thank you for all of your advice. my biggest fear is after my daughter never having really any contact with her father will be forced to start visitation with him in another state he moved before she was ever born and now is threating me with taking me to court on visitation if he cant get the childsupport order lowered he is only seen her 2times in her life but has spoken to her many times on the phone. this is all why I dont know if I should just give in to him? and as for why he thinks the childsupport should be lowered he has two other kids and one on the way.
lostmother3 said:
I agree! If it were a case where dad hadn't been around because he was in prison or dealing drugs, or some other thing that would be harmful to the child, I'd say take the CS cut if you have to in order to keep the child safe. But, even though dad hasn't seen the child, she is still familiar with him and it doesn't sound like he's a BAD person. It's a GOOD thing for the child to have a relationship with BOTH parents, as long as the parents aren't a danger to the child. Since she doesn't really know him, mom could get a graduated visitation schedule so that the child isn't just up and leaving the state to visit dad from day one, but it will happen.baystategirl said:
I understand that a child needs to know both parents but in my case I have a husband that has raised her since she was 5 months old and the NCP has really done nothing but pay childsupport until 1year ago now with the support review we are going through he is demanding all kinds of things. It just scares me that after denying her then poving paternity and hardly any contact in 8 years that he could mess with her life here. I also feel its purely money motivated. The way the court will look at it though is that, although he has never been involved before, since he WANTS to be a father now, he deserves the chance. There would have to be a very good reason for the judge no to allow it such as, he's a child molester or a murderer. As long as he is not a danger to the child, he will get visitation if he wants it.lostmother3 said:
Even if you make an agreement w/dad outside of court, the state will still enforce whatever agreement you come to.lostmother3 said:yeah oh well we will just have to see what happens at this point I told him that I wouldnt agree to his contract that Id rather keep it in the states hands but if he persues visitation we'll cross that bridge when we get there, it would be nice to have him care so much about her to fight for the right to see her, even after all this time! But thanks for all imput.
He will have to file in whatever court the current agreement is in. He COULD hire a lawyer to handle most of the case, but he would need to show up to testify at the very least if he wants to stand a chance of winning, although some courts will allow him to testify via telephone.lostmother3 said:One more quick question if he does decide to take me to court over visitation he would have to file the motion here correct? Because we live in different states. Would he physically have to come to my state for a court hearing? Didnt know I really dont know much about all this stuff.
I would waste alot of time worrying that he will sue for visitation if you don't lower the support. The cost of a court battle is going to be way more then what he would spend going to court. If his ony interest is lowering CS to save himself money, he's not going to spend THOUSANDS of dollars to get visitation rights to a child he really doesn't want in the first place. If he goes ahead and file because he really DOES want to be a father, he deserves the chance. If it were me though, I would ask the judge that the CS remain the same until he has completed the "getting to know each other" phase and has actually exercised his visitation rights for at least 6 months to prove his motivation.lostmother3 said:ok thank for the info