Topic: I need advice, for real.

[CaféElite]

You have never seen your son, she is currently getting married (assumed?), possible she lives in another country, she has no desire for you to parent your child and it appears she likes you about as much as you like her. Ok.. My advice is that you either let it go and hope that her current man which she appears to have been with for a while is decent guy or fight for a 100%. If you only get shared custody I think you will really struggle with her and getting her to follow the court based rules. Once the paper work has been signed its just so damn expensive to go again for #$%*.

If you decide to give this a go a couple things to consider:
Was your son born on US soil?
Is the Mom a US citizen?
She have any outstanding legal issues?
Does she have the money(hers or family) to fight you in court?
Does she have a job and what does it make?
What are your child custody laws in your state and the location she is in?

Questions for you:
Are you prepared to move to be close to him?
Do you want and are you ready for this responsibility from and mental and financial perspective?
Is your job stable, is your life stable, do you own a home\nice car\................................furniture?
Do you have the funds to take her to court?
Do you have a wife\girlfriend now, if so her thoughts?
Have you spoke with your parents and if so what is there thoughts?
Do you have family close that could help when #$%* comes up (IE: leave work if your kid is sick, early to pick up from daycare, etc etc)?
Crap this list could go on and on...

I will say this if you currently have a wife\girlfriend then let this go. Remember the first 18 years is a pretty quick part of your life so if you really want just make sure you know his name. That way in 14 years you can locate him, set him and down and explain the situation. It might or might not go the way you want but at least he will know and you will set it straight. Who knows that could give you someone to ride w/ for the next 30 years as you guys get to know each other. I would like to think life has stages and while missing one much suck its not irrecoverable.

This is coming from a guy that turns 30 this month, single for two and a half years, has a daughter that is 4 and 10 month old, has her 50 percent of the time, pays 800 a month for child support and no family with in a five hour drive. There is and will never be anything more important\enjoyable\entertaining\heartbreaking\pain in my ass then my daughter.

Good luck.

[Frankencake]

Wow.  I don't envy you.   
Track her ass down.  She is near family guaranteed and that should make it easy to find her.  Go back to Okinawa and make sure that the local authorities know what you are doing there.  She has essentially kidnapped your child for the last 4 years and you have every right to see him.  This could easily be a criminal case if the child is an America citizen and the mother is not.  That is your leverage when she calls again.  Find out what the law is and use it against her.  Make her jump through the next hoop.  Talk to your local FBI and have your phone tapped/traced until she calls.  Then show up on her door step two days later.  That will F with her head and that is what you want to do.  This is mental warfare at its most primal.  I say FBI since it is an international situation.  But remember that they will ask you why you haven't done anything for 4 years.  Have that answer ready.  Consult your military councilor since they might have more resources that you can use to find her and they might even have legal representation since this is probably not the first time this has happened to a soldier.

[333]

I'm with the blackmail camp.  But also feel that you should go for all or nothing.  Sharing custody will be hell.  Especially if she is going to be criminal about it.  And that would be a good reason to go for full custody.  You don't want your son to be raised in that mindset.


I sure don't envy you, or the decision you have to make.  I would suggest in addition to a lawyer, maybe a therapist.  Either way you go, it will be hard on you.

[seaweb11]

Wow, this one is a rats nest

Never seen him, probably never will. Th courts are not going to help you unless you have some $$$$$$$$$ a lot of $$$$$$

Here's a number for you. I don't mean this to look cold or cruel, but chances are you aren't going to get much if any access.

18 years at $400.00 per month to conclusion of University. $86,400.00 , more when you start making some real money.
Dental $5000.00 - 15,000.00.....
School dues $3000.00........
University tuition $25,000.00..........
and on and on........................

Tough one.  He has a dad, and he and Satan seem to be still together so why pull a 3rd wheel into it?
Good luck what ever you do.

[Achmed]

One other thing to consider: anything you write or is recorded is discoverable by attorneys. Internet forums, email, letters, everything. That means they can find what you have written and use it against you in court. Be very careful what you write and what clues you drop. That is, if you want to fight for anything.

[BobbyR]

I do not want to appear cold but before u embark on anything I would demand a DNA test. About 30% of men are raising kids that are not theirs. If it is yours, then u take it from there. 

[Achmed]

Bobby, I'm curious, where does this 30% number from? I wish I had more faith in womankind but I don't. Mankind ain't that great either. EXCEPT THOSE WHO RIDE SOHC FOURS! ALL SINS CLEANSED BY YOUR PRESENCE HERE!

[BeSeeingYou]

Tough spot you are in but I would walk away.  You have no idea where they are at, maybe not even in the U.S.  The child has probably been told the other guy is the father and has spent his short life thinking that.  What is best for the kid?  I am sure you would be a good dad but he has a two parent situation now even if she is a #$%*.  At this point sad to say but you are a total stranger.  Change your phone and avoid contact with her.  It sounds like she is just looking to cash in.  If she is serious she will eventually find you so that's where your lawyer comes I guess.

[Trevor from Warragul]

The 30% figure is often quoted, but is actually incorrect & should not be used to assess the fidelity of women in general.

It relates to the percentage where men have requested a DNA test because they strongly suspect that a child is not theirs.  Which means 70% of them actually were the father of the child.  Overall, a pretty good figure considering the men requesting the test were highly suspicious!

[333]

I wonder what Maury Povich's stats say?  He must keep track of that stuff with all the paternity tests he does.

[Industrial Rat400f Killer]

Walk away, I know it doesn't seem like the honest thing to do but she isn't going to ever let you and your son have a close relationship and so instead of being a parent who never sees your son you'll be a parent who never sees your son but pays for his mother's Pepsi and cigarettes.
I'm currently a 14 year Pepsi and cigarette provider.
I got a girl pregnant that lied about being on the pill from a one-night-stand and immediately after the kid was born she moved 250 miles away and changed here number. Being the poor 20 year-old that I was my only choice was to pay child support and hope the kid showed up on my step someday. I get to see him now about twice a year and his mom calls me about 10 times a year begging for money and threatening lawsuits.
It's great I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Caaveman82]

To all who have posted,

     First of all I appreciate all the support and advice. I have come to a decision. I am talking to a lawyer right now. She had advised me to start with a motion of paternity. Which basically court orders a DNA test for the both of us to make sure I am the father, then once paternity is established, I go for custody. This is what I decided I want to go for. Like 8 weeks out of the year. Maybe every other Christmas and the years I don't have him on Christmas maybe I get him for Thanksgiving. Things of that nature. A couple weeks during the summer.

There are too many kids around with only 1 parent. many single parents do a decent job, but many really eff their kids up.  having 3 parents, 2 you gotta live with, and one you can always run to, aint a bad scenario.  be there.

This hit home.

I want to keep him with a 2 parent family but I want him to know he can always turn to his real dad. Money doesn't mean much to me compared to knowing I helped raise my boy to be a man. I have had a lot of friends with step dad's and it was a bad scenario. I don't want this to be the same thing. Maybe when he gets older if he can't take the step rent he can come stay with the old man. I am not going to drag him from a 2 parent home though. I think morally this is the best decision and my attorney believes that legally this is a good path that will yield the outcome I am looking for. I understand that she may eff with me on this stuff. I realize that I will miss a few of my visitation days here and there because she will make up excuses to keep him away. There is plenty of legal action I can take if this happens and even dumb animals learn after a while to not do things that will harm them.

Again I really do appreciate all the advice and opinions on the matter.

Oh and UE, no offence taken, in the game of life I'm the dumb animal I mentioned above, I've learned my lesson now... may be too late, but at least I learned it.

[goon 1492]

There ya go brother! If that boy is yours then get him, I still love my step dad for the man he was for me and my siblings. I still also love my pops that was gone most of my childhood mainly because he was pretty messed up from Nam.
Sounds like you got a good lawyer. Keep us posted

[Caaveman82]

most well thought post i've seen you make to date, caaveman.   
with that attitude, any judge should be willing to give you something.
i would shoot for more than 8 weeks... how about summer vacation w/ every other weekend back at moms during that time?

Hey! All of my posts are well thought out! You think it's easy being a yappy kid?

The reason I don't want to take his summer away from him is because I remember what it was like during summer vacation and I want him to be able to hang with his friends or go on vacation with his mom and step dad. I figure two or three weeks in the summer is enough time to hang out and bond for a while maybe take him somewhere cool for a few days. Let my parents get their fill of him. I want to be in his life as much as possible without disrupting it.

[Retro Rocket]

Find out what the law is and use it against her.

This is a good idea but i wouldn't do it on the phone actually i wouldn't tell her a bloody thing, it will only get used against you in court so read "the art of war" and keepyour cards very close to your chest.

Mick                   Oh and good luck Caavee

[tramp]

sounds like you have a battle plan
go with it
she is blackmailing you for money or else she would not have gotten in touch with you after these years
good luck

[Ecosse]

just found this one. hey caave i wanna first say that the fact that this is a complex issue for you speaks volumes about you as a person. and it sounds like you are on a reasonable course of action. this is clearly a hard situation even without the emotion of possible fatherhood.

as a child of divorced parents, and never knowing my dad, i can tell vouch for the benefit of two 'rents over one. and as time goes on she'll likely talk some smack about you to try and sabotage your relationship with the child. my mom's no satan but she described my dad as she saw him- not favorably. lucky for me i knew enough to filter such things and a grandma who balanced it out.

honestly, if you stick to doing what you think is morally right you will do ok. not to say there won't be major struggles if you have a relationship with your child, with him comes her, but all you can do is the best you can.

i don't envy your situation but for what it's worth you do seem like a intelligent and caring guy. my best wishes out to ya bud.

[MickeyX]

I feel for ya, caave... Just one point... My brother didn't see his boy from his 1st marriage until he turned 18. His boy made contact with him on his birthday.   He had visitation rights and all, paid his support directly through payroll deduction, which usually amounted to more than 1/2 of his pay. Everytime he showed up to get the boy, she said he was too sick to come along. He took a constable with him, she said he was sick and the constable had to let it go. He showed up every other weekend for YEARS and he got to take him along TWICE. He brought this up in court everytime they went in for rights or change in support. The court did nothing to help. they said she had every right to keep a sick child at home. She played the game like an expert with each of the fathers of her children.   She made out like a bandit to the point that she never actually held a job in all those years her kids were at home. She got welfare on top of it all.
His kids from his 2nd marriage suffered financially due to his high payments to his ex for a kid he never got to see. They also wanted to know their older brother.

Get every little thing in writing, like who is responsible for paying the transportation of the lad if he's in another country. She may try to make it that you have to always come to her to see him. Don't assume just because it's written in a document that it will happen either. It does give you legal rights to fight with, if needed. Put a clause in that if you don't get to see your boy when you are supposed to, that she could lose her rights. Also add in that a certain amount of the child support payments go into a fund for him for later, a fund determined by you. Give him something to start life with, not just pay her rent.

There's more but these guys have pretty much covered it.

Good luck and thanks for being willing to be a good dad.  

[Achmed]

Just so you know (and your lawyer should have told you this already) child support payments and your parenting time with your child are two completely separate issues. The court will order you to pay child support, regardless of the parenting time setup. And the court will grant you reasonable (in their eyes) parenting time, based on a lot of factors. Your lawyer should be able to bring up the most important factors, based on the laws in your state.

For child support, it is a pretty standard calculation based on your income and his mother's income. They may take into account other children living in the mother's home or her husband's income, if they are married. But one child won't cost you a lot, comparable to two or three. I am paying child support for three children and it is an assload of money--just about enough for their mom to live on without working. And she wasn't for quite a while. This, when they live with me about half the time (often more). Since you are looking for relatively little parenting time, this will probably not be a factor for you.

For parenting time (they don't call it visitation anymore in the more civilized states) you will have a battle to fight based on the fact that you have been out of your son's life all this time. But they will still grant it. They even grant it to drug addicts or mentally ill people, but supervised. You will probably be granted much more than a few weeks in the summer if you want it, but it kind of depends on her location, travel arrangements, etcetera.

Be confident. The bottom line for most courts is the child's well being. That includes his father being in his life. I think the courts have realized that when either parent is removed from the child's life it has a terrible impact on the child.

God bless, man. PM me if you want and I hope your lawyer is good. If she is, she will look out for the child's best interests and put enough language into the agreement to give you legal recourse if your son's mom fails to hold up her end of the orders.

[Industrial Rat400f Killer]

He had visitation rights and all, paid his support directly through payroll deduction, which usually amounted to more than 1/2 of his pay. Everytime he showed up to get the boy, she said he was too sick to come along. He took a constable with him, she said he was sick and the constable had to let it go. He showed up every other weekend for YEARS and he got to take him along TWICE. He brought this up in court everytime they went in for rights or change in support. The court did nothing to help. they said she had every right to keep a sick child at home. She played the game like an expert with each of the fathers of her children.   She made out like a bandit to the point that she never actually held a job in all those years her kids were at home. She got welfare on top of it all.

That's basically exactly what has happened to me for the last 14 years. I'm not saying this to be a downer I just think you should be prepared to not have all your expectations met.
Even if you have visitation rights she can just blow them off and the only way to get results is to spend the next 10 years in court blowing money and stressed out.

Morally you have made the right decision IMO but I would suggest to expect the worst and be happily surprised when it's not.
I'm just speaking from my experience of course and things could turn out better for you than they have for me.

[Duke McDukiedook]

Hey Caave,
Just saw this one and I'm sure you'll do the right thing and we're behind you.

One thing though, in most (if not all) states parents cannot take kids out of the state to live without permission from the other parent. Did she obtain that permission from you? If not, she broke the law right there.
 

[Caaveman82]

No she did not have my permission.

She was in Japan at the time and we were trying to figure out something agreeable for custody and visitation and then she just dropped off the grid. Apparently she is in the states now, where I do not know, nor do I have her phone number or contact information.

I've only talked to the little guy two times. Every time I had talked to her on the phone it was always "He's outside playing." or "He's taking a nap.". I was paying child support untill she disappeared. I know I will have to pay some child support, here it's about 25% of your pay per child. I'll manage. I always do. I do a lot of auto repair on the side and for cash jobs. Helping house flippers, I manage to sell "art" from time to time, just what ever I can do to make a couple extra bucks.

The money is the least of my concerns. What concerns me more is if I did give him up to her and then all she ever told him was how horrible I was and where do you really go from there? Who knows. I would like to think he is capeable of making intelligent decisions but I had both parents in my life, they were seperated, and I was still a hellion as a kid. I could just imagine if his step dad is a douche and mom is overbearing and where is my real dad? Oh yeah Mom said he's a piece of crap and doesn't love me. Who knows what that could turn into, I don't want to know. All I do know is that I will love him unconditionally and I want him to know he is loved.

Thank you all for your advice. I will be taking steps to make sure this thing is pretty water tight, so to speak. I fully expect to be screwed with on a constant basis, luckily family law here in Hennepin county has been under screwteny lately so I believe that I may not have as hard of a time getting what I want as I am expecting. Her cooperation is going to be slim to none, I am also ready for this. I know her too well, after all we were married, to think she'll just give me what I want.

Thanks again, everyone of you, for your support.

[seaweb11]

If you PM me all her personal information "as much as possible"...age, photo, high school, university, birth date, jobs, career,...... parents names & location, new boyfriends name and same info I will see what I can come up with regarding a location on her for you.

The more info the better      I'm usually pretty good at this

[DarkRider]

If you PM me all her personal information "as much as possible"...age, photo, high school, university, birth date, jobs, career,...... parents names & location, new boyfriends name and same info I will see what I can come up with regarding a location on her for you.

The more info the better      I'm usually pretty good at this

Hmmm sounds like a Brimmering is coming up!

[Jerry Rxman Griffin aka MuthaF'er]

Sorry you're going through the mental/emotional stuff.

I hate to put it this way but you really don't have a son to lose. She may actually have one or not. Without going all the way through the posts, have you seen a birth certificate? If so does it have your name and signature on it? If you do have a genetic offspring I feel your anguish. If she has a son and wants money you should expect DNA testing first off. I wouldn't believe the lying #$%* one bit! If DNA is a positive match the chance of you being another part of his life will create more confusion for a little guy plus it will definitely create a world of much more #$%*. Would you really want that? IMO at this point the only right thing would be full custody for you. Anything else would be a mistake.

When my ex, aka THE #$%*, determined she wasn't able to get pregnant her whole fairy tale motherhood BS stated to unravel. She decided WE should adopt. Our relationship was #$%* and I told her "no way was I going to be responsible for a child I did not father especially with our relationship". I grew up in a #$%*ty situation and would not wish that on any poor sweet innocent child. At this point she decided "what did she need me for then?". She started running around while I was paying for a house, 2 cars, her nursing school, etc. She picked fights by swinging at me. You see where this is going. One day she opened her mouth one time too many and I just shoved her fat ass out the door and told her to not come back. Best thing I ever did. She shows up a year or so later at my job to "Bring me a picture I might want". Along with her was a pretty little girl who she desperately wanted to show off which she had adopted from the mountains of South America which said to me "I didn't need you anyway except for a financial conduit". 7 years after our divorce I received a call about her. Bankruptcy. Told them I had nothing to do with her and I wasn't responsible for any more bills. I assumed she was emerging from bankruptcy. Turns out it took them 7 years to track her down and it was thanks to me. Since I had paid most of her 4 years of nursing school I had a clue. Being Registered makes you somewhat public. Told them I didn't know where she was but they should contact the Florida Nursing Board and maybe they'd find out. I hope the little girl had a better life.

Moral of my story - do not trust her! She's a liar and a user. Be careful of your emotions.

Try to find info on her on the QT. Follow their movements but stay away! No perceived stalking! One day you will be able to contact your son. He will understand after having lived with this person for 18 years! Oh yeah, do anonymous call blocking on your phone then she can't get through unless she unblocks the phone. She will mess up if she's after money.

Hope things go well.