Stepparent Adoption Frustrations!

Originally Posted By TomHELP! I am the stepfather of my wife's 13 year old son. His father lives in NYC, us in Colorado. My wife has sole custody and our son approached me with legally adopting him in 1/2001. When his father heard about this, he hired a payment center to begin withdrawing monthly support (ordered in 1992) from his account and sending to my wife.According to the adoption statutes in Colorado, we must show 1 of 2 things in order for me to be able to adopt.1) No child support payments in last 12 months (which has now been blown away)2) That his father has abondoned him for a year or more. The definition of abondment implies total discontinuance of contact, etc. The fact is that he has not seen our 13 year old since Feb, 2001 (14 months ago), and called him for the 1st time in 11 months the other night just to tell him he was fighting the adoption (OF COURSE!). We went to court, and the matter has been continued. He showed up, never looked at our son or even said hello to him. He claims that my wife has never allowed him to see our son, although she is the one who always tried to force our son to see his father (before we were married). Fact: Our 13 year old hates his father, knows very little about him, doesn't want to be near him, and feels very uncomfortable in his presence (as his father is a little "off"). His father filed a Motion to Contest the morning of the hearing!Do we have a chance at this? What exactly constitutes "abondonment"? If he states he has tried to spend time with our son, is the abondonment issue dismissed? and will the court look at previous payment history (which was rare) versus just this last 1 year?HELP!Tom, Denver