Ask Me Help Desk - Pending Adoption/Contestment Case

Hi, everyone. My husband has a 5 year old son with another woman. The child's mother is trying to have her husband adopt the child without my husband's consent. We have a lawyer and we have contested the adoption. My husband has not seen his son in 2 years on account of her leaving the state with no phone number or address. Our lawyers met before a judge today and the judge did not rule either way. He said that both parties made good points. The mother's point being that the child should be adopted because the father(my husband) has not been there in the past couple of years. The father's point being that he wants to be a part of his life and her husband is not suitable to adopt the child. (Both the mother and the husband frequently party and also smoke marijuana, leaving the child with a babysitter often.) The judge felt that the two parties should come to a conclusion about the situation. We feel that this is good news because the only thing she has against my husband is that he hasn't been there and the judge obviously didn't feel that was enough to grant the adoption or it would have been done today. My question is does anyone have any advice on what we should do about the situation? Should we try to reason with her or should we just leave it to the lawyers to talk? We aren't exactly sure of what all was said today because we were not there. It was only the lawyers and the judge. If anyone has any advice whatsoever, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks

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Originally Posted by ConcernedMommy08

Hi, everyone. My husband has a 5 year old son with another woman. The child's mother is trying to have her husband adopt the child without my husband's consent. We have a lawyer and we have contested the adoption. My husband has not seen his son in 2 years on account of her leaving the state with no phone number or address. Our lawyers met before a judge today and the judge did not rule either way. He said that both parties made good points. The mother's point being that the child should be adopted because the father(my husband) has not been there in the past couple of years. The father's point being that he wants to be a part of his life and her husband is not suitable to adopt the child. (Both the mother and the husband frequently party and also smoke marijuana, leaving the child with a babysitter often.) The judge felt that the two parties should come to a conclusion about the situation. We feel that this is good news because the only thing she has against my husband is that he hasnt been there and the judge obviously didn't feel that was enough to grant the adoption or it would have been done today. My question is does anyone have any advice on what we should do about the situation? Should we try to reason with her or should we just leave it to the lawyers to talk? We aren't exactly sure of what all was said today because we were not there. It was only the lawyers and the judge. If anyone has any advice whatsoever, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks

A really good way to tick off your Attorney is to go behind his/her back and begin your own negotiations - sounds like there are problems between your husband the mother of his child anyway so they probably can't resolve the issue without Attorneys.

My only thoughts that might make a difference in the Judge's decision would be whether your husband has been paying support and how you know the mother and her husband drink, smoke marijuana and leave the child alone when your husband doesn't know where they live.

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Originally Posted by ConcernedMommy08

My husband has not seen his son in 2 years on account of her leaving the state with no phone number or address.

Is this being over looked by the Judge? How did he expect the dad to keep contact?

He said he wants you to work it out and come to an agreement.
I think that could mean that he would like to see you come up with some sort of joint custody that you all agree on.

If your ex will not consent to giving up his rights and the Judge will not rule against his rights it may be your only option.

They only live 10 minutes away. He has told her that he just wants to be a part of his son's life. We are not trying to take full custody, we would be extremely happy with visitation even! She is very spiteful and she has made it clear that she will do everything possible to keep him from seeing their son. She had an order for child support against him in 2005 but she dropped the case. As I said before, I am not exactly sure what was said today at the hearing.

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Originally Posted by ConcernedMommy08

They only live 10 minutes away. He has told her that he just wants to be a part of his son's life. We are not trying to take full custody, we would be extremely happy with visitation even! She is very spiteful and she has made it clear that she will do everything possible to keep him from seeing their son. She had an order for child support against him in 2005 but she dropped the case. As I said before, I am not exactly sure what was said today at the hearing.

I still don't understand whether your husband has been paying support (I understand the mother did have a child support order but she "dropped it" and I don't exactly know how she did that) and how you know the mother was using drugs, etc. if you haven't known where they live.

These are questions the Judge may very well be looking at.

And if she's spiteful, again, I see no point in trying to reason with her - with any kind of luck the Court will appoint a law guardian for the child, the guardian will review all the circumstances and make a recommendation. Request a law guardian - easiest way, takes out all the arguing.

Every now and then I work with a law guardian and they really do go into backgrounds and situations and write a very thorough report.

Most likely formal mediation, and/or allow the attorneys to work it, out.
While I guess anything is possible, seldom does the judge allow for this.

What is the original custody order say ? What was his visitation rights before all of this, why was there no child support due ? I am sure that not only will there be current but all of the back support will be due if he is go get visit righs.

He is fully prepared to pay any child support he may owe. I am not sure how she had the case dropped. They only live 10 minutes away now. When he was seeing his son(with no visitation order, just whenever she allowed) she moved away for 2 years. She now lives in the same city as us.

I wouldn't harp on the unfit parent issue, especially since you aren't trying get custody. What do you think it says about your husband, if you complain about their fitness, but are willing to let them have custody?

I would point out to the court that your husband was a part of his son's life until the mother took him away. I would show what attempts he made to find her at that time and since. I would show what he contributed to support before she took him away. In other words, show the court that he is a committed caring father, who just wants to be a part of his son's life.