Hey there,

I live in the state of NYC and I just gave birth to a baby boy in December. The child's father and I broke up in October as he was trying to force both adoption and abortion on me while I was pregnant and was mentally and physically abusive towards me because he wanted to be with another woman. I want to file for sole custody and child support. However, I do not want to share custody or allow visitation to the father because of past abuse history. If visitation should happen, I would want it to be supervised and have him mentally evaluated first before laying any kind of hands on my child.

What can I possibly do? As now he is saying the child is not his and is making me miserable.

Do you have any police reports or anything like that to back up your claims of abuse? I'm not saying that you are lying but having proof would be good when you are in court. So, your first step is to petition the judge to order a DNA test to establish paternity. Once the results come back to show the father is the father then the judge will order child support and visitation. The support will be based off his income. The visitation will go by what your state says infant visitation is. Generally for visitation is shorter times for infants. However, I doubt a judge will have him mentally evaluated if there is no proof of any physical or mental abuse.

First, NYC is a city not a state.

Second, you would have to prove that he is a danger to the child to limit his visitation. You can try and request a psych evaluation from the court, but you will need some basis to require it.

Yours is a story that has been played out many times in courts. This man was good enough for you to have sex with, but now, he's not good enough to be the father of his child. This is the way the court will look at it. Yes people can change. And many men feel trapped when they get a woman pregnant. Some recover from it and make good fathers, others just ignore their offspring.

I've never understood what constitutes "mental abuse". Is it more than two people arguing a lot and failing to get along?

The father of my child takes anti-anxiety medications and has massive mood swings/temper tantrums. Also, it wasn't that we failed to get a long, it was just the fact that I would not cave into his request to have an abortion at 6 months pregnant just because he wanted to be with someone else. As a result of me not "doing what he wanted so he can be happy" (his own words), he spit at me, punched a hole in my wall, harassed me constantly via phone and text to convince me to do the abortion and called me various names, "whore", "fat", "ugly" etc;

Just with that, i feel uncomfortable sharing any kind of custody with this man. He had also made threats against my child while i still pregnant. He would say things like "i hope you and that baby die" etc; Even though he and i have not been together for about 3 months now, i feel very threatened as he knows where i live and has said that he is going to come to my home.

But how much of this can you prove to a court? You can try subpoenaing his medical records. But if you have no corroborative proof of his threats and violence, he may be able to convince a court otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, I understand how you feel and why you feel that way. I truly sympathize. But you agreed to have sex with him and now your lives are inextricably intertwined. This is one of the consequences of your actions. So do your best to assemble your proofs (and I would retain an attorney to guide you as to what the court will accept) and hope the judge will rule in your favor.

Okay, again, I ask do you have proof of this abuse? You may feel scared or intimidated by him but as pointed out you had a choice to date and have sex with him. Judges can pick up these stories a dime a dozen. That is why you need proof. Yes, you can tell the judge that you are scared of him but chances are he will still get joint legal custody and visitation possibly even leading to shared physical custody if you don't have proof. You do have to remember that this is a child that belongs to two people not just you. It is possible that the father doesn't want any visitation I can't ask him to know for sure. In that case you just get the support order and move on. But sometimes when a father realizes that they are a father and have to pay support they decide they want time with their kid as well. I have to advocate for that (unless a danger to the child obviously). So, first things first get the court to order the DNA test and go from there.