I am a single parent in the military and my baby's father filing for joint custody after 4 yrs. He have not financially supported her but seen her twice since she have been born. He recently got out of the military on disablity and collecting unemployment. He is court ordered to pay child support including back pay. To this day, he still haven't paid child support and he is threatening to take me to court for joint custody so he doesn't have to pay anything. He really doesn't want to see her or take care of her, all he's trying to do is get out of paying child support. He also thinks I would be paying him if he gets joint custody. Should I be worried about him getting joint custody? Can he take her while I am deployed? I was deployed twice and he never tried to contact my mom or nothing.

He is the father and his parental rights come before anyone else's rights where the child is concerned.

If/when he takes you to Court you would have to prove he's a danger to the child (physically or mentally) in order to block him.

Paying support and having visitation are two different issues.

What he has done in the past is not going to matter - he has (maybe) decided that now he wants to be a father and you should be prepared.

Have you spoken to Military counsel? This situation is not unfamiliar to them.

Not yet but soon.

not yet but soon.


Hopefully very soon because these things take time to resolve.

Please pay more attention to posting guidelines. There is a Read First sticky in the Parenting forum (where this was moved from) that directs questions of a legal nature to this forum.

It is likely the court will see through his ploy. But its still possible he will be given joint LEGAL custody and visitation while you will get primary physical custody and support.

First if he just got out of the military, why have you not gotten your support, the military just takes it out once they are served notice to garnish the payment. So I have to put some blame on you for not going after support. ( assuming you have a child support order in place)

And of course he can not collect disability and unemployment both at the same time, since to collect unemployment you have to be able and willing to work, and to collect disability you are not able to work. So something does not add up there either.

But yes he can file for it, he will have to explain not paying any court order, if there were no court order in place, he does not owe anything since there was no order.