In all of my previous posts I have talked about my daughter's father and child custody and support issues. Well, the other day my daughter's grandfather called me and told me that my daughter's father sent him a letter to send to me. I read the letter and he told me that he has been being a coward and how sorry he was for abandoning me and our daughter and for having me have to support our daughter on my own for four years and on and on and on. He wants to be involved in her life now that he is in jail and clean from drugs. When I left him four years ago, I got a restraining order on him. In the restraining order he was ordered to attend a 52 week battery program and drug counseling. They also granted me sole and physical custody of my daughter and no visitations to the father until he completed these programs. The restraining order is now non void. About three years ago I moved out of CA where we were both residing. He is still residing there.

If he goes to court to try to modify the court order, will they still make him complete those programs before he can see my daughter? Also, since I moved out of CA and took my daughter with me without his consent, can I get in trouble for taking my daughter out of the state if it has been three years? Another question I have is: Does he have to back track and pay me all the child support that he owes me for the past four years before he can see my daughter?

I am really happy that my daughter's father is doing well and he is clean and sober now, but it is only because he is in jail right now. As soon as he gets out and is around temptation, I am almost positive that he will relapse and start using meth again. I want him to be a part of my daughter's life, but I don't want him to hurt my daughter emotionally by coming in and out of her life when he decides that he wants to be a father and when he doesn't want to be. I want to make sure that he is clean for longer than a few months before he just waltzes back into my daughter's life and I think that it is only fair that he has to pay me some sort of money for the past four years of me busting my butt to support my daughter before he can see her.

Any answers to my questions will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

No he doesn't have pay the back support to get visitation. But he will probably need to show the court that he is reformed and I doubt he can get unsupervised visits for awhile.

I'm not sure how much trouble you can get into for moving without permission, but its an issue that can be raised.

He should be required to start paying you support including an amount to reduce the arrears.

How can he get visitations if I live half way across the US from where he is? Will I have to go out to CA or does he have to come to where I am?

What if he can't pay the support because he is a convicted felon and can't find a job? I am not saying that it is not possible for him to find a job because of that, I am just saying what if that situation happens?

Visitation and support are generally kept separate so one parent doesn't try to blackmail the other.

But, if he files for visitation he has to do so where the child resides unless there is an existing order that is being modified. You can then express your feelings about visitation. Unless your moving without permission becomes a big issue, you should be able to dictate that he has to come to you for visitation.

If he can't pay support because he has no money he has to file for a modification of the support order. You can't get blood from a stone.