In October of 2009 my husband and I filed for custody of his (our) son. The parental rights and responsibilities were shared and custody was joint with our son spending one week with his mother and one week with us on an alternate basis. On December 23rd, the mother walked into the courtroom and relinquished all parental rights and responsibilities of her own free will and said that she didn't even want contact with our son. We were totally surprised with her doing this and at the time didn't ask for child support as we didn't expect for her to totally abandon our son in this way. It is apparent now that child support would be beneficial to our son. Would it be possible to get it, and what would we need to do to ask for it? We live in Maine.

What did the courts grant because that is highly unusual for them to grant a TPR out of the blue just because someone doesn't want to pay.

First, it depends on what the judge did and where you live. Laws vary from area to area. We can't advise on what the law is without knowing the vital piece of info!

Generally courts do not grant a TPR just because one parent wants it. Even if they do, it generally doesn't remove parental responsibility.

So, unless the court granted her a termination of parental rights and responsibilities you should be able to file for support.

If the court actually granted a termination of rights AND responsibilities then no you can't get child support. It is possible that she decided that she didn't want to use her visitation anymore so told the judge that she didn't want in so the child was awarded to his father. Did you adopt the child when she wanted to relinquish her rights to make him yours? If so then again no there will be no support ordered because he is not her son anymore. If you didn't then he isn't your son (I realize you help raise him like he is but unless you adopted him then legally he is not yours). If all it was, was her letting go of her visitation then yes support could and should be ordered. I suggest looking at your court papers closely to see exactly what happened.