.
Our daughter is missing out on half of her family.

We fly back and forth whenever we can (3-4 times a year), but... it sucks.

Financially, it makes more sense for me to move to the US. (It's certainly where I plan to end up eventually).
However, that then means that the two young kids will lose the (pretty much daily) contact they're so used to with my parents (FIs mom lives ~6 hours away from him).
It also means my son is left in limbo. Do I send him to live with his dad and only see him holidays? (Uhm, nope, I fought to be his primary carer, and courts awarded me that, no way I'm "giving him up"). Do I go back to court to fight to move him overseas? (Not too convinced I'd win that).

So FI could move here.
And basically swap two teen daughters for a child (who he thinks of as a son) and a toddler daughter?
Along with giving up a well-paying, long-service job? (If it was just the job, he'd have been here yeas ago, it's just an additional point).

There's a road-block at every turn, where do you get off?

If you've read through that, thank you (and congratulations).
If you've any thoughts (I know advice is a bit too much to hope for and answers are out of the question, but, please post. Outside perspective could help.
Any questions I'll gladly try and answer.

I've been here long enough to know I can't tell people how to post, however. Please know that we are aware of the unfairness of the situation to the children (never mind ourselves). We know that having a baby and raising a child 4000 miles apart is less than ideal (for her and her siblings sake).
She wasn't planned. Protection is still not 100% effective.
I wouldn't change her coming, even if I could.
We have daily FaceTime, and all parties on both sides of the Atlantic have a good relationship with each other.

Thank you for reading.

In the USA, many families are a long distance from grandparents. I live in Colorado, 2000 miles away from my daughter and my two young grandsons. This is not unusual for the USA. If you come here to live, your son will find he has lots of company being separated by distance from family members.

I think you should take the grandparent issue out of the picture and focus on what is best for your soon-to-be-family. Obviously, as your son grows older, he will need to spend time with his father. There will be travel expenses. If his father wants to stay in his life, he can do that long distance, too. Your ex will likely object, so be prepared for more court hearings. This should be your focus. You will need to talk to a lawyer.

Your fiance has to decide what is best for his two teen-aged daughters. This is not your decision to make, so you can relax about this.

Since you have no current job, immigrating to the USA would probably be a good idea, but there are lots of legal complications. Marrying a US citizen is no guarantee of citizenship. Your daughter was born in the UK, so she is not a citizen, either. If you plan to work, you will need a work permit (green card). You need to consult a lawyer before making any decisions.

STARMOON44 · May 2017

Children born overseas with at least one American parent often acquire citizenship at birth. Too complicated to just declare that she isn't a citizen.

CMGragain · May 2017

I'm not a lawyer, but I know family members who have had problems. Great if she doesn't have to deal with this, though! Like I said - talk to a lawyer!

firestar-2 · May 2017

I forgot to say, our daughter is legally both a UK and an American citizen (she has both passports and has already travelled on both). She has her UK birth certificate, and her American certificate of birth overseas. We're just waiting on her SS card because apparently these take 96388536 years to come through.
We had to go to the US embassy in London to declare her, she was not automatically granted US citizenship.

Obviously my son and I would still need to aquire green cards. We have spoken to a lawyer regarding all this and found out info about all the different kinds of visas available.
They all suck, and cost a fortune, of course.
For him to come here, I have to be in full time work. For me to be in full time work, he needs to be here, because childcare is jokes expensive.

Although grandparents are not a deciding factor, I mentioned to to show that they have that established relationship here. My sons paternal grandparents are a flight away, so he knows what it is to be away from extended family.

For all ex's faults in my view, he cares enough about his son to have fought for him, and I don't want to be the reason they have less contact than they do already. I was actually offering him more time in pre-court talks than the court finally awarded him.
That means, though that my girl doesn't get that contact with her daddy.

Whilst his daughters aren't my concern, they are. FI will always have ultimate say about his choices for them, of course, but they're still part of our immediate family and need to be considered just as much as my two.

It's pretty much a case of every way round, someone loses out.
His girls and I get on really well.
He and my son get on really well (son calls him "daddy Name", his choice not ours).
The four "kids" all get on great together.

There's no win.
If I were to go back to court, and win, my son would only see his daddy over US school holidays. If I lost, I'd only see him over UK school holidays.
If he moves here, his daughters never get a real relationship with their baby sister.

He's lucky that his job is fairly broad-spectrum, and when we've looked into options over here, he's always been able to find multiple advertisements for work he's suited to.
I was a manager for 9 years for a nationwide company, and could pretty much return to that company at any point.

All I do is go round and round and round in circles.

If someone could create, perfect, and affordable-sell teleportation devices, I'd sure appreciate that.

STARMOON44 · May 2017

I just don't think it's fair for either of you to take your kids away from their other parent, or to leave your kids behind and move. You and he got yourselves into this mess, and you two should bear the burden of those choices.

Plenty of people figure out how to be a single parent working full time. I think you should focus on figuring that out, and accept that you two cannot be together now, and cannot be together for a long time to come.

charlotte989875 · May 2017

I'm curious when and where you're getting married? It sounds like your current situation is unsustainable but any major change is going to have some major consequences. Does your FI have a good relationship with his daughters mother? Would they even be interested in living in the U.K., would they be able to? If I were the other parent (his daughters mother or your ex-H) I'd be pretty hesitant, even unwilling, to make major changes to my kids life/my time with them for a couple that was not married. Maybe that's harsh but engagements break up all the time and I wouldn't be willing to disrupt the norm until there was a marriage.

It sounds like it's time for you all to make some big choices; Could you split time between the US and U.K. with your kids? It's not ideal but many people make it work.

firestar-2 said:

Obviously my son and I would still need to aquire green cards. We have spoken to a lawyer regarding all this and found out info about all the different kinds of visas available.
They all suck, and cost a fortune, of course.
For him to come here, I have to be in full time work. For me to be in full time work, he needs to be here, because childcare is jokes expensive.

Although grandparents are not a deciding factor, I mentioned to to show that they have that established relationship here. My sons paternal grandparents are a flight away, so he knows what it is to be away from extended family.

For all ex's faults in my view, he cares enough about his son to have fought for him, and I don't want to be the reason they have less contact than they do already. I was actually offering him more time in pre-court talks than the court finally awarded him.
That means, though that my girl doesn't get that contact with her daddy.

Whilst his daughters aren't my concern, they are. FI will always have ultimate say about his choices for them, of course, but they're still part of our immediate family and need to be considered just as much as my two.

To the first bolded, it sounds like you're trying to make a stronger case for not moving your son/your FI moving out there as to not disrupt your sons life. Fine, but you have other children in this situation that are not even seeing their parents regularly. I get that having grandparents around is important, but so is having parents.

The seconded bolded; this is absolutely your concern. Or should be. These are his children. They deserve consideration and care just like yours do. If you do blend families with this attitude they're likely to pick up on it.

Finally; the expense? Well visas, international relationships, and multiple children are incredibly expensive. But how did you not realize that when you got serious/had a daughter? Again I'm sorry if this is really harsh, but immigration (especially with the US) is well known to be incredibly difficult and expensive.

I understand tour situation sucks and I do feel for you. But sometimes in families people have to make sacrifices. You all (you and your FI, your ex-H and the mother of his daughters) have to figure out what is best for the children in this sitatuion. All of the children.

JaxInBlue · May 2017

Your children (your son and daughter) are both very young. I agree with @STARMOON44 that the best thing to do may be to wait until your step-daughters are out of the home and then have your FI join you in the UK. That seems to be the least disruptive to the relationships between parents and children.

Has your FI looked into telecommuting options with his employer so that he might be able to visit you in the UK more? When you visit each other, have you been in situations where you both work and go about the routine of life rather than being in vacation mode? Could your daughter spend time with her dad in the US even while you stayed in the UK, in order to have more time with him?

You are asking a lot of your co-parents to make changes to their lives and relationships with their children by considering moving one family sub-unit away from the other biological parent. I personally would not be willing to be the parent who lost out on time with their child because my ex had fallen for someone geographically out of reach.

You are in a tough situation. But the children here need to come first and part of that is preserving and protecting their relationship with their biological parents outside of the blended family. I think the best you can do right now is continue to put those relationships first until such a time as the situation changes - either because the children are older and can request a different situation for themselves or because the children are no longer living at home.

kahluakoala · May 2017

Have you guys ever lived in the same city? You've been together 3 years but have a 2 year old daughter....did you decide to have a child together after 3 months of dating?

Just a little confused how this relationship came to be

LD1970 · May 2017

What were the result of your discussions about how to make this work before deciding to have a child together?

LondonLisa · May 2017

Didn't you post about this a few years ago before your daughter was born? What was your decision then?

There are some realistic factors here:
-If you are on benefits you are not going to be able to sponsor him for a visa. You need to be earning around £20K for at least 6 months minimum.
- You can't just uproot your life to take your son away from his father if he is an active participant in his life.
- Similarly, I don't think it's fair to take his 2 teen daughters away from their life in America.

I understand life is messy, but I just don't see how you 2 can be together in the short to medium term. Children are wonderful, but they complicate situations. Unfortunately, there is no situation in this where a child isn't pulled away from a parent. I'm not trying to shame you, but I am just curious what your decision was a few years ago, before you were pregnant. Because this is just a no win situation, and it seems like the o my fair thing is for you to remain long distance.

Contrary to John Lennon, love is not all you need. I'm not trying to be harsh, but sometimes two people can love each other more than anything, but ifundamental realities of situations means you can't be together. Love just isn't enough to overcome these. Jobs/locations/obligatuons can get in the way and love just cant wipe those away. Real life is messy, and as much as you love him, having these children means you can't realistically be together until his daughters are out of the house.

CMGragain · May 2017

LD1970 said:

What were the result of your discussions about how to make this work before deciding to have a child together?

OP says her daughter was an unplanned baby.

Life's a mess... what to do?

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