My daughter is going on 9.
I left my ex when I was pregnant and moved interstate 900km away. He never came after us. Nor has he ever made contact. He has a a new family. Another child on the way.
I left due to DV. It was quite extreme.
My daughter is high needs. ASD etc. She has many many supports. She is also in a good school.
So yeah they have never met. He has never paid child support either.
I'm worried something is coming after he has weezed his way back into our lives though a mutual person. I don't talk to this mutual person any more.
IF he wanted to meet my daughter, IF he wanted some sort of custody would he stand a chance. Should I be worried??
I've never held anything back from my daughter. I've also told her if she wants to meet him one day she can. The ball has always been in her court.
She expresses to me she loves him cause he created her but nothing more. She says she doesn't want to meet him cause he isn't really her dad.
I'll seek legal advice if it did come to it
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2 Replies
Im not a lawyer and you should absolutely speak to a lawyer for peace of mind.
Even if he was a lovely guy and your daughter had no extra needs, you lived locally to each other he wouldn't get any meaningful custody right off the bat.
There is a process and it would go
1. short supervised visits to build a relationship over a period time eg a couple of hours once a fortnight
2. short unsupervised visits eg he takes the daughter out for the day on a regular basis
3. gradually extend visits/time as appropriate.
They won't be moving her, they won't make you move, especially after this long. He will most likely get fed up with the very long drawn out process and the expense of coming to visit her.
There are a huge amount of steps for him to go through (mediation, getting a lawyer, flying to you on a regular basis) and a lot of these guys like to talk but can't really be bothered with the follow through.
Im glad you've cut off the mutual person.
Why don't you start by applying for sole custody? I doubt he will try now because you're not claiming child support so that's probably an incentive for him to stay away. I would still go through it though and get something in writing so if theres a slight chance of him taking off with her you have something in place to fall back on. I would also be very careful about painting him as a brilliant person, this can be just as bad as painting a good Dad badly. As she grows older her self esteem will take a hit as she wonders why this great man wants nothing to do with her and will blame herself because he's such a good person. Be honest with her but never make it personal towards her. Never say "Dad never wanted anything to do with you" instead state the reasons behind it "Your Dad treated me badly so I had to move away from him".