Parental Rights

What is the name of your state? TX

My wife and I are going through a divorce, and we have a young child. There is nothing that legally says who has custody, and what the visitation rights are. The baby lives with her, and I get to see her almost when I want. The problem that I have is that my wife forces me to only see the baby at the house (usually), refuses to let me have her overnight, and will not allow me to take her out of state so that I can visit my family with her (even though she has done this). Does she have any legal right to do this, and what can I do to force her to allow me to see my daughter. I am already paying child support that her and I agreed to, and because we are doing an uncontested divorce to save money, she is the one that has the lawyer. Although at this point I am considering getting my own.

Ok, the first thing you need to do is stop being sentimental with the woman you are divorcing because she and her lawyer will take you and your sentiments to the cleaners. The agreed upon child support thing is sweet and all but now it's time to get real.
There's nothing that you can do outside of court to force your wife to do anything. She also has a say in whether or not the child is taken out of state.

That said, hire a lawyer tomorrow and have stipulations drawn up that clearly define a schedule of visitation and state mandated child support. Her lawyer will probably want to revise your visitation parameters but eventually you will come upon an agreed visitation schedule.

I cannot stress enough that you need to hire an attorney to represent your interests and have your child support payments and visitaton regulated and on the books. If you do not do this and you try to handle this on your own being sentimental and diplomatic, the lovely ex's lawyer will carve you up into tiny little bite sized pieces and you'll wake up one morning wondering how you lost almost all visitation rights and why your paycheck is being garnished to pay for your ex wife's hair and nails to be maintained.