Should I prepare for the worst with my child custody case?

If all you say is true no judge in the world would allow unsupervised visitation.
He may get supervised visitation with you and a court appointed child advocate or something similar but the odds of him being allowed to just pick up his son and disappear are slim, I would hope anyway.
Do you have an attorney?
Have you actually retained one?

If so I am sure he/she is your best source of advice, if not, I suggest you get one and fast!

If you do not have an attorney, none of here can answer what the outcome will be.

Ask your attorney how you can have a really good child advocate appointed for your son.

To all: I haven’t retained him yet but I already have an attorney picked. I’ve heard great things about him and had several recommendations for him.

Sign the lawyer up immediately. You want to prevent any more nightmarish experiences and even more money being pissed away, including the numerous times you missed work and sat in court for hours. Remind yourself of just what a slow learner you have been; change that right now.

@ItalianPrincess1217 Well then, what are you waiting for?
You need professional advice, we have no ability to determine what the outcome of your situation will be. Best wishes, and call that damn attorney stat!

I’m not sure. I know that with legal processes, what’s common sense or the obviously right thing to do isn’t always what gets done. That’s why people are suggesting a lawyer because you need someone who has an ‘in’ in that world because that world very often doesn’t make any actual sense.

@Coloma You’re right. I guess I should have said in my initial post that eventually after him not showing up to court or showing interest for so long that I figured its safer to just not go through with court at all. I told myself if I could avoid court then there was no risk of my child being taken away or having joint custody with such an unfit parent. Now reality is hitting and I understand I will have to go through with court this time around. I just wonder if anyone has had any experience with this before. I would like to know if judges take into account if the other parent hasn’t been around for 2 years, or that they’re an addict, etc. Do any of these factors really matter in a court?

Are you kidding me? What an asshole. My thought is that he probably doesn’t want his son in his life as much as he wants to mess with yours. He probably hates that you’re happy.

I’m so sorry that you and your son, who is adorable by the way, have to go through this.

I really don’t know what the courts will do. I DO know that he should not have any rights whatsoever. He sounds scary and your son doesn’t need to be near that kind of person. He’s had 2 years to get his shit together and he hasn’t done so.

I wish you the best of luck! Call that lawyer ASAP.

Keep us posted.

@Katniss Thank you!

Well said @Katniss Yes, any judge that hands this child over to such a screwed up dad should be disbarred.

Call the lawyer and for crying out loud either defriend him or stop posting updates on FB. They tip your hand.

Holy crap, @ItalianPrincess1217! I think the best advice you are likely to get here is “Retain that lawyer.” These are questions he will be able to answer – all you’ll hear here is anecdotes that won’t have any bearing on your case.

It sounds like you’ve done the right things in terms of documenting his behaviour and getting him on record with the threats and break-ins. But I would second @LuckyGuy‘s advice that you close your Facebook and other social media accounts for the duration, so that nothing you post or have posted can be copied and used against you (even if you think there’s nothing there to use).

Good luck to you and your son!

As everyone else said you need to talk to a lawyer. Can I also suggest you hold off on having another kid until this is all sorted and your life is stabilized? Are you able to take care of yourself and your son if, god forbid, something should go wrong in your current relationship?

You need to retain your attorney immediately so that he/she can have sufficient time to not only process all that you already know, but also so that an investigator can be hired (it’s going to be expensive, but steel yourself to that). You need to find out things about your ex that you don’t currently know and have facts at hand in order to counter his testimony and question him about those aspects of his life that he has not made public. In addition, a good attorney may be able to help steer the case to a judge who won’t make stupid decisions based on politics (it’s supposed to be an impartial system for the selection of judges, but like everything else run by humans, there are ways to move the system if you know how).

Yes, this can always go bad, especially since, as has already been evident from the numerous postponements that you’ve had to endure on the custody front, that some judges are being very political about bending over backwards and doing loop-de-loops to protect “the father’s rights” in this case. Maybe they’re doing that all over your state, in fact. And as we head into Fall, when politicking gets more intense, there is more and more likelihood of this happening, so you need to be ready for that.

Finally, consider that your ex may simply be trying to ransom your son, as hideous as that thought might be to you. It might be worthwhile to check with the attorney if an offer of settlement can be made (don’t couch it in terms of “a payoff” or “ransom”, though those are apt colloquial terms). The legal term “settlement” is much more refined, and if you can buy him off for $10,000 with another fee for your attorney – and a certainty of a no-contact rule after that – wouldn’t that be money well spent?

@LuckyGuy and @glacial Very true. Thank you for the advice. I blocked him from all social media and blocked his cell phone from calling/texting me also. Until his recent contact I thought my sites were private. I am adjusting my settings so that neither him nor his spies will be able to see anything.

@nikipedia It doesn’t look like having more children is in the cards for me at the moment. I am having some unexplained fertility issues right now so the risk of pregnancy is significantly low. Because of the stress and extra money we are going to be putting toward this custody case, we have decided to hold off on another for now. But the similarities between the father of my son and my current significant other…let’s just say there aren’t any. If something happened between us and we ended things, he has already made it very clear that he’d want to stay in my son’s life and continue to help raise him (and he’s not even his biological son). So with his own kids I would expect nothing less. He truly is an amazing father. I was foolish once before. Of course there is always a risk in every choice we make in life, but this time I know what red flags to watch for. I do appreciate your suggestions and agree that now isn’t the best time to add another child to the mix. God willing, when the time is right, hopefully my body allows me more kids.

@CWOTUS I have never heard of such a thing as a payoff when dealing with custody. Is that really something people do? If that was something my state allowed (NY), I’d absolutely look into it and talk to my lawyer about it. And shockingly enough, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s exactly what he was trying to get from this. He has another child with someone else. A 5 year old daughter. He has never been part of her life either. I’ve been told from others that he used to only try to get back in touch with the mother around tax time so he could get the tax refund money from their daughter. And he used to threaten the mom that he was going to file for custody so that she would have to pay him child support. He was never really in it for the right reasons. He was simply money hungry.

@ItalianPrincess1217 Good to hear it. However, as far as I’m aware, there is currently no option on Facebook to limit access to tagged photographs to keep “friends of friends” from seeing them. There used to be, but there isn’t now. Just be cautious – anything you post might be seen by someone you don’t want seeing it.

@glacial That is something I’m having trouble finding. It seems like Facebook has become less and less private. It’s very frustrating. I have family in different states who enjoy the baby pictures but I worry who the pictures are being seen by.

@ItalianPrincess1217 The settlement idea sounds good, and pretty cheap too, considering the overall cost of litigation.

@ItalianPrincess You might want to send the pictures via another means.

You will most probably get full custody and he will get supervised visits, if he wants them. He will also have to pay child support that will pile up during your child’s life and if he ever gets a real job he will never get tax refunds. Or a driving license. You can block people on facebook and make your photos viewable by friends only. It’s almost impossible to remove parental rights
so that your now boyfriend can adopt your child. And think about doing what @CWOTUS said, a settlement getting him to sign off his rights. People do it all the time.

No one would use the word “payoff” within hearing of a judge or other court officer, @ItalianPrincess1217 (and you shouldn’t use such a crass term with your attorney, either), but the competent and experienced attorney will be very much in tune with what seems to be nothing more than a shakedown. He certainly won’t use that term with your ex, either, because if he did, and if your ex has an attorney (or enough sense to listen for words like that, and somehow record them), then it would look doubly bad for you.

But it seems to me that all he wants is what he can get out of this – except the child – so he’s using the threat of his exercise of custodial rights as a means to extort cash from you. If you can make some kind of one-time lump sum payment that will get him to sign an irrevocable waiver of custody, and which will allow your husband (when that happens, assuming that it does) to adopt him, then your worries may be over on that score.

But it’s something that an attorney should handle, so that the whole situation isn’t made worse by the “appearance” of a bribe on your part. “Settlement” is the proper term, even though everyone knows what it means.

Don’t just find an attorney. Make sure that you find an attorney who can be a smart and wise counselor for you, and who will do everything possible to figure out a solution without going to court. While many fathers are wonderful, it sounds like the man you are describing is not. However, that does not mean that a judge will not feel that your child shouldn’t know him and that he should be kept from his son. It’s pretty scary out there, and the cost of an attorney is also scary. Good luck to you!

He may get visitation but he will also be ordered to pay child support. When he doesn’t pay let it pile up to a shit load of money. Once his balance due is ridiculously high, offer to sign a satisfaction in exchange for allowing your husband to adopt. If he refuses, then threaten to have him thrown in jail for failure to pay child support.

This isn’t about me being a selfish parent. This isn’t about me being bitter that he broke things off with me. This is only about me protecting the safety of my son. @ItalianPrincess1217

Very wise words indeed, I feel that you will be able to successfully obtain full custody of your son, however based on possible life changes accomplished by your ex boyfriend, he may or may not have a chance enabled by the courts to at least have some sort of presence in your son’s life. Past behavior can be the factor in this case and quite frankly your ex boyfriend past choices may come back to haunt him, the onus is on him and I doubt that he would be able to provide sound reasoning as to why he would like to maintain his rights as a parental figure. You did your part as a parent and I commend you for your sacrifice, he turned his back and now will have to face his karma.

I have only skimmed the answers above. In most states, but I have no idea about NY, an unwed father has zero visitation or cutody rights, but is obligated to pay child support. This means fathers must file to be able to legally see their son, otherwise they have no legal rights.

Make sure you print off copies of those threats he made on facebook, and anything else you have in writing. I can’t imagine a judge would reschedule more than one time if the father does not show up. Are you saying you stopped going to the scheduled times also? Why did you stop? If for some reason your state actually gives the father rights even when unwed, then him not showing up should be enough for you to be granted full custody.

There is no way your ex will get full custody, or anything extreme like that. Do you want him to have no visitation? His drug habit might get that, but if he is clean and sober now they might gve him visitation. Possibly it will be supervised though.

I agree with @Judi. He will be ordered to pay child support if he only gets visitation and you can let the debt rack up. The worst case scenerio, and this would completely suck, is he gets partial custody, doesn’t make much money, and you owe him child support. I can’t see that happening with all the shit he has pulled.

Believe it or not, he might really care about not being viewed as a loser dad. Viewed as, I don’t mean he necessarily has it in him to be a good dad, I only mean worried about what others think, or what he thinks about himself. He may have people all around him pushing him to do something, like his parents.

I wish you had taken some of the suggestions when you asked this question almost a year ago!

@JLeslie I went several times to the scheduled court dates and each time the same judge would postpone it. The very last one I went to the judge warned me that I might want to get a public defender or hire a lawyer because otherwise he will just have to keep postponing it. He also said I need to find my ex and hire someone to have him served since I had no known address for him. I explained that he had abandon us and never gave me an address and I gave the court the last known address I had for him (which I was 99% sure he was no longer living at). That wasn’t good enough. I need to get an address and have him served. At the time I wasn’t able to miss anymore work for court. So I never ended up getting a lawyer. I couldn’t find an address either. I had a restraining order against him so it wasn’t a good idea for me to track him down anyway! The system doesn’t make much sense to me. And no I do not want him to have visitation. I would be really concerned about my son’s well being if he had visitation. His family is unstable. His brother is so bad on drugs that he was recently in a medically induced coma from drug problems. He has been to jail more times than I can count. His sisters have sent me many threatening messages over the years stating if they ever seen me out anywhere they would beat me, kill me, etc. I have witnessed them doing drugs with their toddlers in the same room. These are the people he associates with everyday. These are the people my son would be around. Not to mention he is not clean and sober. I have messages sent this week admitting he isn’t. He sent messages saying he hates his life so much that he gets drunk everyday and drives his car home hoping he will crash and die. Is this who I want having visitation of my child? Not a chance. He hid most of his problems while we were together. He really went off the deep end when he left. If he gets any sort of custody, I would be a wreck. He can’t even take care of himself, let alone a child.

Number one most important piece of advice: Make sure that when you hire an attorney, it’s an attorney who is a FAMILY LAW attorney. Not a criminal attorney, not an attorney who handles closings, not an attorney who will take care of traffic tickets, not any other kind of attorney other than one who SPECIALIZES IN FAMILY LAW. He will be very knowledgeable and familiar with custody, visitation, adoption, foster care, child abuse and neglect cases, supervision, and probably the local Child Welfare department (CPS) of Social Services. That is what you want.

When I worked in CPS, we would rub our hands together with glee when a client came to court, very proud with her high priced attorney, and it was someone she was familiar with from real estate or criminal court, but was totally clueless as to how the whole Family Court thing worked. I can assure you, Family Court is a whole different ball game. There are a lot of gray areas that are up to the judge’s judgement. You need an advocate who knows the ins and outs.

@jca I completely agree. That’s a very good suggestion. Thank you!

It’s typical I think that there has to be reasonable effort to locate the father so he knows about the court date. Although, don’t you automatically have full custody? It would be up to him to file to see his son. I don’t understand why you had to go to court before? Do you receive public assistance? The court does care about the state paying out money. A reasonable effort has to be made to find the father sometimes, so the state can order him to pay child support.

I do understand why you stopped showing up; it does seem like you need a lawyer. You have no idea how the law works regarding this, and neither do I for the most part, except what I know about the state laws in MI and TN regarding custody. I don’t say that to be judgemental or critical of you. If he is around a lot of people who have unwed children, don’t take this the wrong way, and who get in trouble with the law a lot, then he will know how the system works better than you, just because the people around him deal with it more.

A good family law lawyer is expensive. I have seen them take $5,000 retainers and none of that retainer money goes towards billable hours, it is just so you can say they represent you’ and then they start billing on top of that. Make sure you understand their fees before signing on the dotted line or writing a check.

It sounds like you have plenty of proof, if you have printed out some of the threatening messages. Also, keep a calendar where you note down the day something happens and what happened. Compiling this sort of thing, even though it is just your account of what happens has weight. Don’t lie or make up anything, but mark it all down. Come to court with all that paperwork.

@JLeslie I thought the same thing until the cop who helped me file the complaint for the break in and harassment told me otherwise. She said that I better make sure to file custody because if the father ever came back one day and “stole” him from daycare, or from our backyard even, that the police could do nothing about it if custody hadn’t been established. This scared me. I moved and remained in hiding for quite some time after hearing this. And one of my main concerns is if he does get visitation, that he’ll run with him. I fear that he’ll kidnap him. Those who don’t know him might think I’m being ridiculous. But I do know him. My family and close friend (and even his own friends) know the things he’s capable of doing. The other major concern is him being so violent. Towards the end of him leaving, he was so easily angered and violent. I won’t go into details with what happened but I am concerned that if the baby upsets him, he would do the same to him as he did to me. I just hope and pray that the system uses their best judgment on this and doesn’t put a child’s safety at risk.

@ItalianPrincess1217 I see. In MI there is some sort of legal form that men sign saying they are the legal father, but it does not give them custody. A lot of men think they are getting some sort of legal right to see their child when they sign it, but actually the legal jargon gives them nothing of the sort. I guess maybe NY has something similar which would actually protect you and that was maybe what the police officer was talking about.

I think most people would understand your fear that he might try to run with your baby, or make it hard for you to see the baby if he had possession of him. It probably actually rarely happens, but it definitely does happen and worth considering.

Your local social services agency will provide you free assistance in seeking child support! Do you have a court order for child support?

@bkcunningham , is right. If you go after child support custody will be established in the process. You may be going about this the wrong way.

@Judi and @bkcunningham No, I have never filed for child support.

I’m sure this is what your attorney will advise you. The state
doesn’t like deadbeat dads and will help you hunt him down to serve him.

The state will provide you legal assistance and support until they make contact with him and get him paying. He can’t just dance into your life and get custody after two years without having, at the very least, shown he’s responsible enough to have taken this to court and established legal child support. That goes for both of you, @ItalianPrincess1217. Stop being the victim and stand up to this man.

Otherwise, think about the lessons you are teaching this beautiful son-who I know you LOVE. Teach him to act in a fair and intelligent manner and to protect someone he loves using every resource legally available. When he knows they are looking for him for child support and the back child support he’ll owe, his true colors will show. I say he’ll run a yellow streak in the opposite direction. He’s picking on you because you are allowing him to make you the victim. Please, stop.

@bkcunningham Why do you sau she is playing victim? She tried to do what she thought was right to protect her and her son when the writing was on the wall, she just is at the disadvantage of not having deep pockets and hoping it would be ok since he wasn’t showing to court. She is learning as she goes, which is what happens to all of us, even the most confident and powerful. She is a nervous wreck about it, because who wouldn’t be in her position. Give her some slack.

@ItalianPrincess1217 Can your parents help you with the lawyer?

@bkcunningham I wouldn’t say I’m playing the victim. I’m only trying to keep my son safe and I’m being very cautious about what steps I take. I do agree with you on the child support. I was never concerned with that aspect of things because nobody had ever advised me that it might help my cause and move the process along. I never wanted his money. But if it helps find him and the state is going to hold him accountable for what he did, I will file for it.

@JLeslie Thank you for the support. I try to stay strong and positive throughout this process but also realistic. I will be able to retain the lawyer on my own next month. I should be able to handle the costs along the way but I know these things can be lengthy and expensive. I’m sure if I start to run dry, my family would absolutely help cover legal costs. Their number one concern is the baby’s safety also. I think they’re more worried about the outcome than I even am. But I can’t let the fear of the unknown keep me from taking care of business anymore.

When my daughter was born (33 years ago yesterday) I was on welfare and the state did everything to establish custody because they were trying to get child support. They agreed to a measly $100 a month (which he never did pay) in order to keep me out of paternity court. He was threatening to claim that it wasn’t his and there was no DNA test back then.
Thy can’t really establish child support without establishing custody so I think that if you use the resources available to get child support (probably your local District attorneys office) you should have no problem getting legal custody.
I’m surprised he judge never granted you temporary custody all those times you went to court.

@ItalianPrincess1217 My experience with my friends has been the grandparents get more freaked out than the actual parent. My SIL would let her kids go abroad with her ex (he is Italian and lives in Dom Rep. He used to take them to both Italy and Dom Rep. Sometimes they stayed with their dad most of the summer and a couple weeks over Christmas) and my MIL was terrified he would never bring them back. Another girlfriend of mine, I think her parents were and are so upset with how her ex treated their daughter, that coupling it with worrying about their grandson is overwhelming. It’s hard to watch your children go through difficult times (I’m sure you know that) and you parents are not only concerned for your son, but their own baby (you) is having to deal with this.

@JLeslie That’s exactly how it is. And they don’t realize how their stress and worry can start to cloud my own judgment on the issue. My family would prefer I move out of state and hide for the rest of my life than face my fears and get the custody battle over with. I know what I need to do. I don’t want to spend my life paranoid that his father could pick him up from school one day and the police wouldn’t consider it kidnapping because I made the mistake of never establishing custody. I need peace of mind, no matter what the outcome is.

@ItalianPrincess1217 The problem is, and I hate to even say it, no matter what your ex can go against a court order, so they will probably have some fear no matter what, and you too, if every so often he pops up either in person or just harrassing you in smeother way. But, at least he won’t be able to leave with your son from school or daycare, which should give you some piece of mind. Also, if he has family prsssuring him to be a “good dad” once the order is done that he has no rights (hopefully) then he can just tell his family what a bitch you are and how unjust the justice system is, and he will have the pressure off of him, which possibly he will be just fine with. He can blame it on everyone else and save face.

When you get a good lawyer he will be able to take some of the stress off of you I think. I hope.

I don’t mean you are playing victim. I think you are allowing yourself to be the victim in this. I would love to see you be assertive and take control of this situation.

@bkcunningham Ok, letting herself be victim. I still disagree with the harsh statement. She is young, doing her best, and seems determined to try to do the right thing. She is not sitting around pining away for some abusive man. She pulled herself together and is trying to get advice on what is best to do. She went through a very tough time, let’s encourage her with positive words if possible I think. But, that’s me. How is she allowing herself to be the victim? To get out of her situation takes not only perserverance, but money also. Like my FIL would say, little by little.

I am in a crappy mood. I’m sorry if I was too harsh with you, @ItalianPrincess1217. I have always tried to encourage you and I love seeing your son’s beautiful face. I’m just not feeling like I have a lot of patience and I may have come off too curt. My 94-year old dad is on his last days and I came here to get my mind off things. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea.

@bkcunningham I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I probably should have PM’d instead of challenging you here. I should have realized it was a little out of character for you.

@bkcunningham I’m sorry you’re going through a difficult time and I took nothing you said personally. I appreciate your honesty!