Officially, my ex-husband signed over his rights to our son when we divorced. I was pregnant when he left, so he never had a relationship with the child. There has never been a relationship there and there never will be. My current husband adopted my son when we got married and he is "Daddy." It worked out great on our end. I have no idea how it worked out for my ex. He remarried someone who had three boys, so I don't know. Apparently, she doesn't mind his porn addiction, alcoholic binges or inability to follow through on his commitments. Me, I'm just glad he's out of all of our lives.

Unofficially, my current husband has only visitation rights. BM kept sole legal and physical custody of their kids. Even so, she has never let him exercise is rights to regular EOW visitation, every other holiday visitation, the two weeks of every summer, etc. She has been pretty successful in cutting him out of their lives. So we moved away and now he has sporadic contact with them by phone. It sucks with a capital "S." I don't think he'll ever heal emotionally from the loss of his kids. I don't see how anyone could.

But keep in mind that you can't just sign away your rights. There's child support to consider. I gave up CS in exchange for my ex signing over his rights. Would your BM give up her CS?

~ Anne ~

"Adjust on the fly, or you're going to cry."
Steve Doocy, The Mr. and Mrs. Happy Handbook

I have to admit when my ex wife and I were in the hottest part of the divorce she made it very hard for me to exercise visitation and have a relationship with my daughter and the thought ran through my mind. I made the decision to stay involved though. I did see other people make decisions that to them made sense at the time. Custodial Ex's can be very nasty and make life difficult for the NCP. Why would anyone in their right mind want to continue in a divorce fight well after the divorce is done? To fight over what clothes were sent and what ones were returned? To nit pick over minor bills -- to struggle and strain paying a child support and the normal every other day bills required?

I don't think less of the people who made the decision to walk away -- every persons own circumstances are unique. My ex and I are now on friendly terms. Why would we want to continue to fight and struggle with each other when we can enjoy our daughter and our own lives?

I think your response is totally reasonable and normal. A reasonable reaction to an unreasonable situation. Life sometimes sucks. 10 and 7 are rough ages to walk away from -- an infant maybe. Then there is less emotional damage to the child, but even then you have to look at the emotional damage it might do to the adults. Can your husband look himself in the mirror 10 or 20 years down the road if he walks away?

As Anne said, giving up visitation is one thing, and that doesn't mean there will be no child support. In Illinois a judge cannot waive child support because that is something for the children. Unless the kids have been adopted then the state looks at it as the fact that someone else is taking over financial responsibility.

I wish I had an easy answer to this question. I think its normal to be on an emotional roller coaster. Things eventually work out the way they are supposed too -- for better or worse.

Kevin

Visitation and support are two different things. In Illinois if the custodial parent interferes with visitation they can be charged with a crime. If its joint custody then it can be contempt of court. Judges really get ticked to see kids put in the middle of fights between parents.

Kevin

when he was in his early 20's. He had a daughter shortly after his 18th birthday. Within 6 months of her birth, he and his gf broke up, and from that day forward she completely alienated him from her life. He took her to court, and won his parental/visiation rights, but everytime he showed up to the meeting spot to exchange his daughter, either the mother just wouldn't show up or she wouldn't stop, created a car chase and just pretended like he wasn't there.

One day she offered to him to released his parental rights so that her new husband could adopt his daughter. He saw no other way. He split the cost with her, and signed over his parental rights to her adoptive father. 3 years ago, we saw the mother in a bar since she is now divorced from the adoptive father, and decided to try to talk trash to my dh. 15 years later, she still is resentful of dh doing exactly what she wanted: giving up his parental rights. She is a person that will never be happy.

I think every situation is different, and it's painful no matter who is involved. Your sd knows her father and did have a relationship and I think that is very heavy weight on not to do it. I would say if she were younger and had a step dad wanting to adopt her then go for it.

Have you guys tried mediation to get bm to realize dad is important?

Candice