At Ask Me Help Desk you can ask questions in any topic and have them
answered for free by our experts. To ask questions or participate in
answering them you must register for a free account. By registering you
will be able to:
Get free answers from experts in any of our 300+
topics.
I have a three year old, I am to be married Saturday, July 7, 2007. My soon to be husband wants to adopt my son. My sons father lives in MD and I live in FL, he does pay child support (court ordered) and because he is in the reserves they require him to. For the three years my son has been in my life his father has had very limited visitation, he moved to MD to be with his new wife and her family and now only wants to see my son one week every 4 or 5 months. This is very damaging to my son, I am made to feel like I have to force him to go with this man who is a stranger to my son. After a few days my son becomes depressed and cries not at all his normal self. When his father calls every few days, my son refuses to talk to him, crying and screaming running into a different room. My soon to be husband is the only man my son knows as daddy, not for lack of trying. We spent a long time trying to get him to understand that this was "Jon" not daddy, but how to do explain to a three year old that the man he sees every day is not daddy.
Do I have a case, or a possibility of doing something about this? Or do the courts care that the relationship with his true father is only damaging my son emotional status??? Please help with whatever advice you have....thanks!
Is his father willing to voluntarily relinquish his rights? If so, that would make everything easier. Without evidence of abuse, neglect or abandonment, chances getting his rights terminated involuntarily are quite slim.
No he wouldn't be willing to relinquish his rights, though I have never asked. He has a better then everyone else attitude, and thinks he is a perfect father just because he pays child support every month. But doesn't realize how his behavior affects my son.
If he doesn't consent to relinquishing his rights, the burden will be on you to prove his rights should be terminated. That can be very difficult to prove.
Everything I am telling you is from New Jersey law. There might be differences in your state. I would suspect that the law would be similar on this issue, but I cannot promise that.
If he objects to the adoption, the conduct of that parent with respect to his parental duties will have to be evaluated to determine whether the stepparent-plaintiff will be able to establish by clear and convincing evidence that the natural father has intentionally abandoned the child or very substantially neglected his or her parental duties with no reasonable expectation of reversal of that conduct in the future.
The threshold issue is whether or not the natural parent has intentionally abandoned the child or very substantially neglected partental duties without reasonable expectation of reversal of that conduct in the future. Without first determining that the conduct of the natural parent warrents termination under this standard, the court will not reach the issue of whether or not the proposed adoption is in the best interests of the child.
It is very difficult to sustain this burden of proof. The court will act with great circumspection and caution when one parent does not consent to a proposed adoption.
In an action for adoption by a stepparent in which the evidence fails to support a termination of the natural parent's rights but demonstrates a lack of relationship between the natural parent and the child and a reluctance on the part of the child to visit with the natural parent, the court may require that all parties concerned participate in supervised mediation and counseling services with the goal of ultimately enabling the natural parent to visit with the child in a dignified manner.
Millions of kids become accustomed to parent/stepparent relationships, and the court is likely view your son's reactions as his just being 3 and not traumatic enough to consider as grounds for termination. Unless he has special needs he will learn to adjust as he gets older.
No reason he can't call your husband Daddy or for their relationship to be any different than a father/son, he simply has another Dad as well that he visits sometimes.
His father told me that if he ever heard my son calling another man daddy he would kill him. So that brings up a bit of worry in my mind.
Is he the type of person for which this threat would ring true (for most people this would just be an empty, meaningless phrase meaning "I would be angry")? If so, do you have evidence of a history of violence, domestic or otherwise? THAT might give you something to use against him in court.
He has no history of violence, empty threat I do not know. I just don't want to keep forcing my son to talk to this man every few days when he calls, or when he decides he wants to see my son forcing my son to get on a plane for a week week and a half. The last time I made him go, he got so upset he thew up in the airport because he refused to go. I just had to walk away, is that fair to a 3 year old to be forced to go with a stranger?
I have called a few attorney's and I keep getting a run around, no one wants to deal with custody cases "because they are to difficult"
You would be better to try for different visitation arrangements instead of termination of rights. Given his age and reactions, perhaps you can ask to accompany him, or meet someplace, or have him visit in your home? You would probably need to get testimony of a child psychologist or something to even get that, though. It's going to be messy.
I am surprised that family law attorneys are turning you down seeing as how that's the specialty they have chosen.
I was told that there is a difference between family law and custodial / visitation attorneys. I told his father that I was going to request that his visitation be here in Florida not up in Maryland, do to my sons age and the emotional distress it was causing. He proceeded to tell me that if I wasn't aloud to do that, even though we don't have set visitation.
Linear Mode
