My family live in Washington. I am the stepfather the biomother and I raise our son together. My son is 12 now and I've been involved in raising him since he was 4
First a little history: My son was born on Feb. 15, 1998. After learning of her pregnancy, my wife told her then boyfriend of the news and how happy she was. She asked that he quit his drug dealing/use and try to change for the baby's sake. He would not and my wife left him. A few months later, she applied for child support. In the meantime, he already had another woman in the wings and had married her. So, since 1998 my wife had been receiving child support and had kept up visitation shedule for the birth father. He came regularly in the beginning and it tapered off. When my son was a little over a year old, my wife had scheduled a visit for the birth father's birthday, he never showed up and didn't call to tell her anything until over a month later. His new wife was now expecting their child. He took my wife to court to have the child support he was paying her reduced. His argument was that he was having another baby and needed more money. The court basically through that notion out and awarded her a little more in her support payments.

Fast forward 11 yrs...

For the past 11 years my wife had been sending registered mail to him notifying him of any address/phone # changes so that he could still visit, as provided by the parenting plan that was established initially. He never initiated any contact with my wife for visitation. He never once sent my son a card for any occation. He never came to see him.

In June of 2009, my wife on the advice from a 3rd party to apply for more child support, she did just that. After several months of paperwork and delay, the process was finally rolling. In late November of 2009, my wife received a court document stating that the birth father had retained a lawyer and was not trying to legally get visitation re-established and he also wanted to modify the parenting plan. He never once even attempted requested a visit until his income (which was 4x more than when the initial support amount was set) was to be reviewed.

Fast forward to April, 2010...

My wife and I retained a lawyer of our own and found out what our options were. In the state of Washington, the birth father will have to go to court and have to prove adequate cause for visitation. Apparently the court found that he had adequate cause, even after a valiant argument from our lawyer. So to avoid the court forcing my son to visit on their or the birthfather's schedule, my son, my wife, and myself decided it would be best to voluntarily allow visits with the birth father. Initially and on the request of my son, we all would visit together. Our family with theirs. My son was so terrified and shy. Through the years we had never spoken badly about the birth father in case one day this would happen. But, nonetheless, my son was so scared. We all met this way many more times until my son felt comfortable enough to go on 3-5 hrs visits with them alone. He has been doing this for a few months now on every other Sunday. For several months now he has also been seeing a counselor, which was mandated by the court also. My son was aprehensive with the meetings with the counselor because half of the visits would involve "him" being there as well. My son will not tell the counselor how he is really feeling, let alone the birth father. He is so unwilling to hurt anyone or anyone's feeling. He just won't do it. On occasion he will break down and just start crying uncontrollably. Eventually he will tell us that he doesn't want to have anything to do with "him". He doesn't like where they live, he doesn't like his wife. etc. He just wants everything to go back to normal, without the birthfather in the picture.

During a visit to the counselor involving the birthfather, the birthfather annouced that he and his wife were all of a sudden pregnant!!! Pregnant....now??? WTF!!! What the hell are they thinking. This whole time I have been under the impression that it was all about money. I believe that I am right. He knows that by having a baby, he has a chance to get the support payments reduced. I just cannot believe all of this shit. A real father/man would back down, see that there is no salvaging this non-existent relationship with my son. My son wants nothing to do with this guy. We are at our wits end. Legal council for both sides are squabbling over the final support payment. They are withholding paystubs from our lawyer and delaying the process. They're lawyer has a reputation for only helping deadbeat dads and preying on single mothers or just on the mothers in general. Our lawyer says that even though we could win the child support fight, we would lose the fight to take away the visitation rights from the birthfather. He just does not see what he is doing to my som. My son has recently broken out in rashes. He has frequent stomach issues and diarrhea. He is quick to lash out. These are not normal for him. He is under so much stress to try and please us as well as not hurt the birthfather. To take a quote from a movie..."you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father."

How can this asshole, that has NEVER even attempted to contact him in the past almost 12 yrs now, have such rights. It should be like a common law marriage, after 7 yrs of no contact he should be relieved of any parental rights to the child.

I would love to get some feedback. Hopefully you can see our plight and give us some words of encouragement, some helpful advice, and maybe some actual things to try to win this for my son's well being.