Talk to me about long-distance visitation

[RollerCoasterMama]

No plans to move. But it's possible. STBX is military (though with the guard so not as likely to move). But all of his family is across country. My family is a few hours away, but I'm looking at possibly going back to school in a couple of years---may or may not be local.

STBX is aware of the possibility of me going to school again and is ok with it. None of the possible move are guaranteed or immediate---my best case scenario would be 2.5 yrs to get all of the pre-reqs done.

But I think with this possibility, we should put something in our custody agreement that addresses things--while we're both cooperating so well! :P

I'm meeting with a lawyer for the first time later this week and will ask him for ideas too...but I'm interested in standard agreements. Anything we do will need to be sort of flexible since he's military, but seems like we ought to have some basic expectations/rights laid out. STBX will agree to anything I propose pretty much. It's a one-lawyer divorce. I want to make sure to be fair to everyone.

Oh, and DS is 3 now...he'd be in kindergarten or 1st grade by the time I had to move. (There is a program here, but I don't know for sure that I'd get it and the high COL might be prohibitive if I got accepted at a University in a smaller, cheaper town.)

So...agreement clauses that work well? That don't work well at all? That you wished you'd put in there for clarification?

Lots of flying back and forth isn't going to be reasonable since we'll both be pretty modest income during that period of time. And we already have started up with nightly-Skype chats or phone calls even when we're just 10 mins apart.

[RollerCoasterMama]

p.s. I'm even thinking of applying to schools near the inlaws to streamline visits. A few years of living near his other relatives would be good I think. And they'd be ecstatic to have DS around on a regular basis.

(Luckily I really like my inlaws and we all get along just fine irregardless of the pending divorce. My STBX-BIL's ex-wife even spends her summer vacation visiting them...so they're pretty good about not severing ties.)

[violet_]

We live a couple thousand miles away from DH's children, and there are many things we wish we had in the agreement that we don't. We are hoping to avoid court, but there are some basic things we really need in order have a real relationship with the kids.

1. Access to video calling. We have twice weekly video calls. It would be best if we could agree on two one-hour periods per week (obviously they can change if something comes up) so we can see the kids. It took us many months of arguments to get permission from their mother to even have these calls (and yes, we purchased the computer camera for her to use). If you're already doing Skype, you have the right idea. I would just formalize an amount of time and a frequency. Since yours is only 3, maybe shorter, more frequent calls would work. The key here is everyone agrees ahead of time.

2. Figure out who pays for travel and where kids are dropped off/picked up. Our decree is local, so it says he has to pick up/drop off at her home, which is highly impractical when the kids are flying to see us. She threatens to enforce this on us when she gets crabby, but usually lately she will actually drive them to the airport. This concession took years. In the meantime, he had to rent cars to go get them, plus he needed carseats... You can imagine the hassle for her to avoid a 15 minute trip to the airport.

3. Let DS fly as an unattended minor when he is old enough. This one is HUGE. It's the difference between one airplane ticket (so the kid has flight attendants looking after him under the Unattended Minor program, which costs a bit extra), versus three plane tickets and days off work for a parent to fly out to get them, bring them back, and then return them when the visit is over. The unattended minor programs are really good and the difference in cost is truly the difference between seeing them and not.


These are the big ones. You might also consider rules for getting him home on school nights or before school resumes after summer vacation, so he's not all jetlagged and out of sorts.

We try to respect the children's schedule. I'm not sure you could codify this, but if we have the kids for less than a week, we keep them on a schedule based in their "home" time zone so they don't have jetlag. Bedtime, mealtimes, etc., are done according to their already-existing schedule whenever we can.

You could also agree if you can take the child out of school in order to catch a flight. This can be a difference of hundreds of dollars in some cases (like short breaks, such as Thanksgiving), and sometimes that extra hour makes all the difference.

It's good you two are working together on this. Best of luck!

[RollerCoasterMama]

Those are all really good things to include! I absolutely want STBX to have as much time with DS as possible and the things you listed are things I would definitely do, but not necessarily have thought to put in writing. I think it would be good to spell out the "rights" as well as the "responsibilities". Just for the sake of everyone's comfort. I'd absolutely advocate unaccompanied minor travel once he was old enough. That alone would get him much more time!

We do 10 or 15 min skypes or calls right now, but as he gets older and more busy, I would think longer calls would be good.

I wouldn't have thought about a clause to get him out of school a little early now and then. I think that's totally reasonable--the more visits the better.

Keep the suggestions coming! These sound really thorough!

I don't know if you can tell...but this is more about comfort level and setting expectations to protect their relationship then anything else. But I'm the kind of person where if it all happens to go kaplewy a few years down the road---we've got guidelines set in place from when we were in a good place with no hurt feelings...when we could objectively consider DS's well-being as the primary factor.