I rarely ever come by newcomers anymore. Somme strange force attracted me to this thread.

I have been going through this for 8 years. My ex left me for OW when my daughter was 6 months old. He is an every other weekend, one night a week dad, not really involved in her actual raising, but he's there and she loves him, nonetheless. He is remarried to OW also, for 4 years now.

He has been by no means a stellar father. I mean, he had an affair when his wife (me) was pregnant and left me for her when our daughter was an infant. I wanted to love out of our money sucking state when all this happened. We had ot short sale on our home, rentals are expensive being close to NYC, and I didn't have a whole lot of help here, just like I wouldn't have had anywhere else. I was an ICU nurse at the time and TX was offering us LOTS of money to move and work there. A bunch of coworkers did this. My ex said he would have given me permission if he could have her a few weeks in the summer. I just couldn't do it. I wanted my D to have a relationship with her father.

In my state the other parent has to sign off. And to rule regarding being a "crappy mother" well,crappy has to be pretty much abusive and neglectful. Extramarital choices are rarely ever taken into consideration. I know YOU want to go FL. But what about S12? Does he really understand the extent at which he will be away from his mother? Is he really OK with that? Does he really truly understand what that means? Florida witht he cousins sounds exciting, but I think he may not be putting together that means he can't see his mother on a regular basis.

This will go to trial if she doesn't agree. And he will probably have to undergo some rough questioning, meetings with child psychologists, so on and so forth.

I can understand going through all if HIS situation with his mother really is that awful and detrimental. But it doesn't sound like it is. She has made poor choices with the marriage with in turn, does affect him. Just as my ex did. And even does to this day. But I weight the crappy situations and I know my daughter is better off having her father accessible to her rather than us starting over somewhere cheaper and sunnier.

It really does stink, having to kind of build your life around the situation you chose not to be in. Believe me, I get it. A big portion of my life has to be worked around my ex and his AP/OW for my daughter's sake. But hey, we do what we gotta do, no matter how unfair it is.

I just urge you to think this all through. And not to make any decisions that come from a place of your ex not "deserving" to getting to keep her son close to her where you all currently live. Because oh man, if I went by what my ex doesn't deserve rather than by what my daughter does, life would be much much different.