QUESTION
What rights does a father have when the mother was married but separated from the non biological father and the biological father wants joint custody?
Asked on Dec 06th, 2018 on Child Custody - Tennessee
More details to this question:
My fiance's ex girlfriend was married but separated long before giving birth to my fiance's 2 girls. He's on 1 of the girls birth certificate but not on the other. He wants to be able to have joint custody of his daughters. The mother doesn't dispute that he is the father but is being difficult about visitation and other issues pertaining to the girls. He wants to coparent with her but she is still wanting a romantic relationship with him and is using the girls to control his participation in their lives in order to get him to stop us from getting married. Her legal husband is also being gone after to for child support because she is still legally married. What are my fiance's options that would not affect the girls in any way emotionally?
1 ANSWER
He will first have to get an Order of Parentage, as the children were born to a married woman and so are children of the marriage. At the same time he petitions for parentage he can petition for parenting time. The child support will, of course, switch from husband to bio father, probably back to birth or five years. Whether all this will affect the girls is hard to say. Their parents decided to have outside children while at least one was married to someone else, that’s going to affect them, court case or not.
Answered on Dec 07th, 2018 at 6:42 AM