Adoption

What is the name of your state? MA

I just found out that a friend of mine, found out that his 8 yr.old was adopted by the mothers new husband. SHe never contacted him to let him know about the adoption. She claims she had no idea where to locate him. He's been at the same job since the child has been born, she has his cell phone number, his work number. He's been sending her checks for support, which have his address on it...but she's never cashed them. Needless to say she got a letter from the childs doctor and minister stating that he was not in this childs life. He has tried to contact this child for a long time, but the mother has moved out of state, he even showed up at the house and she would not let him see her.
She did run an ad in the paper, but he never saw it.

Is this legal? Can he fight this? He was never married to her, and they had no written agreement. They did have an agreement where he would see her once a week...if he was allowed to, and he would pay for the new van instead of *child support* Once the van was paid for, she made it harder and harder for him to see her. She left the state, and remarried and now has had this new husband adopt his child. Isn't there a certain amount of years that the father has to be out of the childs life before this can happen?

I'm not even sure if he wants to pursue this as he is low on money and I think he's just so tired of all the fighting with the mom. But I would like to know if this is indeed all legal on her part?

It's legal

she posted the ad in the paper, and it probably ran the number of days by law. The rest of what you said is "he said, she said" and probably wouldn't hold up in court. It's very difficult, if not impossible, to get an adoption overturned.
What she did was not "morally" correct, but the right legal steps were taken so chances are the adoption will stand.
Sorry

adoption

Thanks for your reply. From what I have heard, she was also suppose to send a letter to his last known address...that never happened, cause if it did he would of gotten it as he still lives there.

I feel bad for my friend, but I think I get more frustrated with him cause of his lack of actions on things...ohg well his life I guess.

I also don't think there is anything he can do. If he would have kept in touch, or went to court to get legal visitation rights, followed through with visitation, tried to find out why she wasn't cashing the checks (maybe she didn't get them) none of this would have happened. I'm not trying to be critical but a person who doesn't even fight to his child is more apt than not to just through a letter away or may have never opened it. Your friend doesn't sound like a real upstanding reliable kind of guy and since you only have his word to go on, should think about how much it just doesn't add up.

adoption

Yeah, well his lack of actions is one of THE reasons why I broke off the engagement a year ago.

BUT in his defense...I can't say what he has done in the last year besides going on his word of sending checks. I know when I have tried to discuss this in the past with him, it was always money issues and he was just plain ole tired of all the crap his ex g/f was giving him.

This man was not allowed to include his daughter into his life...something that his first wife also did to him. With this child he would go to the house on Sundays and if he was lucky he could see her, if not, there would be no phone call to cancell out on him. When she moved to another state, he tracked her down and went to the house. Needless to say she was ticked at that.
He has tried numerous times to call there, only to have the phone be constantly busy or noone picks it up. He's come to the conclusion its used for a computer and they don't have a voice mail on it, and now has a different home phone number that everyone calls on.

I've had plenty of arguments about how he has handled his life in the past, and how he was handling things while we were together, and like I said I walked away from it all. I wasn't going to be brought down. But I think the way he's looking at it now is that his daughter will have a *normal* mother/father life with her brothers there and she won't have to deal with the fighting and her mother filling her head about him. He has told her before
(at my suggestion) that he always tell her who in the family could be trusted to get ahold of him if she wanted to see him. (as we had a feeling this was coming) Is he right to ignore all of this and not put up a fight? No, I think he should go and get her. But I'm not him and its not my life.