Q: Do either of these men have legal rights to my son and, if so, which one?
- I live in Florida and my son is 10.
- I got pregnant from an affair while I was married but, since I had left my husband & stopped communicating with him 9 years prior, I did not tell him about either.
- I left my son's biological father while I was 7 months pregnant and divorced my husband 8 months after he was born.
- During the time we were apart, the biological father had his son's phone number & mailing address, but only made 2 attempts to contact him within a 3 month period about 5 or 6 years ago.
- At my son's request, I took him to meet his father in June 2015 & the father followed us home and has been a more active part of my son's life for about 10 months.
- No father is named on my son's birth certificate.
A:
If by "legal rights", you mean the right to have visitation with the son, no: neither does.
However either could sue you to get such rights. The likelihood of either prevailing is as follows:
Your ex-husband: I am assuming that you told the divorce court that you had a child but the child is not his son. If this is the case, it would be extremely unlikely for the ex to have the divorce decree modified so as to give him any rights. If, on the other hand, the court was not made aware of the child, the ex would have a stronger case but nevertheless probably would not prevail.
The biological father: If he were to sue for custody or visitation, he would probably be given at least some sort of visitation.
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