divorce w/ 18 month child

[lostdad]

Thank you for your time. I had a business in AZ and it went under and put our family in a financial bind and i was drinking pretty heavy. M wfe asked if she could take our 18 month old girl back to stay with her parents in N. Dakota andy to get us back on our feet. I decided to move back to Ia to look for work and stay with my parents, the job market is better here than Fargo. It's been 3 months and my wife has had our child and we were going to get back together, but things aren't working out. My wife says she is willing to share the time of our child 50/50, but i don't beleive that. i have gotten a new job making 36,000 a year for now, and i was wondering i put my girl on my health plan an and is there anything else i need to do to reassure myself that i don't loss total custody of her. My wife went home for the summer last year to get out of the heat and kept our child there for 2 months and now she has had her for 3 months. i have made 3 trips to see them and give money 300.00/month (her mom watchs our child no daycare expense). this weekend i'm picking her up and i think i want to keep her for a month or so but my wife says noway, why can she keep her and i can't. does a father have any rights besides visitation. please help me i was raised without my father arouand i don't want that for her.Thank you for your time. Lost dad. p s I quit drinking and don't want the marriage to end, because of our child'age and i do love my wife.

 

[BugHogan]

You have just as many parental rights as she does at this point. If you are not divorced or separated and there is not a custody order in effect, then theoretically you can keep her as long as you wish. And Mom can keep her as long as she wants also.

If you plan on getting a divorce, you should start thinking about custody, support, etc. The money you are paying her now per month ($300) is not going to count if she petitions the court for temporary custody and gets a child support order. It has to go through the court or they don't look at it like you are financially supporting your child, even though it sounds like you are. You'll end up owing back child support.

If you don't want a divorce and want to keep your family together though, I don't think living that far from each other is going to cut it. Just my humble opinion.

If any of my information is wrong, there are others here with more legal expertise that will help. I'm not an attorney.