View Full Version : Can a legal father get joint custody if the biological parents are married?
anxious_mom
Feb 10, 2011, 06:04 PM
When I got married we weren't sure who's baby I was carrying but my ex married me anyway. It was a question mark since day one and the bio dad was aware of the situation. When my son was 2.5 we did a DNA test w/my now exhusband and found out he wasn't the bio dad. My ex was a very controlling and emotionally abusive person and I finally got up the nerve to divorce him when my son was 3. He left me 2ce during our marriage stating "he wasn't paying to raise another man's baby". When I asked HIM for the divorce he was fine w/it n left home for a couple days n then all of a sudden he wanted joint custody. He was never interested in being a dad before but now he was insistent on it. So I agreed to joint custody because I knew if I gave him what I wanted he would agree to the divorce faster. He has rarely paid his support and takes his visitation as a joke. He also goes around telling everyone he's raising my son even though he's not really his. I recently took him to court for not paying support and he sued me for primary custody! The judge favored him in his notes because he's married now. I got to keep primary custody but he's trying every day to try to get primary custody and use my son against me and my son is suffering for it. He is neglectful of him and he bullies me daily with texts that are not quite threatening enough to justify an EPO but are nervewracking to say the least. I want full custody of my son who's now 5.5 yrs old. He needs stability in his home and a parent who WANTS to be his parent and doesn't want him just for a trophy. My child was born during my marriage and my ex signed the birth certificate. I want to know if I could get custody away from him if the bio dad n I got married? BTW the state we live in is KY.
ScottGem
Feb 11, 2011, 04:29 AM
When a child is born to a married couple the husband is considered the legal father unless a challenge to paternity is issued. That challenge may have a window of opportunity to be filed. You need to check KY law to see what that window would be.
Marrying the bio father would not increase or decrease you ability to remove custody from the legal father.
anxious_mom
Feb 11, 2011, 09:06 AM
Why wouldn't it increase or decrease my chances of removing the legal father's custody? Isn't it the goal of the court to keep the biological family intact? The biodad was never really sure if he was the dad or not but he had a relationship with my child just in case. I kept cards he gave my son over the years and he also gave me a few hundred dollars here and there on my son's birthdays. I also have pictures of them together. Also, my exhusband threatened the bio dad many times to not come around. I saw him pull a gun on him once and back him into a corner another time. There are also saved emails he sent to him threateneing him with physical harm if he tried to contact me or my son after the DNA test was performed.
ScottGem
Feb 11, 2011, 11:15 AM
No, the goal of the court is the best interests of the child, but the court is bound to follow the law. The law says that the bio father has a window of time to challenge paternity. If that window has expired, then it would not matter whether you were married to him or not. Conversely, if the window has not expired, it would not matter whether you were married to him or not for him to challenge paternity. If the challenge is successful and he is declared the legal father, then being married to you would make custody moot. So being married to him has no effect.