I have a few questions and I'm hoping that maybe some of you have been in similar situations or can give me good advice.

I will be graduating from college in a year and hopefully moving onto med school. There is one here in Arkansas (yet still 3 hours away), but I will be also be applying in other states and obviously will go to whichever one accepts me.

First, I have a five year old son who will be moving with me. There is nothing addressed in my divorce decree about me not being able to move. I don't feel like I should have to stay for the father's sake since he is very sporadic on his scheduled visits. If I added up the time he spent with him, it could easily be replaced with a 3 week stint during a summer every year. Do I legally have to stay in Arkansas even if it interferes with my career? Can visitation be modified where my ex can have him during the summers (if he chooses)since we would live far apart? I would gladly pay for round trip transportation for an all-at-once visitation, but obviously could not pay for every other weekend especially since he never takes them like he's supposed to.

Also, my husband has 2 children whom we do get every other weekend. Could we also have visitation modified for that so that we still get to see them? Their mother will try to fight us on everything.

I have a few questions and I'm hoping that maybe some of you have been in similar situations or can give me good advice.

I will be graduating from college in a year and hopefully moving onto med school. There is one here in Arkansas (yet still 3 hours away), but I will be also be applying in other states and obviously will go to whichever one accepts me.

First, I have a five year old son who will be moving with me. There is nothing addressed in my divorce decree about me not being able to move. I don't feel like I should have to stay for the father's sake since he is very sporadic on his scheduled visits. If I added up the time he spent with him, it could easily be replaced with a 3 week stint during a summer every year. Do I legally have to stay in Arkansas even if it interferes with my career? Can visitation be modified where my ex can have him during the summers (if he chooses)since we would live far apart? I would gladly pay for round trip transportation for an all-at-once visitation, but obviously could not pay for every other weekend especially since he never takes them like he's supposed to.

Also, my husband has 2 children whom we do get every other weekend. Could we also have visitation modified for that so that we still get to see them? Their mother will try to fight us on everything.

You and your husband will each need to file for modifications of visitation orders. Although your order doesn't state that you can't move, it probably also doesn't state that you can move.

Anytime that there is a visitation order, and a parent wishes to move that parent needs to notify the other parent and modify the visitation order. If either your ex or your husband's ex contests the move it will be up to a Judge to decide, so it really works to everyone's benefit if you can work out agreements with the exes.
Xena :)

So what do I do if we do come up with agreements from our exs? Do we all sign something and then file it with the modification?

check your state's visitation guidelines. My divorce decree doesn't detail anything about relocation, but our state guidelines does. It just basically says that you need to notify the other parent of the move in a certain amount of time and then specifies new visitation guidelines if the move is more than 150 miles away and it specifies how cost will be split up because of the relocation. I was surprised, but all this was spelled out in the visitation guidelines, so I would check there first. In my state, visitation should be mutually worked out by the parents, but if it can't be worked out verbally, then a modification to the decree has to be done.

You should consult an attorney locally to discuss the matters.

Can you tell me the site to the guidelines for Arkansas so that I may look at them?

Can you tell me the site to the guidelines for Arkansas so that I may look at them?

You can search the Arkansas Code at http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/data/ar_code.asp