My daughter is almost 3. Her father lived with us until she was 2 and when we separated he moved into the apartment complex next door. When he moved out he refused to visit her for 6 weeks, then came to see her twice, then refused visitation for 8 weeks, came back to see her twice and now has refused to visit for the past 5 months. When he first left my daughter was very hurt and confused and acted out as a result. She has now stopped sitting at the window "waiting for her daddy to come see her". We go to court in September to finalize the child support case (if he shows up for court). He was served the papers so the child support petition will go through whether he is there or not. Part of the agreement is a standard visitation order. What are my rights to terminate this visitation order if he continues to refuse to visit our daughter? The coming in and out of her life is not healthy for her and I do not want him to be able to continue this behavior. Can he refuse to visit for years and then try to enforce the original order since it is included in the child support order?:confused:

Talk to your attorney right away. Your attorney will need to file a petitoin with the court. Before the hearing. Do it now so it gives him a minimum 30 days to respond, and make sure he is served with the petition.

Keep in mind that the issue of support will likely need to be revisited by the Court, who will have to look at the father's finances and impose what the court finds to be reasonable support rather than accept what's set forth in the first petition with the visitation clause(usually the court will consider the petition amount as reasonable in this circumstance, from what I have seen in the past, fathers who don't even bother to show up to court are not favored AT ALL). Petitioning to end his visitation rights will likely slow down the process of finalizing everything and actually getting support (if he'll even agree to pay it), but in the end, if the Court believes that taking away his visitation rights is in the best interest of your child, you are doing the right thing.

Good luck.