Visitation

North Carolina Divorce Law Divorce and Separation Answers
1

Complicated question that I hope you can assist with. My ex moved over 2 1/2 hours away and we do not have a custody agreement. Prior to his move, we lived about 2 miles apart and we shared the transportation of our child. During the first six months of our separation I did all of the driving because he lost his license due to a DWI. He is now insisting that I drive one way every other weekend/during his visitation times to either pick up and or drop off our child. He is very insistent that we share this burden, even though he moved merely to live in a more desirable area and it had nothing to do with his employment. He chose to move a great distance away, now creating an issue for transportation. This is placing a burden on me both financially and on my time. He is holding firm on his position that since we shared the transportation while he was two miles away, that we should share the burden now. My position is that there has been a significant change in circumstances and that it is unreasonable to force this burden on me. He hasn’t see our child since October and he wouldn’t pick her up for Christmas because I wouldn’t share the driving. I realize that we don’t have a custody order and he has pointed this out many times. My concerns are that he is now saying that I’m intentionally withholding visitation with my refusal to do the commuting. That isn’t the case. I have told him that he is welcome to have visitation, but he has to do the commuting and he just refuses. I do not want to be accused of deliberately withholding visitation as this isn’t the case. Other than stating in emails that he can see our child and offer time to him, with the understanding that he needs to do both the pick up and drop off how do I protect myself from false claims of deliberately keeping him from seeing our child? Is there a clear cut answer here that I’m missing?

I won’t get into all of the other issues, however I’m sure you can probably guess that he isn’t exactly making things easy in any aspect and he has thrown around a lot of false allegations. I just don’t want to be accused of withholding our child and am concerned he is making a feeble attempt to claim that I’m doing something that I’m not.

Thank you

2

If you have documentation of your willingness to allow the child to have visitation, I doubt that a court will find that you are withholding the child. There are no set rules on the driving that would occur between the parties when there is significant distance between them. It usually depends on the circumstances surrounding the move, but in my experience, the party that relocates usually has more of a burden for travel.

3

Thank you for the response. I do have documentation of multiple times where I have offered visitation and he has refused unless I make the drive. He is bullying, threatening, sending unwelcome text messages and he is calling when he has been drinking- just recently at 2:18 am and again at 2:36 am. It is causing sleepless nights.

Does anyone in your office have experience in dealing with cluster B behaviors, specifically a narcissist?

Thank you.

4

We have many experienced attorneys who are all well-versed in handling cases involving all different types of individuals. If you are located in one of the areas that we service, you should contact us for a consultation to discuss your case and see how we can be of assistance.