I have a protective order against my sons father and have had it since November of 2008. What would I need to do to get it dropped? He hasn't been trying to come around at all and has been obeying the order but before he was not. I want to see what will happen if I was to drop it whether he will come around and or if he will not even bother and what he will do if he was to even approach my son who he has yet to meet or myself. Mind you my son is 15 months old and his father has been out of the picture since I was 6 weeks pregnant due to an argument we got into that escalated into physical abuse that was out of anger while he was drunk. Someone please help me. Because I really would like to see if he has changed and if he is ready to own up to his responsibilities and do what he needs to do to help me raise osur son.

You could file a motion to dissolve protective order, with the court which issued it. The clerk of court may have a form. What state?

How long is the order good for?

Mass

Mass

Try this (http://www.mass.gov/courts/formsandguidelines/domestic/app/appendixh.pdf).

Ok so I will have to print and fill out that form and bring it to the court house? How long will it take after that is done for the order to be dropped?

Sorry, I don't know. I would guess that it probably wouldn't take more than a few days. Your best bet would be to ask the clerk when you file it.

Make sure that they have your current address so that when it's ready you will receive a copy.

Ok thank you very much I will try that and see how it goes! I really appreciate your help and your time!

You don't have to formally drop the order. How long is it good for because many orders are not for lifetime only for months to a few years. You shouldn't drop it just to see. If you do it will make it harder to get another one and you will be seen as abusing the courts. You can simply choose not to enforce it so long as you don't make a game of it.

I'm not trying to make a game of it I just want to see if he will come around for our son that we have together since I am a single mom raising a little boy on ny own who def. needs his father in his life. My son is 15 months old and is always asking for "daddy" and is going to soon be asking me why he is the only little boy/girl in the family that doesn't have a daddy and just has a mommy. I want my son to at least grow up knowing who his father is rather then leaving him to wonder what happened. Im justtrying to do what's in the best interest of my child. But where physical abuse was involved I'm kind of iffy in the situation... But I feel that letting him meet our son and be in his life it will help him to be a better person. Things are tough right now and I kind of just want to give him the benefit of a doubt and at least see if he has changed in the last two years.

I assume you will be communicating your intentions, as you have expressed them here, to him?

And of course as the father, he could have went to court to ask for child visits. ( does not have to be around you) you would drop child off at safe location, he picks child up, happens 1000's of times a week all around the US.

The court most likely would have ordered supervised visits to start.

Also besides the protective order is there a child custody order from the court, is there a child visit order and has child support been ordered

No I have not communicated with my sons father at all due to the restraining order but would like to at least see what happens and at least give him the chance to meet our son and see how my son acts towards him and or whether he is fi

Fit to be in my sons life where I have been raising him on my own for the last 15 months and he has benn pretty good thus far but now he is starting to ask about daddy and I don't know how to respond to him other then saying daddy is not around but

You have mommy and papa (my father) that are here and love you a lot and will always be here for you. Its just getting to the point where I think its time that we need to at least try and be on good terms for our son...

No there is not a child custody order, child visit order and child support have not been ordered. I have been doing it on my own since day one with help from family. I know that we could do visitations but I am unsure as to whether I want him

Alone with his father where he has yet to meet him and is not good with unfamiliar people. So it would just cause more complications with my son and his behavior.

Please understand it is not up to you about if and when the father gets the visits. Even with a protective order with you, he could have at any time when to court for visits. That is up to the court.

So you need to get the legal custody issues solved ASAP.

I really don't want to have to go to court for the legal custody issues I'd much rather come to a civil agreement with him. Plus his father is not listed on his birth certificate because he was absent at his time of birth due to the restraining order

... his father is not listed on his birth certificate because he was absent at his time of birth due to the restraining order

That doesn't really matter.

I really dont want to have to go to court for the legal custody issues i'd much rather come to a civil agreement with him. Plus his father is not listed on his birth certificate because he was absent at his time of birth due to the restraining order


This is a red flag to me. If you come to a "civil agreement" (whatever that is) and he takes the child and doesn't return the child there is absolutely NOTHING you can do. With an order you can get the legal system involved.

This is a red flag to me. If you come to a "civil agreement" (whatever that is) and he takes the child and doesn't return the child there is absolutely NOTHING you can do. With an order you can get the legal system involved.

It should be very easy to agree among yourselves (="civil agreement"), and then get it rubber stamped by the court. That way, either one of you you can enforce it later if need be.

Don't forget, the two of you had a "civil agreement" to have sex together. But at some point the arrangement became un-civil. There always a chance that the arrangement can get that way again.

What I think I'm going to do is file for a motion and when its time to bring it to court see if we can come to an agreement on what days he can see him and at what times he is to pick him up and bring him home. That way it is a court ordered civil agreement that we ourselves agreed upon threw the court. My friend and her ex husband have a court ordered civil agreement as to when her husbandcan see their daughter and so on. But they can also not be alone during pick up and drop off and they meet in safe public places due to previous arguments between the two. Which I'm sure will probably happen with us as well.. But we will see how court goes and take it from there

A restraining order that is only in effect on certain days and under certain conditions? I doubt that the court will want to do that.

What you want to do is to simply disolve the restraining order so that the two of you can talk (if he is interested in any kind of a relationship with his child - we don't know that he is). Then, once you have had the chance to work things out, you can agree upon a child custody, support, and visitation order. This can be adopted as the court's order if the court has no problem with it. But I don't think you want to try to use the restraining order mechanism as a visitation order. It's not designed to work like that.

Agreed a restraining order is either there or not there, not for certain days and time.

And a child custody agreement and child support are all "civil" agreements since they go though civil court and are either agreeed or forced to agree.

The issue here is that without court orders you have little or nothing to do

I cannot understand why the parties would try to teach an agreement between themselves instead of asking the Court to either make a determination or ratify their agreement. Sounds to me like there is a reason parties don't want to go to Court.

In NY the Court does NOT necessarily ratify an agreement between the parties.

I wasn't saying I was going to use the restraining order mechanism as a visitation order what I was saying is that I will dissolve the restraining order and talk to him about days and times that he will have him while still at court that way we can

See if heis interested in any type of relationship with our child and come to an agreement of when support is to be paid and how muchis to be given on a weekly or monthly basis.

i will dissolve the restraining order and talk to him about days and times that he will have him while still at court ...
Only problem is that I don't know if there will be a hearing. What I was thinking was that when you file the motion to dissolve, the judge will simply sign it - no hearing required. And evern if there is a hearing, what makes you expect your child's father to attend?



... Sounds to me like there is a reason parties don't want to go to Court. ...

We don't know what the parties want, we only have heard from the mother.

The father has not been in contact with OP for at least 15 months. So we don't know what he wants; the only clue is the fact that he has not brought her back to court. I could guess at several reasons for this.

I gather the OP doesn't want to go to court because of the anticipated complexity and cost.

My guess is that he does not want to have to deal with the costs of taking legak actions and taking me to court because if he wanted to he could and I wouldn't be bothered by it because then maybe we could discuss past matters and move on for the benefit of our child. I just feel like if we were to take it to family probate court that the process will be much longer before an agreement between us and the court is set in stone where as if we go to a district court we can make agreements through his lawyer if he has one and my safety advocate in my local court house. I believe that it will be less of an expense for both of us where I have no income right now and where idont know if he is working or what because when I was last with him he had just lost his job. I guess we will see what happens when the time comes.

Im not sure whether he will attend but Im sure if he wants anything to do with our son then he will mowt likely show up or we could only hope anyway!

For your own protection keep the restraining order in place and just work on the custody issue.

This is from your state.

Quote:
If you have a restraining order against your child's other parent, and you have agreed to, or the court has ordered, visitation between the child and the other parent, YOU CAN HAVE THE RESTRAINING ORDER AND VISITS CAN STILL TAKE PLACE. You can keep all of the protections that you need in the restraining order, and make only those changes in the order needed to allow visitation.


Ref:

Child Custody and Visitation - MassLegalHelp (http://www.masslegalhelp.org/children-and-families/child-custody-and-visitation#11)


Massachusetts Law About Child Custody and Visitation (http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/subject/about/custody.html)