Legal Question in Family Law in Rhode Island
Child Visitation
I have somewhat of a ''Jerry Springer'' situation here and am in desperate need of advice. My husband has a 7 year old daughter who was the result of his infidelity. . When we found out about her we did everything we could to be a part of her life but her mother already had another man believing he was the father so she was not really open to us being there for the child. I tried to make things easy on her and brought her things for the child, babysat etc. After a while things turned bad because of her fear that this other man who she had believing was the child's father would find out he wasn't. Things got really nasty between all of us and have been for the past 7 years. My husband always let her push him around and has never been able to be a part of his daughters life. He has recently filed for visitation but is worried that they are going to deny him because of mine and the child's mothers horrible past. We both have police reports, printouts of nasty things written back and forth and I am sure she is going to do anything she can to keep his daughter from him. She does not want her daughter around me and is using that to keep visitation supervised. Will he ever be able to get unsupervised?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Child Visitation
Your question "will he ever be able to get unsupervised visitation" is one that only the judge involved in the case will truly know.
In a Jerry Springer type situation there is much here that I don't know and missing facts could have a substantial impact on any advice I provide.
Generally speaking, you should expect a judge to scrutinize a case like this. If he knew he was the father at or around the birth of the child a judge is not likely to be happy that he didn't step up into his roll as a father for such a long period of time. It will also make a difference if his name is on the birth certificate as the father of the child.
The court is more likely to err on the side of caution with limited visitation as the daughter gets introduced to her father. However, expect that the court will also impose child support for that child as well. If the mother contests paternity you may have to deal with that issue as well and have paternity testing done.
You may or may not be a factor regarding the nature of your husband's visitation with his daughter. I would be doing you a disservice if I commented on that with such limited information
If you are in need of an inexpensive consultation, feel free to contact me and we can get into more depth regarding these and other issues that may arise.
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