will divorce eliminate the ex's rights to see ds?

[waiting2bemommy]

I am in the process of divorcing my ex. we have been separated sicne I was 10 weeks pregnant (although we tried unsuccessfully to get back together a couple times). He is an abusive piece of $%#@, does not pay child support (although there is an order) and does not exercise his visitation rights. I have sole custody. He is not on the birth certificate, by choice, even though we are married. This happened through a fluke of errors at the hospital, and then when I offered him the chance to correct things and put his name on the birth certificate, he refused. I left well enough alone. However, for whatever reason (I guess because we were legally married still, AND he didn't show up for court) when I went to court to establish custody, as a CYA type thing, the judge saw fit to put a support order into place and give him "reasonable supervised visitation."

So when I divorce him (divorce will be final in January or February), seeing as he is not on the birth certificate, will I have any obligation left to him?  the court order was done when ds was 9 months old and shortly thereafter was when I offered to fix the birth certificate before getting the official copy (I had been using the hospital birth letter).

Or does the support order/visitation order still stand or does the divorce sever any legal connection he amy have to ds? I have a feeling that when the court date gets set and he is notified (it's too late for him to contest the actual divorce) it's going to piss him off and the only way he can get back at me is by demanding visitation with ds. Once we're not married, do I still have to follow an order that demands visitation with someone who is not even on the bc? Would I be in contempt of court to tell him "I don't want to hear from you anymore, leave us alone"?  I could care less about the child support....I've gotten this far without it....

My DP now is the one raising ds for the last 2 years and ds calls him daddy. This bio "father" is not even on ds' radar. To subject him to visits with a virtual stranger who wants him to call him daddy, while I have to sit there and supervise while I try not to puke out of fear and disgust, would be absolutely horrible.

[meemee]

this is kinda a complicated situation.

mainly coz you have the support order AND you accepted it but didnt challenge it. 

i am not sure how well versed the courts are in finding such info. however if your ex wants to play dirty he CAN bring that up. 

so even though he is not on the BC he can bring up the previous order and demand DNA testing and thus establish paternity. 

however even if that was not there, say things were simple he could still go to court establish paternity and then ask for visitation. even if he has been away from his child's life. mind you it WOULD take time, but he could totally stick and do it. 

[waiting2bemommy]

so once the divorce is final, if he calls me  up and says "I want to see ds," I really can't say no?

My poor guy. it would confuse him so much.

We had an incident back in September when I called the ex and asked him to send some money for a specific thing ds needed. I deliberately did it when he couldn't say no (called him at work and told his manager who I was and what I wanted). Anyway he called the phone back some time later while I was at work and my SO picked up and was extremely pissed/humiliated. He feels like I shouldn't be asking the ex for money if he doesn't want to parent ds I should cut him out of our lives entirely. Also he felt like it was an affront to his abilities to provide for ds who he sees as his own. He told ex, "if you aren't calling to speak to ds, please do not call thie phone ever again." So of course then ex said he wanted to talk to ds and SO put him on the phone. I was like "What were you thinking?!" That was the first time he had talked to ds in over a year and he hasn't communicated since. ds was completely confused by the whole thing.

So needless to say i'm not looking forward to the impending drama.

[Super~Single~Mama]

Honestly, by calling your ex to ask for money you created drama.  Especially the way you did it - calling while he was at work, telling his manager who you were - what were you thinking???  If you don't want drama, don't create it.

"Reasonable supervised visitation" can mean many many different things.  If your ex wanted to see ds, you would need to make arrangements for him to see ds - meeting at a public place where they can play and interact while you watch over them.  But it would be reasonable - during the afternoon, between lunch and dinner (or between breakfast and lunch), at a place reasonable close to where you live, on a day that you don't have to work and don't already have other plans, he would need to give you reasonable notice (a few days to a week depending on the situation, if he called and you were going to be out of town you might schedule for the next weekend, etc).

That said, you don't need to go out of your way to contact him and set it up - he needs to contact you.  So, if its been a year, he probably won't be around any time soon.  And as your ds gets older you will just explain what happened in age appropriate language.

[waiting2bemommy]

the reason I called him at work was because I knew he would have to say yes to the money. I know that was kind of shady.....but then again, he has a support order that he hasn't paid a dime on, so....either way, I promised my SO that I wouldn't call him for money anymore and I''ve kept my word.

This was the whole reason that I didn't want to get a divorce, because as long as I leave him alone, he more or less leaves me alone (except when one of his family members randomly pops up and starts threatening to kidnap my ds and take him to another country to live...) but the divorce thing he has fought me every step of the way so I know that he will likely retaliate by demanding visitation with ds.

What I do have on my side is that he lives about 6.5 hrs from here and the visitation is required to take place here. I would do everything I could to meet the letter of the law while makeing it as difficult/unpleasant/inconvenient as possible for him for it to actually take place. And I know how horrible that sounds, but this is a man who forced my ds to watch whiel he raped me. I don't see where any good could come out of making ds spend time with him, but I don't want to rock the boat any mroe by going back to court to take away all his visitation rights, a nd possibly end up worse off than I am now. That was what brought me to that initial question of whether the divorce would have also terminated his rights to ds as a parent.

[Lisa1970]

You will not be the one to supervise the visits. Someone has to be hired for that. 

You do have to let him see you son under the conditions set out by the court order, which is supervised. For supervision, usually, someone has to be hired. You do not have to just let him in your home and stay present or meet him someplace and watch it. 

I think if you do not push the child support part, he probably won't push the visitation part. Then, when you are your current partner go to get married, you can tell the ex to sign away his rights for the new husband to adopt, or pay up all the back child support.

[PoppyMama]

I would think that since there is an order in place he can request visitation. It's a poor idea to request money from someone you do not wish to acknowledge as a parent.

[Lisa1970]

I will say though, you did go out of your way to try to embarrass your ex by calling him at work and telling on him basically to his boss. Then you seem to think he was all wrong to actually call you back, just because your new guy answered and new guy did not like that. You are wrong in all this. What you did was wrong. 

You need to decide who the daddy will be, new guy or old. Don't expect money from a guy you don't want to see your child. Don't call him, don't contact him. Let it go. 

[bluebackpacks]

Originally Posted by Lisa1970 

I will say though, you did go out of your way to try to embarrass your ex by calling him at work and telling on him basically to his boss. Then you seem to think he was all wrong to actually call you back, just because your new guy answered and new guy did not like that. You are wrong in all this. What you did was wrong. 

You need to decide who the daddy will be, new guy or old. Don't expect money from a guy you don't want to see your child. Don't call him, don't contact him. Let it go. 

[waiting2bemommy]

No I didn't think he was wrong to call back. I figured he would, since he needed to see how much money he had before he could give me an answer. I just wasn't happy with how it was handled. My SO should have jsut taken the message and then talked to me about it later. Ex did not call with the intent of talking to ds. He just called to tell me whether he was going to actually send money or not. He didn't ask to talk to ds until my SO brought it up. And then he told ds "I miss you, I love you, I'm going to see you soon" and all that bull, and then hung up, never to be heard from again.

I guess I don't really care whether my ex was embarrassed or not. I really don't care about him and don't care how he feels or what he thinks. I  will be honest; at this point, when it comes to the ex I am pretty much cold and calculating. If he has something that will benefit my ds, I will use him for that. If he serves no purpose to me, then I have no use for him. I've lost thousands of dollars because of him and I really don't give a $%#@ if embarrassing him is the only way to get $100 for something my kid needs.

Nevertheless I know you are right that I shouldn't expect money from someone I don't want to see my child. SO already told me basically what you just said and I agreed that I won't contact him again. It just isn't worth it.

Originally Posted by Lisa1970 

I will say though, you did go out of your way to try to embarrass your ex by calling him at work and telling on him basically to his boss. Then you seem to think he was all wrong to actually call you back, just because your new guy answered and new guy did not like that. You are wrong in all this. What you did was wrong. 

You need to decide who the daddy will be, new guy or old. Don't expect money from a guy you don't want to see your child. Don't call him, don't contact him. Let it go. 

[pupsnelda]

Originally Posted by waiting2bemommy 

the reason I called him at work was because I knew he would have to say yes to the money. I know that was kind of shady.....but then again, he has a support order that he hasn't paid a dime on, so....either way, I promised my SO that I wouldn't call him for money anymore and I''ve kept my word.

This was the whole reason that I didn't want to get a divorce, because as long as I leave him alone, he more or less leaves me alone (except when one of his family members randomly pops up and starts threatening to kidnap my ds and take him to another country to live...) but the divorce thing he has fought me every step of the way so I know that he will likely retaliate by demanding visitation with ds.

What I do have on my side is that he lives about 6.5 hrs from here and the visitation is required to take place here. I would do everything I could to meet the letter of the law while makeing it as difficult/unpleasant/inconvenient as possible for him for it to actually take place. And I know how horrible that sounds, but this is a man who forced my ds to watch whiel he raped me. I don't see where any good could come out of making ds spend time with him, but I don't want to rock the boat any mroe by going back to court to take away all his visitation rights, a nd possibly end up worse off than I am now. That was what brought me to that initial question of whether the divorce would have also terminated his rights to ds as a parent.

Why is he interested to stay married to you if you two are seperated, you have a new partner and a new baby? Doesn't make sense ...
 

[One_Girl]

Originally Posted by Lisa1970 

You will not be the one to supervise the visits. Someone has to be hired for that. 

You do have to let him see you son under the conditions set out by the court order, which is supervised. For supervision, usually, someone has to be hired. You do not have to just let him in your home and stay present or meet him someplace and watch it. 

I think if you do not push the child support part, he probably won't push the visitation part. Then, when you are your current partner go to get married, you can tell the ex to sign away his rights for the new husband to adopt, or pay up all the back child support.

That depends on the decree.  If it isn't specified you can be the one to supervise.  In my decree I have supervised times set up in my home but you can set it up so they are somewhere else if you don't want to do it in your home.  I would also strongly caution you against telling him he has a choice to give up his parental rights or pay all the child support.  This is considered bribery and it can get you in a lot of trouble.  If it isn't too late to go in and change what the custody arrangement says so it is specific about times then I suggest doing that.  Your lawyer may be able to give you a guideline on what is considered reasonable.  I don't think it means daily but I do think it could mean for a couple hours weekly, foster kids often get several hours one weekend day that is supervised at a place that specializes in that.

[meemee]

mama focus on your son. we all have our issues with our exs but none of us attack them except thru legally.

you have opened a huge, huge hornet's nest. and gotten your SO involved. you cant expect others to know what you want to do. i think it was pretty reasonable for SO to do what he did. 

lie low. dont let your anger get to the better of you. if you want to attack do it legally. do what you have to do to take care of your life. you CANNOT keep your ds away from your ex if ex wants to be involved.

by talking to your ex's boss you have also give your ex more ammunition against your very self. you have 'established' paternity in an indirect way. worse you have humiliated ur ex publicly. 

you have given your ex more tools to be even more nastier if he wants to be. it seems like a small action but its repurcussion is huge. 

remember your ex is two different persons. your legally dh and your son's father in the eyes of the law (sorta which can be easily proven). just coz he is an evil STBX doesnt mean they will also say an evil daddy. 

for yourself treat this as two separate issues. the divorce. and custody. 

you have to be careful about this. focus on maintaining the advantage you already have. the courts are not for the children. all a father has to do is say i want to see the children and the courts will jump up to please them. 

[soso-lynn]

If you were married when you gave birth, it does not matter if he is on birth certificate or not or even if he is genetically linked to your son or not. You should absolutely not contact him in any way and ask your lawyer if there is anything else you should do. What indications do you have exactly that he will want to retaliate for the divorce? Clearly, you guys are not together in any way and there is no hope for reconciliation. Unless you get his family or whatever involved, I would be surprised if he suddenly wanted to see his son. If he does call and ask for visitation, you should check with your lawyer before agreeing to anything since the order has been in place for so long and he has not manifested himself before.