Legal Question in Family Law in Ohio

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In Ohio, whether you are on the birth certificate has nothing to do with whether or not you owe any duty of support to the child. While in some rare cases, the father can assert what is called a laches defense (where the mother conceals the child from the father for so long that the father is denied the benefit of a relationship with the child and thus the courts will not grant the mother child support) but laches defenses are only available in very rare circumstances.

The real problem that you are going to face is when, after received all this money you are paying the mom, she goes to the courts anyway and gets a child support order. The Court will make that order retroactive to the child's birth, and will ignore all of the support you have paid so far as "gifts" so she is setting you up to get double charged.

You might want to consider filing a lawsuit in your local juvenile court to establish your paternity of the child, get a court ordered set of payments, and then at least you will know and be able to plan for your obligation. You may also get the tax deduction for the child which can come in pretty handy around April 15th.

Further, you might find out that you want to exercise your parental rights at some point. The way things are right now, you have no choice. You have no rights of visitation. If you establish your parental rights with the court, you may be able to limit your visitations to not seeing the child, though reserving the option to restart them later on.

Having a child every other weekend and one night during the week is not an onerous burden. Many people have multiple children 24 hours per day and get by just fine.