My husband had a one-night-stand at the beginning of our marriage and the woman turned out to be pregnant. She was sleeping around with several people, so we were never certain that the boy born was his. During the time that she demanded money we always simply asked to get a paternity test done, and then we'd start paying no problem. She constantly refused. Which seemed fishy. Now after a year and a half we got am email from her saying if we don't pay $400 this month that she will take us to court next month for more. By court laws we would be paying her $420.
The thing is that we are barely making ends meet. With all of our bills we have barely two hundred dollars left at the end of the month. We cannot afford $400/month or the $420/month. If we go to court and are ordered to pay, we'd have to take out a loan to be able to pay it, or we both would have to get second jobs. Which backfires again because we'd have to pay more in daycare for our daughter. I think it might be possible to talk her down to $250 or $300 but then we'd have to settle on not getting the paternity test. And that has been the only thing we wanted from the start.

So do we settle on our own, without the certainty that the boy is his. Or do we go to court?

Go to court. The court will order a paternity test if there is a question before making any ruling. You always want something like this decided by a court.

Go to court. That way you know for sure. And make the paternity test part of the process through the courts so its legal. Have you even checked to see if anything she is saying is true? They have online calculators for many states. Also if he is the father then visitation comes into question too. That needs to be settled also.

No, she will always be black mailing for this or that. Next why would she even settle for 200 if she can get 400.

But you go to court, get visits and get proper and legal payments set up.

Does child support go down if you have 50% custody? We live in Canada.

I believe each province may have its own formula. That formula may be based on income, custody, etc.
But the likelihood of you getting 50% physical custody is not high.

There is a good chance that she is bluffing, however. If she has been refusing a paternity test, shoe is probably not sure he is the father. The court will want to be sure before ordering support. So she may have less interest in going to court than you do.

So what your husband does (you have no legal standing here) is tell her 'lets go to court. This way we get paternity established, and I can get visitation' In other words call her bluff.