My husband recently found out he has a 9 year old child with a ex girl friend. He never even knew she was pregnant. 9 years later he gets a court ordered letter stating that he could be the father of this child and requested he take DNA test. Results came back that it was his. Since this happened 10 years ago and he knew nothing about it he met me we got married and 4 kids together. We had been together 8 years at that time. Well of course we went to court and was ordered to pay child support. Even though I don't think its fair considering he knew nothing about this she never tried to contact him and now we have our family. We might would have done things a little differently had we known he already had 1 child. Children are expensive! Anyway I just want to know if he gives up his rights does he still have to pay child support? He does not have a relationship with this little girl for several reasons. First being the awkwardness for the both of them. How do you have a relationship with a child that's 9 that you know nothing about and same for her. He is a stranger to her. Not to mention she lives in Florida and we live in Nebraska but also the mother of the child has tried to break up my marriage says awful things about me and my children on Facebook and when my husband did try and talk to the kid she would take the phone from her and try to talk to him. I just don't see why we should have to pay for a child we have no relationship with and didn't know anything about until now. If my husband would have known about her from the beginning we would have no problem taking responsibility. So if anyone knows anything about signing your rights over please help!!

Yes. You do.

This thread is (at the moment) directly above yours. Read it.

First, you are laboring under a misconception that he can give up his rights. This is a myth. Only a court can terminate rights and courts will not do so just to let a parent out of paying support.

Second, if we are talking about fairness, is it fair for your husband to impregnate a woman and then abandon the child? Also, while I can understand the difficulty in having a relationship with a child at that distance, its not impossible and your reasons for it have no merit.

But the bottom line is there is no requirement that he (or you) have a relationship with this child, but there is a requirement that he help support this child. And there is nothing he can do to change that.