Teen wants to live with Dad

[ghughes]

Looking for some feedback on a situation my husband and I have. I am a first-time registrant at this site but long-time watcher of posts. The posts here actually helped my husband obtain joint custody of his 6 year old daughter recently. But as they say, out of the frying pan and into the fire!

He has 3 kids; the afore-mentioned 6 year old is his youngest. He then has sole custody of his 12 year old son. Topping off the list is a 15 year old daughter. It is the 15 year old that we are having issues with now...or rather, her mother. There is no court order (other than divorce and that didn't spell out anything about custody) for visitation or custody.

To give some background, at 6 years old her mother decided that Dad shouldn't have anything to do with his daughter anymore (except for paying CS, she always took that no problem) and she disappeared. No forwarding address, no telephone. He hired investigators, did internet searches, everything that he could afford to do he tried. Family black-balled him and he was devastated. About the time she turned 12 she started asking questions about her Dad. Her mother refused to call, so her aunt did it instead. Then the mother grudgingly allowed telephone contact and gradually, visitation. SD began coming to our house for summer visits and we would visit her for Christmas (we live in Oklahoma, she in North Carolina) along with taking her on family vacations. Everyone got along, she even talked to me about how important it was that she and I talked since I am married to her ex and involved. We really liked her new husband and her 2 other kids.

As time wore on she grew more and more controlling to the point where last summer she insisted that we bring SD home 2 weeks early from her visit. The only reason why she did this was to prove that she could, she threatened us with no more visits if we didn't comply. At that point we were still dealing with the other custody case and all our resources were taken up. So we documented everything and took her home. We then took her to FL last Thanksgiving with us and everything seemed fine.

We had an agreement for summer visitation this year. SD was going to come to OK for 2 months this time. We had planned and paid for a cruise to the Bahamas and were taking SS and SD. SD was talking to a neighbor that her mother does not like so her mother said, "if you can't listen to me here then you're not going to go to your father's for your fun!" That's it in a nutshell. I think she was just waiting for some reason to cancel the trip. I have learned that she is threatened by the relationship that has come from us finding SD and she gives and takes away our scheduled time with SD as rewards/punishment.

SD has begun to voice, repeatedly, that she wants to live with us. Her mother tells her that the grass is not always greener on the other side. SD has begun to test the boundaries, like most teens, and we are keeping an open mind while listening to her mother's side and hers. Of course, we have no intention of keeping her here if she wanted to go home, and we have discussed with her the fact that we know the value of a relationship with both parents (especially having gone through such a horrible custody battle for his youngest child in which we dealt with PAS and visitation issues extensively) and if she moved here she would need to go back and visit her mother and talk on the phone regularly. She is truly a good kid and I give her mom and step dad much credit for raising such a great girl thus far. It would just be nice for her to have a chance to spread her wings a little. My question is this, if her mother relents and allows her to come here this summer would we be breaking any laws if SD refused to go home? Seems like a fine line to me, but with no court order stating that one or the other parent has legal custody and the fact that she is 15 might make some difference. I think that if her mother does not let her move here she will run away, and that's not something we want.

Thanks for reading all of this, I know its long! Any thoughts are appreciated.