Sugarland, first take a deep breath. You did the right thing to encourage your husband to get his rights established. Did the attorney say the money he's given her is considered 'gifts'? Who cares if she blames you for him wanting custodial rights? It's not a bad thing for you to encourage, it's really a good thing for his child. That makes you the good guy in this because it's important for the child to have a legal parent-child relationship. God forbid anything were to happen to your husband, if there isn't a legal relationship established, he couldn't claim benefits he might be otherwise entitled to, like SSA. If she is keeping his son from him in retaliation for requesting his legal rights to his child, she could be penalized for it. In my state (and some others), that is grounds to change custody all together. She isn't denying your husband visitation, she's denying their son time with his father, which will make her look very bad to the court.

I agree that it sounds like she just doesn't want to lose control that she thinks she has over the situation. Even though it may take weeks or months and your husband may suffer not seeing his child during that time, he should go forward and fight for his rights. If she goes on kicking and screaming (even if she lowers herself to saying nasty things about you or him to his child), don't drop to her level. Just keep your heads up and be strong. When it's done and established and he has his rights to his son, your husband will probably feel much better about it. If he's like my husband, he doesn't like the conflict and he went along with his ex all the time to avoid her tantrums and threats. Now that he has an order, she still throws tantrums but he can now ignore it and know she won't be running off with their daughter.

It may help if you point out that her son is going to benefit from having a legal relationship with his father. Instead of thinking of it as your husband having the rights, approach it like his son is the one gaining the rights because he is, he will have the rights to social security and inheritance rights, etc. Point out all the benefits to her son if she will listen.

Good luck.. keep updating.

The lawyer did say the money he payed before would be considered a "gift". He said he definetely has a good case to fight it especially if he still has the receipts. Which we are deffinetlely looking for!! It was always her idea for him to do it that way until she was going to get married and she then went through the Child Support Enforcement Agency. My hubby has always had a wittness there, but it was her mom or dad, so good luck getting them to testify against their "absolutely perfect in everyway daughter"!! LOL CSEA even asked her if she wanted them to go after him for back support, and she said no. That was six or seven years ago. So hopefully my hubby kept those receipts!! Her ideas always seem to be bad ideas in the end!! She asked my hubby why he wanted parental rights. She said she has always allowed him to have their son whenever he wants, true for the most part. She is all about money and control. She encourages my hubby to have their son equal parts of the time, but wants the full amount of child support as if it was the standard 20/80 visitation. And she has claimed their son 7 times now for taxes and my hubby has only claimed him twice. In the past there has been nothing that he could do to stop her. But hopefully a new wind has blown. My hubby was thinking about trying to become the residential parent, but it is probably along shot. Him not having any rights before gives him no history with the courts. Pretty much whatever the mother says their going to believe the lawyer said. She's even told her lawyer that their son has not been with him equal parts of the time. And she denied that their son lived with us for nearly a year. She says they have always done the standard visitation, once a week and everyother weekend. Hopefully somebody talks to their son and gets the truth out. His son wants to live with us and has wanted to for a few years now. So my hubby is going to go the safer route and just try to get the Equal Shared Parenting. Even that's going to be difficult with her resistance. A big part to making that plan work is having two parents that cooperate. Hopefully my hubby and the lawyers can get her to relax enough to co-author a plan together. Rather than taking it to court and having the judge say what would be best. Which both my hubby and her would hate to happen. I guess persistance is the key here. She's hoping that taking his son away will change his mind and he will drop the lawyer and everything will go back to normal. But hopefully she'll realize this stuff is not going away and that she's the one that is holding it up, dragging it out and costing everyone more money in the end. And for no legitamate reason!! No one is taking her son away!!!!!! He just wants to make the way they have it set up already legal. Nothing really is going to change. Well the supprt would. But she would still get some support just not the 650 she's used too. This stuff is sooo frustrating!!! We have just got to pray that she will begin to cooperate and things will truely do a 180 and get this done and over with ASAS!

OMG, she sounds like my DH's ex. lol

When she was first served with the papers, she tried threatening "you're going to lose." and "you're just wasting your money and they're going to order lots of child support, why don't you just give up and keep it the way it is?", then she tried crying "how can you try to take my baby away from me?", then she tried convincing their daughter to say she wanted to live with her. She even took her to the counselor to say it, but the counselor knew right away she was being coached. He didn't give up and when they went to court, he was ordered to pay child support but they kept the 50/50 arrangement. (I think it's stupid to pay support if you have equal time, but that's just me..... If you have equal time, you are both maintaining a home for the child, both feeding them the same number of meals, both caring for them the same, etc. what need is there for additional support? I think it's common sense, but that doesn't matter really)

Anyways, she fought tooth & nail until the court trial (yes, it even went to trial) and the court ended up adopting the mediator's recommendation of keeping it 50/50. Three weeks later, she met a new guy & moved away. She signed over physical custody to us and we were dumbfounded. We spent over 13K on legal fees last year and she just walked away, just like that.

In your case, it will probably go against her more than you think if she's trying to withhold visitation to control your hubby. Make sure your attorney is a family law specialist or does a lot of family law. I've had a wonderful attorney but I've also had a terrible one too... the terrible ones can cost so much more when you lose because of their stupidity.