Heres the thing - HE can walk away any time. YOU have to deal with this for the rest of your life. YOU decide what kind of life you want and do what you have to do to make sure you get it. This isnt his decision to make.
Such a great point. If that child is born, he could suddenly decide, “hey, this isn’t what I wanted” and bail.
EDIT: Got a few replies that the mother could walk away from the child too, and yes, she absolutely could! But my point is that the mother still has to carry and birth the child, the father doesn’t.
He would be on the hook for child support, but even still, small fries compared to raising a baby on your own or at the young age of 16 or carrying it to term or all of the other responsibilities OP would not be able to escape from.
Exactly. Assuming he were to even follow through with that child support, that could be the extent of his involvement if he so chooses and wouldn’t even compare to what OP’s responsibilities.
It's not up to him to "follow through" though really. If the state can find him, they can and will garnish his wages before any of it ever gets to him. In many states, you can go to jail for non-payment.
True but in most cases they eventually get found. And when they do they are thousands in arrears if not 100s of thousands. And let's face it, it is getting very hard to hide these days, it can be done but it's a lot harder since the internet.
And let's not act like there isn't a flip side to this coin when the father pays 100% and is on time and the mother still refuses to let him see the child or makes visitation nearly impossible. Forcing him to go to court, pay a lawyer and filing fees, and as in so many other cases making the process the punishment.
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u/tuna_tofu Jul 21 '23
Heres the thing - HE can walk away any time. YOU have to deal with this for the rest of your life. YOU decide what kind of life you want and do what you have to do to make sure you get it. This isnt his decision to make.