Legal Question in Family Law in Florida

I am a single mother of a child with autism and ADHD that lives in Florida. His father and I were never married and do not have a court order for visitation or custody. My issue is this, for the last four years which is how old our child is, I have tried to do everything in my power to have him involved in our son's life. I have literally tried it all. He has given excuse after excuse as to why he can't see him, has stood him up several times, would go several months without no contact and when he did want to see him it would be for two hours or three where he wouldn't even pay attention to him. Last time he saw him was almost two years ago. Last year he picked up and moved to Nevada and did not tell me until two days before the actual move. He refuses to have any contact with me, has never called our son, yet claims I am refusing to let him see our son to other people just because I have said he couldn't on two occasions because he did not give any notice but I gave him alternate times or dates that were within a resonable time and never heard back from him. Now, I have tried to be civil, his girlfriend contacts me claiming that he misses his son etc, even though he never calls. I have no information on the girlfriend but I am civil just to keep the lines of communication open. She requested to have a skype session after 4 months when I suggested that he was more than welcome to four months ago. He was not aware that she was requesting it. We agreed on a time and date a week in advanced. I prepped everything, I prepped my son since he has special needs and he needed to understand what was going to happen and he was very excited. Well my son waited for 5 hours for his father to call. The excuse was that they couldn't get skype to work on their new lap top and I had already told them four hours earlier he was very anxious, upset, and acting out and told them to please use his phone for the skype or to call. That we could re-schedule for the next day but that he at least needed a call because he doesn't understand what is going on. The girlfriend agreed since the ex refuses to have any contact with me. After six hours of waiting, and him leaving to run errands and leaving our son waiting for a call he wasn't going to make, I made a statement saying that if he is unable to be consistent and reliable when it came to our son that he will need a court order to see him because I am exhausted of trying and wasting time trying to get this man involved in his life. I told him he was more than welcome to call but that I was not going to tell our son when he was going to because I was not going to have him waiting and then be disappointed. He took this as me threatening him with lawyers and flat out refused to contact our son. I know the right thing to do is to not withhold our son from him which I haven't even though he takes it that way because he needs an excuse to make me look like I am the bad guy and the reason why he refuses to see our child. But what am I supposed to do if he is so unreliable and can't keep his word? I am supposed to petition for visitation or custody on his behalf even though in the state of florida I am the custodian. He is the one that needs to do it, to show he is serious about seeing and having our child in his life. So in the mean time what do I do? Our son needs structure and stability, not only a neuorotypical child needs that but specially a child with Autism. Do I just keep wasting my time and my son's time everytime this man decides he wants to play daddy? If I don't leave our schedules open than he can claim I am refusing to let him see his child.

1 Answer from Attorneys

Related Questions & Answers

More Family Law, Divorce, Child Custody and Adoption questions and answers in Florida

Looking for something else?