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ORIGINAL: breagha

that is what my gut tells me. He's a really manipulative man. i think sometimes i let my fear of (conflict with) him make me question my maternal instincts. i suppose that is my thing to take care of

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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady

Wow. So the first three years of her life, he wanted no involvement, 3 of the 5 where he DID want involvement he was either in prison or restrained from seeing the child, he has never paid a dime of child support, and you are worried he will take you to court and win? Really?

He has paid child support before. The state granted me 25 dollars a month. He is two years behind on that now. Not that it makes a huge difference.

You don't say why he was in prison, or why his parole agreement prohibited him from seeing the child. That is something I would have seriously considered before even thinking about allowing visitation, let alone an overnight visit.

he was in jail for varied reasons each time. Most it all fell under the veil of violation of probation or parole. He was not prohibited from seeing her. He was prohibited from contacting me even through a third party because i had him arrested for assault ( 3rd degree ) The rest of the charges are all drug or alcohol related.

Another thing you left out was why your daughter didn't want to go to the overnight visit. Again, this is important, did you ask her?

Of course i asked her. She said that she didn't want to be away from home and that daddy's house creeps her out. Usually she visits him and spends the night overnight with her grandparents ( his parents ). she has since stated that she wants to see her grandparents but is afraid that if she goes there he will be there and she doesn't want to see him

Based on what you have said so far, I would say this guy is volatile, and possibly can blow up at any time.

[b]Absolutely the truth.

Did you listen in on the call where he said that to her? You should answer his call next time and tell him that what he did was grossly inappropriate, and you won't subject your daughter to that kind of verbal abuse.

i listened to the call the first time because she was sitting right next to me and i could hear him. The second time i answered the phone and he asked to speak to her and i thought he might be wanting to apologise to her

I wouldn't really worry about an expensive court battle. Should he file for some kind of visitation (they would never award custody), chances are you would qualify for legal aid (not 100% sure of this in NY, but pretty sure), so you wouldn't be fighting it alone. Even if you didn't get the legal aid, this kind of case is actually really simple to represent yourself on. Feel free to cmail me if you have other questions. I worked in Family Law, specializing in custody issues for 20 years.

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ORIGINAL: Level

Great post by Lafayette Lady. Guy has huge red flags flapping all around him.

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ORIGINAL: OsideGirl

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ORIGINAL: breagha

that is what my gut tells me. He's a really manipulative man. i think sometimes i let my fear of (conflict with) him make me question my maternal instincts. i suppose that is my thing to take care of

I get that. The father of my younger brother was pretty much the same.

When my mother divorced him, he demanded visitation, which he did for awhile....and then he pretty much ignored my brother from then on. He would just randomly show up in my brothers life, demand attention, then go back to ignoring him.

When he was 9 years old, my mother made me his legal guardian if something happened to her, at my brother's request. (I was 19) When we went to court, the judge asked my brother why he chose me and absolutely listened to my brother's response.

Tom was about the same age as your daughter when we started explaining to him, that it wasn't his fault or anything he had done. That it was just how his father was, and if he wanted contact with his father it was okay...and it was okay if he didn't want contact, too.

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ORIGINAL: breagha

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ORIGINAL: Level

Great post by Lafayette Lady. Guy has huge red flags flapping all around him.

if only i had seen the red flags before all the shit hit the fan... could have saved a huge mess

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ORIGINAL: LafayetteLady

You are quite welcome.

So he was abusive to you. Courts don't feel that would be an indicator that he would abuse your daughter, however, they do, when it is blatantly pointed out to them, grasp that the child can be used to further abuse the mother.

$25 bucks a month? Yea, he is out of jail now, that can be increased. Contact Child Support Enforcement and ask them about it.

the 25 a month was set before he was in jail. he has a deal with his boss that makes it look like he makes very little money ( about 1/3 of what he actually makes) and that is what the court based the support off. Also he has 2 other children ( mine is the youngest ) that get a huge percentage more than Mar does for support. i'm unsure if that has anything to do with the amount she gets.

NO court can deny someone terminating their parental rights because they don't want a single mother doing it alone, although I have seen that happen more than once.

However, terminating his rights terminates support as well. Terminating custodial rights and visitation does not. Yes, I do believe that regardless of the amount, you should get support from this man for as long as your daughter is a minor, and make sure that it is enforced (talk to local Child Support Enforcement about that as well).

Terminating support would be fine with me honestly. Out of the 5.5 years that he was supposed to be paying we have seen about 1.5 in support. 6.25$ a week doesn't really do anything. Unless they up it to something that actually helps me out... i can live without it. So can my daughter.

I agree with the others that your daughter should not be forced to see her father under any circumstances. If you have a decent relationship with her paternal grandparents, talk to them about how Marlie feels and try to come up with some sort of compromise there. After what he has said, I wouldn't trust him to be near her. He's a loose cannon and she doesn't deserve his blow ups.

Have YOU spoken with him and explained to him that given his outburst with her, she is now very angry with him and doesn't want to talk to him?

i did let him know that i felt it was inappropriate for him to say the things he said to her. Regardless of how angry or hurt he was that she didn't want to spend the night. He just said "tell her she can call me whenever she wants to" and that was it. He won't apologise to her because he doesn't see what he did as wrong or inappropriate and stated as much.