I realize the nature of this site and hope that my question will be seen in the light that I truly want what is best for my child.
I have a 3 yr old who has only seen her BF once since age 5 mos. BF has called only a handful of times and from the very beginning shown very little interest in his child. When my child was 9 mos we moved to a different state with my family and my only support system. I have always been forthcoming with information on where we live and our contact information. I have never denied BF access to his child.
I recently recieved a letter with very legal wording saying that BF is requesting formal visitation including summers and holidays. BF and I were never married and have no formal agreements other than my recent filing through the atty gen office.
Here is my dilemma. He does not know my child. He has made no real effort to get to know my child even with me calling and basicly telling him he is missing out on an amazing life. Now after I file for CS he wants visitation and possible Joint custody.
To add to this he is a known alcoholic and addict and his GF whom he has been with since before our child was born is a clinical Schizophrenic and has made frightening attempts to include my child in her life. (cut up pictures and made a scrapbook of them as a family)
so... do I allow visitation so that my child knows BF or do I protect the child and make sure that BF and his GF continue to leave us alone?
you have no choice but to follow the court order. If you do not follow the court order you could lose custody of your child. No offense, but just about every poster that comes to SPARC that does not want to allow visitation, they all claim their ex's are abusive and alcoholics. However, you did have sex with this person and had a child, I guess he had a lucid moment. Your asked for child support, you opened the can of worms, and yes, he does have rights as the child's father to see the child.
She said there is no formal agreement. She only asked for support, that does not establish parenting time.
To the poster...without court papers, you do not have to allow visits. He has no rights until he gets them recognised by the court.
See if he files anything (was paternity established for CS?). If he does, and you go to court, you should ask for supervised visits (not by you) until the child and dad get to know each other. If there are other concerns, you will need proof of them (police records, DUI, etc).
order in place then he has no rights. However, if he is seeking visitation and she says no, then he probably will go the court route. And yes, I agree that visits should be supervised until the child gets to know dad. However, I do not think a mother has the right to play God and keep the child from dad.
You can allow visits and protect your child. I'm in the midst of doing that now (my XH had a DUI while DS was in the car with him).
First you have to deal with the re-integration issue. I know there are books out there that address this in part- one I liked (but didn't read/use this part of the book) was "Mom's House, Dad's House". Look for it at your library or Amazon. Setting up supervised visitation at this point is very reasonable. Also, if this goes through the courts, there will likely be a custody evaluation which should bring out serious AODA and mental health issues, esp if he's had trouble with the law.
Was the request a court motion or was it from him or from his attorney requesting time?
No way would I allow the BF to visit. It seems to be a typical ploy to want visitation when child support is needed. If you can prove he's a danger to the well being of your child, then no court would require visitation. (however, the hard part is being able to prove to the judge what you're saying is true. Just a tip, judges have heard it all before and they tend not to believe anyone)
ur in the same boat i was about a year ago... Sad truth is is that if he has already filed there is nothing you can do now, You have to let him see him or you will be held in contempt of the papers. That will make it easier for himto fight for full custody. My ex is a known alcholic and meth user. Every police officer around here knows him very well and hate him very much but that doesnt matter as long as he doesnt hurt the child. Now if you play your cards right you might be able to get supervised visitation because of the clinical schizophrenia. I dont know but iwould certainly ask about it and see. Me and my ex were never married as well but that doesnt matter unfortunately. Now about the whole BF doesnt know child. What I did was I requested a "Phase-In Period" where he only takes him for 1 day every week Supervised for 4 weeks then he stayed the night 1 night every week(6PSat to 12p Sun) for 4 weeks then he stayed 6p Sat-6p sun every week for 4 weeks then it went to normal weekend visitation every 2 weeks. See if that is available, it works great. But as for not letting him see him, cant nemore if there are papers involved now. Hope this helps....Hang in there :)
Married Mom of 3 Wonderful Boys
5, 3, 3 months
2 dogs, Sheba and Chloe
1 cat, Rose
Keeping your child from the dad is not playing God... If that is done then it was obviously to prtotect the child. I did it because first of all i was 16 and scared of what he would do. I wanted to tell him so I planned on it and when i got to his house I saw him snorting ridlin and shooting up, drinking, and smoking pot. Yea, like i was going to go "Here spend time with your child in between your "bathroom breaks" Its ok even if your high off your butt and being a drunken idiot...." After all that was over and he seemed to be getting his life back together I told him, gave him joint custody, now he is badmouthing me, brainwashing him and telling him to hurt his little brother. Looks like I at one time wasnt so stupid, If i could go back i wouldve never have told him, if it meant i could keep my son SAFE! But it is NOT playing God...
I should clarify a few things.
First we have NO court orders except for child support.
Second the geographic distance between us is going to greatly limit a phasing in. We live nearly 1000 miles apart
The letter I received from BF while being legaly worded and probably written by an attorney did not go through the court system. We are truly at the beginning of all of this.
Until recently it has always been my philosophy that he should play a part in his childs life and that they should know each other. I have tried and tried to get him invloved to no avail. Then I filed for Child support. I did not want to do it. I had to in order to keep the assistance I get to pay for daycare. When I filed I gave BF plenty of notice but he is still very unhappy.
I recieved this letter 10 days after a conversation where BF asked me to drop back child support.
I believe he is only motivated by having to pay Child Support and would not be invloved in the childs life otherwise.
It's hard for me to feel that this is in my childs best interest if it is motivated by spite....
even if it seems as though they are done out of spite. Let me give you some idea of what happens to dads sometimes. When they break-up with mom sometimes they feel rejected and like they failed. Sometimes the fight to be in their kid's life seems too much, especially if the break-up is bad. Sometimes dad's give up for a while. It is not the best thing in the world, but I think it is pretty common of a scenerio. My Dh did it and my dad did it when I was a kid.
Sometimes when the dad goes through court about CS it makes them realize that it is not that bad and they can see their children and exs without dying.
Regardless of whether this is out of spite, it is best for a child to have both parents. Have you been taking to him? How do you know he is still getting in trouble?
If you feel confident that he is a danger to your child you can have an evaluation done on him across state borders. Ask that he be drug tested. Ask that his visitation be in your town on weekends during the day. He can stay i your town and have daytime with the child then bring him home at night. You can even have these supervised (not by you, that is too strange).
DH has a long distance relationship with his daughter. I would like to offer any advice I can on that matter.
Good Luck
ref
My atty told me from the beginning . Even being an alchoholic won't stop visitation : So this will be a court process And In Wash state If you make the allegations to the court , One of the atty's that wants to do thier job will fill out a document for Appointing A Guardian ad Litem (washington any way) The reason is the court will not know whom to believe : So if he really is that messed up, But you want the money that you didn't iether apply for before this time , He is apprently not so bad of an alchoholic as to not make it worth it to get the money , In other words he must be functioning well enough to have a job or it would be worthless to apply for child support ,
Secondly when the GAl does the investigation . As In My case allegations were made that are identical to your's < And they were not true because I don't even drink , the GAL reported that there was no reason I could not see my son Becuase their was no proof , Witness or report that supported the allegations ,
The court is use to these allegations being exagerrated or outright falsified ,
Also the court see's them as true when they are ! so the next step for you is the courts process , And you will have to prove your case ,
And yes As A father I could see walking away !
I did not choose that route , And I see My son , And it is in the best for My son as he loves me and I love him dearly ,
In A generall way the court gets a clue as to whats going on , But unless you can prove your allegations , Thats all it is is more allegations that the court has no reason to believe or not believe .There is also something to this if you believe you child will be in danger , And I don't believe a child should be subject to a drug and alchohol environment , But on the other hand the child should have some contact with the other parent ,as I see how damageing this was to my step daughter when her father would not pay any attention to her ,
Think this through ,
This is going to be a legal process and it will take some suiting up and showing up for the DAd And if he is so bad off he won't Make the appearances ,
I think the thing to remember is that there are a lot of options.
In your place, I guess I'd write a letter to the ex saying that you are open to allowing visitation ("parenting time" or however it's called in your state) but you need an agreement, and since he is the one making this request could he please write up a plan for what he has in mind.
Now there's a good chance he's asking for something totally reasonable. Perhaps he could drive out to your town a few times a year and spend a long weekend with the child, but just during the daytime hours, and always with another adult (someone you know and trust) on the scene... something like that. I'm guessing you'd be okay with that, conditional on him being sober around the child and so on.
Maybe he expects more than that. Maybe you can compromise. You just have to know what you will and will not agree to. I suppose you would not be willing to let the ex take your child 1000 miles away to his place, for example, since you don't trust him.
My point is, the ex has a legal right to spend a reasonable amount of time with his child, and I daresay even if he's a dysfunctional jerk he still has the moral right too. Considering his circumstances, I'm willing to bet he doesn't expect a lot of time and maybe you can work something out that is fair to him and the child while addressing your safety concerns.
If not, good news, the onus is on him to make a legal case, which means he will probably have to hire a lawyer first and spend the money to make that happen. And that just opens up the exact same discussion between lawyers, it doesn't guarantee him anything.
If it gets to that stage--and really, don't worry about this unless it happens--and if he's making demands that seem to you to be unhealthy for the child, then you might need to bring to your lawyer some evidence that he's drinking or using or whatever, and that will be taken into account when the lawyers negotiate.
Bottom line, it sounds like you may give up a little time with your child, but most kids do want to know their dads, and it seems to me that you can arrange things in a way that is safe and healthy for your child.
I'm reminded of those books on "win-win" negotiating. You need to focus on interests, not positions. In other words, get your mind away from "I don't want my child in that man's hands." That's a position. Your interest is "I want my child to be in a safe and healthy environment." Can you let your ex spend time as a father while you defend that interest in health and safety? I think so.
But first, why not get a specific proposal (from him) on the table? Remember that he's the one asking for a change, so he may as well make some kind of proposal or things will remain as they are. Ball in his court, as they say.
I am going to go in a slightly different area here. It could be that he wants to see his son know because his son is older. Sometimes it is harder when they are infants because they know the child won't remember them from visit to visit. That is what happened to my husband. His ex left him one night and took their daughter. She then refused to let him have visitation, even see the child at all. He had been very involved with the pregnancy and birth. He was an active father. He was in the Navy and they shipped him to Japan. How do you visit a child at that distant. He didn't call, what do you say to a 6-month old, or a 1 year old or a 3 year old? Ex didn't have any pictures of him,tried to cut him out of the child's life, threw away all his packages. He went straight to court when his daughter was 7 after he got back into the country and out of the hospital(he left Japan after he was in a bad accident and in a coma for awhile, then they had some serious therapy to go thru... so to be true at that time, he had to think of himself) When he was healed he went to court and fought to see is daughter. He understood he would have to go slow and now has standard visitation with his daughter now 12. She knows who he is and knows he is her dad. Her mother and step-father do everything they can to discredit him to her, but she knows.
Your ex, may just have been an inept new father, now the child is older he may feel that he can handle it better. Whether or not there is a current court order, stay friendly with him, let him see his child, if he goes to court and you were unfriendly, it could seriously hurt you. What ever happened in the past, this is who YOU choose to be the father of your child, be civil and include him now.
Fortunately for you and your child, I believe BF is just doing this because of CS. ESPECIALLY if he has had no interest thus far. The fortunate part is that he will probably disappear as fast as he arrived on scene. Also, it is probable that the court will NOT just say okay you have been gone for 5 years here is joint custody. They will more than likely start out supervised and i guarentee that if he has to pay to see your child it probably isn;t going to happen....I know this is scary, but remember to do whatever is in your child's best intereest, not yours and you will be alright!
I believe this guy needs a chance. Let's not forget that mom took the baby 1000 miles away. How is he supposed to develop a relationship with his child in such a situation? And like the above post asks, what do you say over the phone to an infant? My guess is that his heart aches for this child, but contact has been made impossible.
There are some mean-spirited posts above that automatically assume this guy is a loser drug abuser. None of us know that...not even mom. I agree that a drug test might be in order. But I believe mom should agree to it as well. After all, she found him attractive enough to copulate with him. Pleeeze. Has she never taken a single puff? Lots of kids do drugs, but most go on to be stable adults.
My experience is that many GALs are worthless, inexperienced and completely unqualified. So what kind of evaluation do you purchase? And what end does jumping through all the hoops accomplish? Perhaps mom and a friend should pay a visit to his home. If it checks out, then both should submit to drug tests. And if either of them are currently using, then this is a complete waste of time. If all is clean, then he deserves a complete unhindered relationship with his dad. And, yes, it is playing God to prevent this relationship. Lastly, we should all remember, in some states the person who leaves the state is the one who picks up the travel tab for visitation. Rightly so I believe.