This has been the hardest year and a half of my (F30) life. And now, my soon-to-be ex husband (M30) has given me another issue to grapple with

Tl;dr. My ex and I are almost divorced with custody and visitation sorted out, but now he’s moving to a different province with his pregnant girlfriend

I (F30)left my soon-to-be ex husband (M30) in March of 2019. We were living in Canada with our 2 year-old son (M4 now). It was a long time coming and my ex knew that. I wasn’t absolutely perfect, but I truly loved him, so being loyal, supportive, affectionate, and honest requires no effort on my end. He was physically and emotionally abusive.

I won’t go into extreme detail, but he agreed to give me sole custody if I didn’t ask for more than $100/month for child support. He also let me move back to where my family lives in the States.

A few months after my son and I moved back to the States, my ex moved to a different province for a girl and they’ve been together since.

With our lawyers, we agreed to the terms of the divorce. My ex had threatened in the past about disappearing with our son, so for physical visitation, we agreed to the following:

Every Summer until our son is 8, he and I both will travel to Ontario, which is where my ex lives, for a two-week stay. Our son will stay with my ex and I will stay with my ex’s aunt (she and I are close).

But now, there will be some changes.

My ex informed me that he and his girlfriend are expecting a baby and will be moving to New Brunswick. He told me that since I can’t stay with his aunt, he and his girlfriend will be looking for a 3-bedroom apartment so that I can stay with them and our son for these two-week stays.

I have tried to be a bigger person in all of this. I have been staying with my family since my son and I arrived back in the States. The house is huge and has a mother-in-law quarters. Since we left, I told my ex that he could come see our son literally anytime and use the mother-in-law quarters for full privacy. It can function completely independently of the main house.

He hasn’t come to see our son since we left Canada. We do video calls twice a week, so that’s the extent of the contact he has with him.

We aren’t even divorced yet. Everything has been filed, but the judge hasn’t signed anything.

I’m a pretty easygoing person for the most part, but this new arrangement for the Summer visits has me feeling very uncomfortable. In the agreement we filed with the court, all visitation mentioned Ontario.

If I don’t stay with them, my only other option is to stay in a hotel, which I truly cannot afford. I really don’t want to send our son up there by himself either. I’ve been with him every single day since he was born, and especially with COVID, my son cries hard if I have to go somewhere without him. Plus, I can’t ignore the threats my ex made about disappearing with our son, which is why I want to stay close to him until I know he can call me if something happens.

I don’t know if there is an ideal solution for these changes. I just needed to type things out.

Submitted August 29, 2020 at 03:11AM by coldwcabinfever https://ift.tt/2QB8uhL