Ms

[nhuebner]

I have a question. My daughter will be 9 in March. Her biological father has had absolutely nothing to do with her since she has been born. We established paternity when she was almost three years old and that's when he was added to the birth certificate. He suddenly walked into her life about three weeks ago and wants to be in her life. I am willing for him to have visitation with her 2 days a week and every other weekend. I wanted to do it supervised for the first 6 months. When we were in high school, he was very heavily into drugs and alcohol. He claims that he has changed, however I was able to go online and found out that he has a misdemeanor drug charge (marijuana) as recent as last month (11/24). He also wants to start paying child support of $300 a month. Then he wants to claim her on her taxes for it to be "fair" since he will be paying all that money. He has NEVER given us a dime in the last 8 years. I want to know how the court would rule. We are trying to keep it out of court since we both agree it would be traumatic. I told him that the only reason why I wanted visitation to be that way for the first 6 months is the fact that she doesnt know him or his family at all. What I wanted is sole custody of her and I feel that I have a right to that since he has had absolutely nothing to do with her whatsoever. I have never moved out of state and I was able to be located very easily. I feel that his wife now (we were NEVER married) is pushing him to do this and pushing me to get all of the things that they think they have the rights too. As in every other weekend, holidays, and 2 weeks in the summer. She is 8 years old. Wouldnt the courts do supervised visitation for some time before she would be able to stay with them? How hard would it be for me to keep sole custody? What is the difference between sole custody and physical sole custody? I am willing to reassess the visitation situation after 6 months. If my daughter wants to stay there than it would be fine, but as of right now he is a complete stranger to her. I dont feel that he should be able to claim her on his tax returns at all because like I said, he hasn't paid a dime for any support whatsoever. Also what is the percentage of child support he would have to pay in VA? I want to make sure that my daughter isnt being put through any more hardships than she already has been in the last 8 years since he hasnt been around. Can anyone help me? How would the courts rule in a situation like this?

 

[Duranie]

First of all, stop listening to him. If he has not paid any support over the past years then it is unrealistic he should be able to claim her on taxes. Have you looked up your states child support guidelines to see what he should be paying? $300.00 might be a bit low, especially if he is not going to be carrying any insurance on the child.

Do not alow him to claim the child on taxes. Personally since he has not been involved at all up until now, that is an unreasonable request and 300.00/month is not alot of money actually for child support. I would tell him no on that one. You have been supporting the child up until now and you are the primary care giver and custodial parent, you sohuld continue to claim the child.

I receommend filing for sole custody in the courts, filing for actual child support, and setting up a court visitation schedule, that way there will not be any disagreements in the future on who gets the child and when. Your request for supervised for 6 months is fair and you can re-examine it in the future. He will likely be entitled to unsupervised visits though. The stuff he did in high school is probably not relevent. His drig charge may not matter either unless he is putting the child in danger.

So, I would recommend filing through the courts. Many courts have mediation/consilitation services so you do not necessarily need an attorney if you guys can agree on most things.

Without a court order, he does not have to pay you anything, and there is probably going to be some dispute in the future over things.

good luck

 

[nhuebner]

Thanks

Thanks. I actually called an employee assistance program today through the company I work for. THe person that I had spoken to had said the same thing that you did. He is an attorney and he highly doubted that the judge would just give him unsupervised visitation right off the bat since he hasnt been in her life. Do I just go to our local courthouse and get the papers? Fill them out and bring them back? Tonight, I wound up calling him and asking him if he would come over by himself and not with his whole entire family because we had company over and he got really shady with me. He then wound up asking me if I would come over there, I am currently in training with the company i work for and have to get up at 545 in the morning and drive 3 extra hours a day. I told him frankly since I had been doing all that driving and getting up that early I just didnt feel like driving anymore tonight, that I had actually hurried up tonight so that they could see each other. He then told me that he couldnt believe that i was even asking him to that since his "family" comes first. That's when i had stated well isnt she a part of your family too? and he said yes. but when it came down to it, he didnt come over he coudlnt do that to his family. i did give him the option though. again thanks so much for your help!