My sons father and I have been apart for almost 8 years. After about a year and a half I met someone and we have been together since. We have a 5 year old son together and my 12 year old adores his baby brother. My 12 year olds father is a great dad and has always taken care of what he has to as a dad and when he has days off spends them with him. Well things got tough when his dad's job forced him to move 6 hours away. My son was devastated even though his dad makes the drive when he has vacations from school.
This pass May my 12 year old came down with appendicitis and was hospitalized for 16 days and had 2 surgeries and I never left his side. His dad drove down and could only stay for first 3 days he was in the hospital because that's all his work would let him. To make a longer story shorter, his dad quit his job. What gets me is that instead of moving back this way to please his son and live a lot closer (mind you my ex's mother and brother live 45 minutes from us) he found a job where his other job moved him and now he wants our 12 year old to move with him and his girlfriend who has 4 kids. I'm stressed out over this. I love my son very much and I would have no problem with his dad if his dad lived within an hour of us. I didn't take my son and move far from him and make it hard to see him he 's the one even after quitting his job chooses to stay 6 hours away. How can I get both of them to understand that I want to be able to see my son more often than he does and the only way I'm going let him live with his dad is if his dad lives closer?

Well I think you should send him over during an up coming vacation and see if he likes it there like (a trial period) and if he likes it talk to his dad to to see if can stay over your house during summer vacation or something like that so you can see him under semi- regular basis(and also he won't miss his baby brother) : )

Your subject says your some wants to live with dad, but in the body you say dad wants the son. Are both true?

In any case, unless your son convinces a judge its probably not going to happen. Your ex will need to petition the court for a modification to the custody order. Under the circumstances it would be hard to have that approved.

I don't think you are going to make them understand anything. In reality we can't make people understand what we want them to, they either see validity to our points of view or they don't.

It sounds like Dad is staying because he has the girlfriend and doesn't want to leave her, or she won't leave with him and move closer to you. Either way, it sounds to me like Dad would rather uproot your son then disrupt his current situation. That will be viewed as selfish.

Scott is right, given the current circumstances, even if your son insisted he wants to live with his dad, the court isn't likely to see this move as what will be in the best interest of your son. It's just too much of a change and not real positive ones. He will have to changes schools, make new friends, live with all new people, deal with a "stepmom figure", extra curricular activities will change, new house, new town, farther from family members... everything. The court will not see that favorably. As your ex and his new g/f aren't even married that may not last and then he will have to deal with that change or deal with a new step-family. Blended families can be a REAL difficult change. So like Scott said it wouldn't likely be granted.

I don't think you have much to worry about. Given everything that you've described, even though your ex sounds like a dedicated father to the extent that he can be given the circumstances, I doubt that any judge would allow your son to be uprooted like that. Stability and continuity are important in childrens' lives and judges know that. Having your son up and move 6 hours away without a compelling reason would not be deemed to be in his best interests.