name change/adoption

[hapilyeverafter]

My jurisdiction is: WV

I have custody of my 3 year old daughter.Her father has visitation and he's supposed to pay child support. But he wasnt seeing her on his visitation days and he quit paying child support. I moved out of state and even told him ahead of time. Now he wants to see her and he keeps threating me that he's going to get custody of her. But i dont want her to talk to him or see him because she doesnt even know who he is and he confuses her by coming in and out of her life. He hasn't seen her in almost 2 years now. How can i settle this? And the man i have been seeing and just had a baby with and planning to marry wants to adopt her and i want her to carry his last name. How do I do that? I have asked my daughters father to sign over rights so we can start our new family but he's blown me off.

 

[WhirledPeas]

If a legal parenting schedule exists where your child's father has visitation and is requesting to exercise it and you refuse, you could be found in contempt of court and custody could be turned over to him if the court finds he would be less likely to interfere with the child having a relationship with both parents.

If you feel the current parenting schedule is inappropriate considering the length of time since last contact and the age of the child, you can seek to revise the schedule to request shorter visits until the child has grown more accustomed to her father. This is typically done for a few months and then a "regular" schedule is implemented.

A child's name cannot be changed without permission from both parents.

Your child's father cannot be forced to terminate his rights to his child except under drastic circumstances, none of which you have mentioned. Incidently, step parents have to be married for a certain number of years before adoption procedings can even be initiated.

His being current in child support and his having rights to see his child under a court ordered parenting schedule are not dependent upon one another. If you want to enforce the child support order, you can ask the state to assist you. I believe you would ask the state in which the father lives, if that is where the original support and parenting orders were established.