Location: San Diego, CA
Long story short, my ex was granted a move away the same day our marriage was dissolved. We have 15 year old twins (B/G) who were interviewed by Family Court Services where they expressed they didn’t want to move out of state (from CA to NY).
Judge said her decision could’ve gone either way but ultimately granted the move away. A few points for the legalese:
- Ex has primary custody. I have alternating weekends.
- 1 instance of alleged abuse against me was dropped. (Children were not involved)
- Ex has been primary custodian for the kids for most of their life.
- We have joint legal custody.
- Kids have been living in the same area for 14 years.
- Ex and I do not speak much. As discovered in FCS, she talks bad about me to the kids. I do not.
My kids are VERY adamant about not moving across the country so my question is: If my children refuse to go, what course of action can my ex take if I’m encouraging them to go? I’m aware of enforcement orders, but as far as I know, if I’m following them by telling our children to go then I’m not violating anything. If they refuse to go back to my ex for fear that she’ll take them out of state, can I file a request to change custody?
I had a consultation with a lawyer (a different one because mine couldn’t manage to stop the move away) and he said that Family Court doesn’t instruct children what to do. Only what the parents can and will do.
Comments
Kids don’t get ultimate say in where they live. The older the kids are the more courts would consider their opinions, but they listened and still ruled that they need to go.
If they still feel this way later you can see if you can modify things where their opinion matters more. Usually with kids after they get over the shock of moving and get settled they wouldn’t want to move back
> If my children refuse to go, what course of action can my ex take if I’m encouraging them to go?
Kids don’t have a choice in the matter. They need to go.
It sounds like your wife was already granted permission by a court to move with the kids. If that’s the case, there may not be much a new lawyer can do about it. In this situation, you’d have to be granted primary physical custody to keep the kids in CA. And there almost always has to be a change of circumstances (and a meaningful one) to justify a change in primary physical custody. If the court was required to consider your kids’ desires, then chances are it already did. But if the objections of two 15-year-olds are the only difference between now and when the decision was made, it’s almost certainly going to be denied at best, and you could be sanctioned for basically re-litigating nearly identical custody issues right after it was decided.