visitation right of father (never married to mother) and father's wife

[bix]

Facts:

1. I am father (in CA) of infant (in MD).  

2. Mother and I were never married.  I live with my wife who knows the situation.  She supports my having a relationship with the child, and would like to participate in visits.

3. Mother and I agree that I should and will be a part of child's life.  I saw him in the hospital after birth, acknowledged paternity, am on the birth certificate, and mother cooperates with arrangements for me to visit.

4. BUT, mother opposes any involvement of my wife in visits, and refuses any visit arrangement which could permit my wife to see the child.  She thinks that because we were never married, she has this right.

QUESTIONS regarding point 4:

1. Do I have a right to visit my child?

2. Does the mother have any right to restrict the conditions of these visits such that my wife cannot participate?  I have the impression that I have the right to take the child away from the mother's home for visits, and that I can include anyone I want who is not abusive or dangerous.

[socrateaser]

>QUESTIONS regarding point 4:
>
>1. Do I have a right to visit my child?

No, unless that right has been established by a court order.

>
>2. Does the mother have any right to restrict the conditions
>of these visits such that my wife cannot participate?  I have
>the impression that I have the right to take the child away
>from the mother's home for visits, and that I can include
>anyone I want who is not abusive or dangerous.

If you have not established your right to custody/visitation of the child, then as you have no right to visit the child, neither does your spouse.

If you have established your rights by a court order, then your spouse's rights are subject to whatever your rights are under the order. If all you have is visitation at the mother's residence, then only you can visit. If you have the right to unsupervised visitation and the right to remove the child from the home, then outside the mother's residence, anyone who wants to see the child is free to do so. However, you cannot leave the child in anyone else's care.

If you have custody rights via court order, then you are not only empowered to let others visit the child, you can also delegate your custodial authority to someone else to exercise custody in your absence.

The short version is: if you have a court order for custody/visitation, then the order controls your rights. If you don't have a court order and you were never married to the child's mother, then you have no rights at all, until you get a court order establishing your rights.

[bix]

Thanks for the fast and clear response: as a father never married to the mother of an 8-month-old infant (carrying my name), I only have visitation rights by court order, and my spouse can participate in visits only if the court order includes unsupervised visits.

Further facts:

1. I have maintained contact with the child since birth, we have successfully raised other children, do not use drugs or alcohol, have no criminal records, and are responsible citizens with professional jobs.  In a court hearing, there would be no possible evidence that unsupervised visitation would be dangerous to the child.

Request for clarification:

Is the court likely to grant unsupervised visitation (either immediately or after some number of supervised visits)?  Or, if the mother simply feels strongly about my spouse not participating, with no evidence of danger, is there a significant chance that the court would forbit my spouse's participation?

[socrateaser]

>Is the court likely to grant unsupervised visitation (either
>immediately or after some number of supervised visits)?  Or,
>if the mother simply feels strongly about my spouse not
>participating, with no evidence of danger, is there a
>significant chance that the court would forbit my spouse's
>participation?

A well-written court order will provide a plan for increasing levels of responsibility with the child. I'm being somewhat fasicious here, because most court orders for custody that do not include some "standard" plan, carefully crafted by the state supreme court, will have holes in it big enough to drive a semi through.

So, you're only choice is to take loads of video when you visit the kid and build up a nice portfolio showing how well bonded you are with the child, and then eventuntally go back to the court and ask for more freedom.

You will know that you have "enough" when some disinterested third party can look at your video and say, "looks like a father and child to me." If you can get the mom on tape smiling about everything, that would be very compelling, because then she can't suddenly change her tune in court and say that you were mistreating the kid and she was terrified.

If the mom resists the video, then just tell her you'll leave it running and pointed at the wall, because you really want to be able hear the child's voice when your gone. That way you'll pick up pretty much everything that's happening and you will have the mother's consent for the recording, which makes it admissible as evidence.