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Hi all,
I'm seeking some advice regarding a situation that has suddenly become difficult.
For some background, I have a four year old daughter with my ex partner. She moved away with my daughter (130 miles) when my daughter was 6 weeks old. All things considered, we made parenting work rather well. My ex would drive up and stay in my spare room one weekend, I would drive down to her house and sleep on the sofa the other weekends. This was to minimise my daughter travelling.
As my daughter got older, she began staying with me every other weekend. I would go and pick her up on a Saturday morning and her mum would collect her on Sunday evening.
Around 10 months ago, my ex was complaining that she had injured her back so driving for 5 hours to pick up our little girl was too much. Instead we arranged to meet halfway which again worked well, neither of us were late or left waiting around.
Just to give some context in terms of money, we have child maintenance arranged between us which goes into her account without fail every month. I was also paying for her fuel costs for the journeys she was making.
Overal everything has gone quite smoothly, until we informed my ex that my current partner and I were expecting a baby. Things became noticeably more awkward during the brief time we saw each other. I also believe that my ex and my daughter have moved in with her partner, which I don't have an issue with. He had until recently seemed quite a pleasant guy until I had taken my daughter to her first day at pre-school and also her nativity where I was completely blanked.
So, move forward to yesterday when I receive an e-mail to tell me that my ex is no longer taking responsibility for any of the driving. The reason being that her car only does X miles per gallon which my money doesn't cover by about £9, also the wear and tear on her car (6k miles a year) such as tyres etc. means that it's no longer viable for her to do.
I am now in a position whereby I have a 4 week old baby at home, I spend 65 hours a week working/commuting to support my family and now every other weekend I will spend 10+ hours driving to pick up my other daughter. I find it hard enough being apart from my eldest daughter for two weeks so I can't extend that to three weeks but I'm worried about doing this much driving, let alone on fairly minimal sleep.
The question is are there any obligations for my ex partner to take responsibility for driving? I am not looking to short change her or see her out of pocket and was happy with the arrangement we have. Also, the child maintenance I pay her is fairly significant so adding on the fuel brings up what I giver her to over £550. I'm not sure that would justify saying that 6,000 miles a year to becoming unaffordable.
There are some other questions I have but I'm just wondering about travel and if both parents are obliged.
Thanks in advance for any information
Is there a contact/child arrangement order in place, or was this all done by mutual arrangement? If the former, then what does it say about travel? If the latter, then you'd probably need to consider mediation to see if you can come to an arrangement. If you are doing all of the travelling, you could apply for a variation to the maintenance for travelling costs, if that is how payment is being made.
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