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My boyfriend received an email from his ex wife asking if her current husband could adopt his 9 year old daughter and he wanted me to research his rights online.
So I've been everywhere trying to get some answers even vague ones and I'm at a loss I came here and most of the posts are from the other party (the ones with custody of the child) but still you all seem to know alot so I registered and here I am.
So let me give you all the facts as far as I know of them. The last time my boyfriend saw his daughter face to face was seven years ago but that's partially due to his ex and new husband. He has shared custody but his daughter lives in cali and we live in oregon.
His ex started emailing him about a year ago with pics of his daughter and what she was up to we (my boyfriend and I) have a 4 year old son and he's sent pics of him to her.
But told his daughter that she got them from his cousin because she doesn't want her husband to know that they are in contact.
We asked a few months ago if we could visit his daughter in cali to make her more comfortable but the plans fell threw now we are going next month to try and visit with her.
We have been talking about getting his rights enforced but slowly to make sure his daughter is more comfortable visiting her and then maybe having her for a part of her school vacations.
But in the email his exwife also said that his daughter wants to be adopted by her stepdad so they could all have the same last name, my idea was simply to change her last name but no.
So now he is considering signing the papers but wants to put a stipulation on it that she drop the past child support and I don't even know if thats possible for her to do.
The other is that he still wants to see and talk to her from time to time and he wants these two things in writing before he signs his rights away.
Or else he isn't going to sign because he wants her to be able to see him and her brother.
So I'm aksing for help can he put those stipulations in a legal document before he sighns???
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Hi, I have no clue, but I wanted to welcome you. That's a tough situation. Does your boyfriend pay child support? Is he supposed to have visitation? It sounds to me like what he needs is an "open" adoption so that his daughter can know who and where he is. (Unfortunately, in many states those are not legally enforceable.)
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Thanx for the suggestion. Yeah we pay child support every month but I guess he didn't pay a while back because he didn't have a job and the past child support is holding us back from buying a house but we've been making payments on it so it would eventually go down.
As far as visitation when they got divorced he got shared custody I don't know the specifics but atleast weekends and summer breaks.
But the open adoption is a good idea I'll look into it, Thanx!
Child support is not generally addressed in adoptions. If the state has been involved at all, even a little, then the support can not be forgiven until the balance owed the state is paid in full. Once the adoption has taken place, then another case would need to be brought before the court in order to get the past support forgiven. If an order forgiving the past support is not given and he just stops paying for support, the state can come after him to collect the past support as well as court costs, fines and interest. Tread very carefully - offering to give up parental rights in exchange for money (even if its past money owed) can be very tricky (and illegal in most states).My experience is from Texas, Arizona, Illinois and North Carolina - the states in which I lived during the 6 years we went thru the process of trying to terminate my son's fathers rights so my husband could adopt him.He is still responsible for back support - if he wanted to go to court (his cost) and have them dismissed (again his cost) I would not contest - but I am not going to pay to have his arrearages forgiven.