Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

Re: Parental rights of an incarcerated parent

YOu can initiate your lawsuit to terminate his parental rights now because he is not contributing to the support of your son for at least 6 months.

Re: Parental rights of an incarcerated parent

There are several grounds for involuntary termination. On of these is leaving the child without providing adequate support and remaining away for at least six month. Another is failure to support the child for one year ending within the last six months. Also, being convicted of certain offenses is grounds for termination.

Any of these might be applicable to your case. In any event, if he has been gone since 1998 each on of those would already have taken place and you could file now.

Of course, if he has been providing support all this time (which I doubt) then a judge might decide that it is not in the child's best interest to terminate the father. You should discuss this with an attorney.