[MrKB]

I have currently proposed to a woman whom has a child by a man that she was never married to. He left her years ago when he found out she was pregnant by him. They were in a committed relationship and he knew she wanted get married and have at least one child. He had told her this was what he wanted to, but when she found out she had gotten pregnant he packed his stuff and left her. She had to go through the pregnancy and raising the child by herself for the first 4 years and the father never even contacted her or saw the baby. After the child got to be around 4 years old the father did make contact and visits the kid maybe twice a year. The father does now send her some monthly money for child support voluntarily and this was not decided through court in anyway. The child is now six years old and over the last two years the father has threatened to go to court to try and take full custody away from the mother. The mother is a great mom now in the Air Force going through there Medical School Program to become a Doctor. This is her second year in Medical School and her parents help her out watching her child while she is in school. I have been dating her the mother for over a year now and we both are very much in love with each other. I proposed to her about a week ago and she stated she wants to say yes but is afraid if she says yes, that the father will use my past to help him go to court and get child support. My past consisted of two felonies about 10 years ago I got. Neither felony involved any violence or had any victims. I have been a model citizen since then and had a good life.
My girlfriend wants to make an appointment to talk to an attorney about this issue before she says yes to me about the engagement. It will a month or so before she will get a week off from medical school so we can meet with an attorney. I was just wondering if anyone could provide an answer on whether this would definitely cause her to loss custody of her child if the father decided to go to court?

[cdad]

What were you convicted of ? There really isn't victimless crimes as far as the state is concerned. So depending on what you were convicted of it might make a difference on how you go about things. Also your girlfriend needs to file officially for custody and support and not wait any longer.

[Fr_Chuck]

Ok, mom needed years ago to file for custody of the child and get a formal visit and formal child support set up. So sad that even educated women fail for some reason to do the legal requirements.

In fact she could do this before you were married if she wanted to.

[stinawords]

I agree with the previous posts, she needs to go to court and get custody, visitation, and support through the court. Then she can worry about her answer for you.

[MrKB]

Thanks califdadof3 for the answer. If it helps when I was younger I had to be taken out of work on medical leave by a doctor. I was going to have to be out of work about six months for medical reasons. I had heard from a good friend of mine, whom happened to work for the personnel dept of the company I worked for, there was a lot of rumors going around that I would be let go and not allowed to come back to the company to work. This scared me and I knew I could not work any where for at least six months until I was medically cleared. I had know way of paying my bills at that time and needed to, so stupid me starting selling small amounts of marijuana. Well I happened to get stopped one night by the police and they found a small amount of marijuana on me. I was outside of the car at that time and they ask if there was anything else in the car. I told them that I had a unloaded pistol under the front seat and that I had a concealed carry permit in the glove box. They got it out and told me they would just keep it until my court day was through and then it would be given back to me. Well as it turned out I did not have any criminal record or even traffic tickets at that point in my life. Because of this the state new it would just be probation. Well after I had been charged for three months the state had finally talked the Federal prosecutor to take over the charges so they could get some time out of me for possession of a firearm while have marijuana on me. This happened and I took a plea agreement for the crimes and served my time. Since that time I have had model citizen and started to businesses and doing good in life. We are just worried that my past could allow for my girlfriend to possible loss custody of her kid if the dad did take court custody action.

[cdad]

There are pluses and minuses to this but here goes. Since it was a conviction for drugs then if they throw that out there you may have to take reguler drug tests to prove your not a druggie ( not saying you are in any way ). As far as the convictions from what your saying you have paid your debt and are on the straight and narrow ( huge plus because you have a track record ). So as far as it affecting custody the only thing that should come from it would be limitations placed upon you as an interested party. i.e. the drug testing thing. Its still best for you both to talk to a lawyer like you had said and also for her to move on this now and not wait at all. She needs to keep a record of any threats he makes. Also she needs the child support to be formal as that may pave the way later as a barganing chip to adoption. Good Luck and keep us posted.

[MrKB]

Thanks califdadof3 and I will definitely keep you posted.

[Rachelrang]

This is a hard one. Talk to the lawyer since it was 10 years ago the lawyer should be able to get around that. And it doesn't hurt to tell said lawyer that he didn't bother contacting his child till she was 4.

[JudyKayTee]

This is a hard one. Talk to the lawyer since it was 10 years ago the lawyer should be able to get around that. And it doesn't hurt to tell said lawyer that he didn't bother contacting his child till she was 4.

This is bad legal advice on an old thread.

[Rachelrang]

Didn't look at the date my bad