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Priority is your children. BOTH children. Not your wife. She's an adult. Don't abandon your daughter, because that's what you are doing for reasons that benefit only you and your wife. How do both of your kids maintain a sibling relationship if you move?
Please don't even consider this. Why would a parent ever admit to their child that they're considering moving away from her so that daddy can have a shorter commute and be happy?
It is not the responsibility of an 11 year old child to make sacrifices for their parent's happiness.
You know what the right thing to do is. Otherwise you wouldn't need to ask.
You asked her mother to make this move, which she did - so now stick it out.
Your first priority is your CHILDREN, and the 2 year old doesn't take precedence over the 11 year old just because you happen to currently be married to her mother. The nature of your relationship with the mother of your first child doesn't even enter into it. The 11 year old is every bit as important as the 2 yo.
"Vows" have nothing to do with anything. Kids come first, period. You already know that, don't you.
I know it isn't what you want to hear but you need to stay where you are until your daughter is a legal adult. You are her dad, the only one she's got and this is the only childhood she gets, and she needs you in the same city. Childrens' needs trump adult needs and wants. Always.
It will be heart breaking and life changing for your daughter. Stick it out a few years. We did it for my step sons. Plus...I wasn't first, all the kids were. And my step kids came before me. I lived in a city I hated for 15 years so my husband could raise his kids. And I am glad I did. Because they needed us. Once we had our own, it didn't make them less important.
Best case, Phoenix, 5 hours. Farthest, east coast.
This is why I'm asking, hoping for some first hand accounts.
I haven't left her in any way, she was 2 when her mother and I broke up, so she never really knew us together. I am actively involved in her life very much.
My main struggle is balancing a "separated" child, with a wife and "full time" child. I've been told my priority is my wife with whom I took vows. I am strongly attached to my 11 y.o. as well. This is not an easy situation.
I lived in a small town that I disliked for ten years because I married a man who had joint custody of his eleven year old son, and he didn't want to live far away from him and didn't want drama with the mama about schools, visitation, games, etc.
I knew going into it that this was the deal, and I held up my end of the bargain - even though it meant changing jobs, and living in a town I didn't like, and going to the same church, and baseball, basketball and football games with the ex wife always there. I did this while he finished high school and two years of community college in the town.
Then he took off for college five hours away and the second he did that, we put the house on the market and moved. I had to wait on my dream house for awhile, but it was well worth the sacrifice and my husband was very appreciative of me for holding up my end of the bargain without complaining. And my husband loves the new town and new neighborhood and house! But best of all - my stepson never "lost" his dad to his new wife and no one could ever say that I put any distance between them.
It sounds like you love your daughter and are close to her. I think it would make her VERY unhappy for you to move away - and this is just as she's entering puberty too, when she needs you the most. I really really really wouldn't recommend you doing this. It doesn't sound like you have a real need to move - it sounds more like you just WANT to move. My vote is NO on this idea.
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