Hi Nancy,
It’s not at all unusual for a state to make it hard for a parent to leave the state and take the children, thereby separating them from the other parent. What is far LESS likely are states that force a parent who has already left a state to uproot and return there. Mara’s right; you’ll eventually want to hire a good divorce lawyer to advise you, but you’ll be more likely to get your money’s worth from that lawyer if you do some research on your own – yeah, the free kind – before you start spending money.
You say you’ve already divorced, so the laws of the state where you have filed are the laws that matter here. Place the name of that state and the phrase “relocation with the children in divorce” in your search engine and see what you find.
Another step that I sometimes recommend for people getting a divorce is to spring for the textbook lawyers use in that state. It will be scary expensive, like $150 or more. But when you think about it, that’s less than you would pay for one hour’s time with a good divorce lawyer, and it will probably give you a sense of security just to be able to look up how the law works on a given issue.
Here’s what I found just looking around on the Internet:
If you can’t muster the cash to buy the one you need, look for a law library near you; they’ll probably have a copy or two available to consult there.