Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lamplighter
It's hard to accept, but there are men who decide:
"It's not my child so I'm not going to support it."
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This may be an emotional problem, but it is not a legal problem for the most part. In most states, the law is that once your name is on the birth certificate, you are the father forever for all legal/support/custodial purposes. There have even been cases where the husband and wife knew before the child was born that it wasn't his, and he didn't sign the birth certificate, but the other guy didn't either, and when they later got divorced the court ruled that the husband was still liable for support because they were married and living together at the time of the birth and he "presented" as the father. (The flip side is the ex-wife also had to give him visitation rights.)
Anyway, you're right, it can be awkward news. Mr. Clod and I even discussed the possibility with regard to my stepkids, because you never know. While it wouldn't make any difference to Mr. Clod at this point, I think it would seriously mess up either of my stepkids to find out he wasn't really their dad, so we agreed that on the very slim chance that we did find out something like that, we just wouldn't tell them. They know we did the test and are interested in the medical results, but I have the password to the account and they'll only see the pages we want them to see.