Dear Prudence: Should I move with my child away from where her father lives?

[cereta]

(Can you tell I'm catching up on Prudie?)

Dear Prudence,
I am 23, suffering from a degenerative disease, and mother to a toddler. My ex and I were a terrible match, but he adores our daughter, though he doesn’t put a lot of effort into their relationship. He has a solid income but is otherwise incapable of being a functional adult. He doesn’t pay attention to his bills or taxes and doesn’t clean, and he won’t even change the oil in his car until the engine blows (twice!). I have been dating a wonderful man for three years who loves me and my daughter and has asked me to marry him. He is starting a new job that will likely take him across the country, and he wants to be together. Despite his offer to fly her back as much as possible, I still feel guilty at the prospect of separating her and her father. Is it wrong to marry the good guy, who will take care of us, even if it means deeply altering my daughter’s relationship with her dad?

—Rethinking Remarriage

Get married, enjoy your wedding, take care of your health, and make sure that no matter where you end up, your daughter has regular visits scheduled with her dad. It will be hard for her to live far away from her father, but it would be much worse for her if you break up with your caring fiancé out of a twisted sense of guilt.

Comments

[cereta]

I mostly agree with Prudie's advice, here, but unless something was missing from the letter about the LW having sole physical custody, shouldn't there be a, "talk to a family law attorney" in there?

[the_rck]

That's a hard one. The letter writer doesn't mention any sort of custody agreement, and that could be an issue if her ex wanted to make it one. The prospective marriage sounds like it could be a very good thing for the letter writer and her daughter, however. Emotional and financial stability are huge, especially for someone with major health problems and a young child.

[elialshadowpine]

Does it still count as kidnapping if there's no custody arrangement with the biological father?

[the_rck]

I don't think it would be considered kidnapping, but the biological father could go to court to get a custody agreement and might be able to get one favorable to him that would prohibit moving the child either explicitly or by requiring a certain visitation schedule that won't work if the child is far away.

It's actually pretty hard to get sole custody without visitation requirements unless the other parent is documented as being dangerous. Even then, the court usually sets conditions under which the other parent can regain visitation rights.

The biological father has money, and that's the key thing for that sort of legal maneuver. So the question of moving away is one that the biological father has to be on board with.

[cereta]

IANAL, but honestly, I think that would depend state to state. I don't think it would be, say, felony kidnapping, but depending on a million factors (like whether he has legally acknowledged himself the child's father, a process that again varies state to state), he could make things difficult for her.