[pijoycehb]

In 2003, in California, my now husband was married to a woman who's ex was his Chief in the Navy, and he talked my husband into adopting his 3yr old son so he wouldn't have to pay child support. Two yrs later my husband and his wife were divorced, final in Jan. 2005. My husband IS NOT on the birth certificate. For the last year of their marriage, she told my husband she was leaving and had abandoned her son and gone to Guam to continue her career in the Navy when she could have done the same position here in the states. While she was away she told him she wanted a divorce, and had him take care of her son the whole time. As soon as she returned, when the divorce was final, she packed her stuff and took her son and moved to Texas where her family lives, without any discussion between the two of them, and there was NEVER a hearing as to the relocation. My husband has not seen or heard from her or the child since, but she had child support pmts added to the divorce papers and he was paying them. But she has now been garnishing his retirement pay from the Navy for child support. Her father somehow works for the state and was able to get this done from out of state. My husband, since he has no attachment to the child and has no desire to see the child wants to have his rights to this child terminated. We live in California, where they had lived the whole time prior to the divorce. This is not an acceptable situation and he should not be paying for a child that is not his and has been removed from the state with no hearing to remove the child from California.
How do we go about having the CS stopped and where do we file for the termination, in California or Texas?
Thank You

[Fr_Chuck]

You truly don't understand the law and he did everything wrong.

Of course he is liable for child support he adopted the child. Once he adopted the child, he took all the legal responsibility including paying child support if they split. He should have known this before he adopted.

And unless he asked the court to stop her from moving with the child of course she can just move out of state. He could have went to court when she did move and ask the court to order her back, but that is long ago past.

Next when she left and went to guam, he could have filed for divorce and custody of the child.
But again he did not do that either.

Legally this is his child.
And after she got divorce and also got a child custody agreement
( he had to sign it or had to be at court when it happened, or even worst just ingored her and did not respond to any court action)
But once there was a court order for support, it is easy to get a garnishment for his pay from the military, They do that almost automatically for the parent with custody.

So.
1. legally he is the father
2. he owes the support and no way to get out of that
3. the garnishment of the pay is normal esp for military pay
4.there did not have to be a hearing, unless he already had a court order to stop her, or after she moved, he filed for a court hearing.

You can't file for it at all, you can if the amount is incorrect ask for it to be modified.

And actually when the child was adopted a new birth certificate should have been issued by the court, so really he is on the birth certificate or should have been if he had done what he was suppose to do then.

He is in this mess because he did not do anything he was suppose to do at many times in the past.

He can not give up his rights either, ( but that is not connected to support anyway) but he should be getting visits, and should be trying, so he raised the child for a year on his own when mother gone and has no ties ?

[cdad]

Ok. When the divorce was final was there a child support order at that time ? Was the order out of California ? How long did the ex live in Texas before filing for child support ? Was that through Texas courts ?

This entire matter is really in your husbands lap and its him and only him that can do anything about it.

[ScottGem]

My husband, since he has no attachment to the child and has no desire to see the child wants to have his rights to this child terminated.

Sorry but this is incorrect. As soon as he consented to adopt the child he became the child's legal father. So, yes he does have an attachment to the child.

As the legal father, he is certainly liable for child support. And the only reason a hearing might be necessary for the mother to have taken him and moved is if he had primary custody or there was a visitation schedule in place and the move would prevent him from exercising his visitation rights.

So the first thing you need to do is read the divorce decree. If, in the divorce decree she got custody of the child and your husband declined visitation (which is what it sounds like since he really didn't care about the child), then she had every right to move. And, after moving she found that she needed support for the child, she had every right to file for support.

For support to be ordered, there had to be a hearing which it sound like your husband ignored. So support was ordered.

You see there are often two sides to a story like this. You see only that your husband was taken advantage of (and maybe he was) and that he's now supporting a child he doesn't care about. But from a legal standpoint, he is the child's father and is required to support him. The court's are not going to grant him a TPR.

I strongly suggest you hire an attorney to see what you can make of this mess.