PulpPhenom
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? INDIANA
My stepson, 14 years old, just asked my wife if she thought I would adopt him. Obviously, I'm thrilled, but want to approach this cautiously, because there is a great deal of baggage with this story, and I don't even know where to begin. I can't afford an attorney until we're ready to move forward, so I need to learn as much as possible ahead of time.
His father is in prison until my stepson turns 30, at a minimum. He's in prison for repeated sexual "assaults" of his 15 year old daughter and her friend. Multiple counts of sexual abuse, video taping, showing pornography to minors and supplying drugs and alcohol. He stole the drugs from the Nursing home he worked at. It was a fairly big deal here in Indiana and even made CNN. It was called the worst assault case in the history of the town he lived in.
Before he was caught, when he wasn't in between nursing home jobs. My wife had to take him back to court repeatedly to force him to give his employment information. Then, shortly following that court date, he would quit his job and find a new nursing home to work in, and fail to report that income until my wife would drag him bag to court. When we received child support, it was for a very brief period of time before long gaps with no payments made.
My wife and I don't care about the money, we're just glad that we no longer have to trust him to take care of our kid. And yes, I do view him as my kid. I've been his "dad" since he was 1.
The courts always enforced his right to visitation, despite the fact that he very rarely paid support. My wife was told that unless she wanted to spend time in jail that she would not fail to deliver the child for his appointed visitations. All of this despite the fact that the entire reason my wife left him was because he was being investigated by the local police department for being an "alleged" drug dealer. Which he very much was.
All of this has torn my stepson up, and he is very angry with his father. We are taking him to counseling, but it doesn't do much to help. I think he'll be bitter over this for the rest of his life. But, we have verified that his father never messed with him, and the counselors support this through their conversations with him. We weren't too worried about that anyway. The prosecution addressed that and concluded that they didn't worry about finding any boys he had messed with because he was "very into girls". He confirmed it in court.
All of that said, I don't imagine that we'll have much trouble terminating his rights when/if we do proceed with this. My wife wanted to terminate his rights as soon as he was convicted, but we agreed that maybe a court case where my stepson might be dragged in to the court was not in his best interests right then. We weren't even considering adoption at that point, just officially terminating any right to contact, period, at least until he is 18. But we wanted our son to be able to write to him when he was ready. Which he has done, but not often. It makes him angry for days.
However, believe it or not, he's a really good kid considering his circumstances.
Anyway, am I wrong here? We "shouldn't" have much in the way of problems here should we? As I said, the dude's been rated as one of the worst sex offenders in Indiana history.
Also, I've told my stepson that I would gladly adopt him, but I wanted him to think about this before he makes a decision as big as this one. He says he's been thinking about it for about a year and has just not mentioned it yet. He said he doesn't want to hurt his father (he calls him his father and me his dad), but he wants to cut any type of formal or legal connection to him. So he's going to discuss this more with his counselor and think it over.
Also, our kids always come first, but financially my family has struggled over the last few years. We have a mortgage, a vehicle loan, etc. and we keep up to date on those. A secure home and environment for our children. But I've had a few court cases, all involving bills or money owed. We work every day to get all of that mess cleaned up. My question is, could our financial issues come into play here? Should I maybe wait until I get all of that cleaned up, which could be a year or two away. He kind of wants to do it now.
I guess in general I'm just looking for some advice? =)
My stepson, 14 years old, just asked my wife if she thought I would adopt him. Obviously, I'm thrilled, but want to approach this cautiously, because there is a great deal of baggage with this story, and I don't even know where to begin. I can't afford an attorney until we're ready to move forward, so I need to learn as much as possible ahead of time.
His father is in prison until my stepson turns 30, at a minimum. He's in prison for repeated sexual "assaults" of his 15 year old daughter and her friend. Multiple counts of sexual abuse, video taping, showing pornography to minors and supplying drugs and alcohol. He stole the drugs from the Nursing home he worked at. It was a fairly big deal here in Indiana and even made CNN. It was called the worst assault case in the history of the town he lived in.
Before he was caught, when he wasn't in between nursing home jobs. My wife had to take him back to court repeatedly to force him to give his employment information. Then, shortly following that court date, he would quit his job and find a new nursing home to work in, and fail to report that income until my wife would drag him bag to court. When we received child support, it was for a very brief period of time before long gaps with no payments made.
My wife and I don't care about the money, we're just glad that we no longer have to trust him to take care of our kid. And yes, I do view him as my kid. I've been his "dad" since he was 1.
The courts always enforced his right to visitation, despite the fact that he very rarely paid support. My wife was told that unless she wanted to spend time in jail that she would not fail to deliver the child for his appointed visitations. All of this despite the fact that the entire reason my wife left him was because he was being investigated by the local police department for being an "alleged" drug dealer. Which he very much was.
All of this has torn my stepson up, and he is very angry with his father. We are taking him to counseling, but it doesn't do much to help. I think he'll be bitter over this for the rest of his life. But, we have verified that his father never messed with him, and the counselors support this through their conversations with him. We weren't too worried about that anyway. The prosecution addressed that and concluded that they didn't worry about finding any boys he had messed with because he was "very into girls". He confirmed it in court.
All of that said, I don't imagine that we'll have much trouble terminating his rights when/if we do proceed with this. My wife wanted to terminate his rights as soon as he was convicted, but we agreed that maybe a court case where my stepson might be dragged in to the court was not in his best interests right then. We weren't even considering adoption at that point, just officially terminating any right to contact, period, at least until he is 18. But we wanted our son to be able to write to him when he was ready. Which he has done, but not often. It makes him angry for days.
However, believe it or not, he's a really good kid considering his circumstances.
Anyway, am I wrong here? We "shouldn't" have much in the way of problems here should we? As I said, the dude's been rated as one of the worst sex offenders in Indiana history.
Also, I've told my stepson that I would gladly adopt him, but I wanted him to think about this before he makes a decision as big as this one. He says he's been thinking about it for about a year and has just not mentioned it yet. He said he doesn't want to hurt his father (he calls him his father and me his dad), but he wants to cut any type of formal or legal connection to him. So he's going to discuss this more with his counselor and think it over.
Also, our kids always come first, but financially my family has struggled over the last few years. We have a mortgage, a vehicle loan, etc. and we keep up to date on those. A secure home and environment for our children. But I've had a few court cases, all involving bills or money owed. We work every day to get all of that mess cleaned up. My question is, could our financial issues come into play here? Should I maybe wait until I get all of that cleaned up, which could be a year or two away. He kind of wants to do it now.
I guess in general I'm just looking for some advice? =)
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