need help

In New Jersey:

My son was born in 93 while I was living with his father. His father was very abusive towards us which finally prompted me to leave in 94. We are in the process of legally changing my son's name to my husbands, it will be final Friday (we've been married 5 years and together since 94).

Here is my question:
Bio dad has not seen or spoken to "his" son since Christmas 94 - he has made no attempt to check in or pay any support (we were not married - I asked for c.s. when we broke up but there is no formal agreement) - Is there no way to have his parental rights terminated without his consent????? I am still terrified of this man - he scarred (mentally) both my son and I for life and had threatened to kill my son if he ever saw him again as my punishment for leaving.

My husband is the only father my son knows and in fact my son doesn't even understand that he is not technically his father.

We went to see a lawyer a year or so ago and were told we needed his permission and that if he asked for visitation I would have no choice but to give it to him but could ask for child support. I will not let that monster ruin his life by reminding him we exist - we have made no attempt to hide from him he just never really looked but my fear is that if bring it up it will get his anger up again. I also don't have the $10,000 and up that lawyer said it would cost.

Are there any options?

Please help - I'm sorry this is so long.

In Indiana, if the non-custodial parent has not seen the child in more than a year and has not paid support during that time, the child can be adopted out from under him/her by the spouse of the custodial parent.

Of course, it's easier to do an adoption with consents signed by bio dad, but it can certainly be done forcefully here.

I don't know what the laws are in your state, however.

Also, it pays to shop around. I know a lot of attorneys who are willing to do adoptions for far less than the $10K you were quoted.

[kat1963]

I think you need to shop that one too, 10 grand appears way out of line....it usually depends on what your state considers abandonment, but he will have to be notified, or an attempt needs to be made to notify, such as posting it in the newspaper yadda, yadda. Do yourself a favor and hop on down to your local law libary and do some research on this issue. If you still are not comfortable trying to handle it on your own, take the information you have gathered to a lawyer....many will reduce their fees if you've already done the leg work, know what you need and how to proceed. Step parent adoption doesn't have to be that hard. I did mine myself and yeah, my ex was a monster and hadn't seen his son in 15 years. by his own choice and to be honest, I never pushed the issue either. He had been paying his whooping $18 a week in support, but was slightly in arrears (like how far can you get on 18 a week right, heck that didn't even pay 1/6 of the day care alone when he was a baby) I thought he'd go for the visitation thing too, but I sent him the forms to be notorized and a letter. He sent them back, I filed, done deal for really cheap.
Good Luck!
KAT