How to Terminate Financial Obligation Per Mother's Request

My question involves child support in the State of: TN

My pregnant ex-girlfriend adamantly claims she wants me to sign away my rights to the baby when she's born, including telling me I would not have to pay child support (which I know is not legally enforceable without an adoptive father to take my place)

I'm not in a position to provide much financial support but have expressed how happy I am and more than willing to offer as much physical support as she will allow (including fulltime if she let me).

As part of her plan to restrict my physical support, against my wishes she moved from a place 5 minutes away to an apartment an hour and a half away, far enough away from me that I would not be able to be very physically active in the child's life, leaving financial support as my only way to support the child unless I go to the huge legal expense of fighting her for custody where I'd likely lose anyway.

If she truly wants me out of her life I could not be happier obliging because I want her out also, but I really need to find a legal way to make it impossible for her to come after me for child support later although she claims she would not do that.

The only idea I have is for us to use an attorney to file a joint parenting plan with 50/50 time "on paper" and no child support exchanged. Then if I let her deny me parenting time at least I won't be on the hook for child support. And if she decides to allow me to raise the child instead of her we can just do that.

Is there any other way to cut financial responsibility between us?

And for anybody about to flame me, remember this was HER idea.

You are just full of ideas on how to get rid of mom and NOT SUPPORT YOUR CHILD. Your obligated if you are determined to be that childs father.

You can sign any agreement with mom you want. But at any time mom can still file and get child support, it makes no difference what agreement you have. No agreement or court order is for the life of the child, they can be changed any time.

If mom is on state assistant now or in the future, MOM WILL HAVE NO SAY ABOUT YOU PAYING CHILD SUPPORT. The state will come after you. The state and the courts believe that a child has the right to be supported by both their parents, even the deadbeats like you.

I really don't care who's idea this is, you have made it clear with your many threads that your just looking for a way to get rid of your obligation to this child. That was long ago, ya know the night you opened up your pants and got mom pregnant. That was the night you had a choice in supporting a child or not, keep it zipped or put a hat on it, that's the only way out of supporting a child.

Well I know a lot of you folks believe the best way a male can support his child is with cold hard cash for the mother to supplement her lifestyle, not like his physical involvement is important. I also know there are a lot of preconceived notions due to the common belief that a male whose not with the mother obviously deserves 100% of the blame for getting her pregnant, and probably the demise of the relationship. But none of that is the case here.

Simple question is: How can a man respond to a woman who demonstrates she is capable of limiting his physical involvement with the child, to the point that she moves unnecessarily far away on purpose and "appears" willing to cut his financial ties as well.

Should she decide she wants support from me, I am more than willing to take complete or shared custody of the child (as well as share expenses without paying a flat fee based on income). I think you missed that part.

Why do you claim you want to support the child so much, however want to not pay for supporting the child?

The bottom line is you chose to make a baby with the woman, whack job or not. Now you will likely have an obligation to support the child for 18 years. Whether it is financially or financially and emotionally, you have the obligation.

If you want to be part of your child's life, then step up to the plate and provide ALL that the child deserves... including financial support. Get a visitation schedule set up, request for joint custody. Your ex cannot limit your physcial involvement if you have a visitation schedule in place ordered by a Judge. Oh.. she can, a few times maybe... but then she could be held in contempt.
"Should she decide she wants support from me, I am more than willing to take complete or shared custody of the child (as well as share expenses without paying a flat fee based on income)." You basically are saying that you want no part of the child's life UNLESS you have to help financially. Or am I missing something here?

LMAO!! Oh brother, first thing first, get a DNA test and make sure its yours!!

I don't care what your willing to do and neither does the court.

If you and mom can't come to an agreement, then the court will decide. They don't care what you want, specially when you make it so clear, that you don't want to pay and you only want full custody or 50/50 so you don't have to pay child support. They are not going to give you 50/50 when you and the other parent can't get along and co-parent. So one of you is going to get sole physical, with most likely joint legal(but keep up this crap and that may go to someone getting sole legal), and someone is getting a standard parenting plan.

How can you respond? By growing up, stop playing games and putting your big boy panties on. You file to establish your rights, custody, parenting time and child support. You will pay child support based on TN guidelines, if that is a flat fee based on income, then that is what you will pay.

That's the way it is, your in a split situation, either work this out with mom or the court gets to decide who gets what. The burden is on you to prove that the best interest of the child is to be with you full time. 50/50 is unlikely to happen unless you and mom can get along and agree to it, specially with a child this young.

Leave out your BS of what people believe, it takes 2 to get pregnant, it takes only 1 to prevent that pregnancy. That 1 could be the female or the male, when either of them fail to do that, then in my book they are both equally responsible. So in your case I believe you and mom are to blame for her being pregnant, and I don't give a crap why it didn't work out or who's fault that is. You made a baby, ya both need to grow on up and do what is best to promote a healthy co-parenting relationship for this child. This is also how a court most often sees it.

Look up child support in TN(I personally don't know it and I'm not about to look it up for you), but in many states even 50/50 custody does not mean zero child support.

You can't have your cake and eat it to. You cannot be an active part in this child’s life AND not pay the mother support. Unless you get 100% custody yourself. At any point in the child’s life she can come after child support from you. Unless there is a legal father for the child that isn’t you. By legal I mean someone that acknowledges paternity at birth, adopts the child, or DNA is done and proves the child isn’t yours.

If she is the CP and you want to be an active role. You will have to go to court ESTABLISH paternity, get court ordered visitation and go from there. This also means paying child support. You want to participate in the act that makes the child. BUT you don't want to participate in the upbringing of this child. YES upbringing includes feeding, clothing, sheltering, and educating this child. ALL of these things require cold hard cash as you so eloquently put it.

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Quoting Chede

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Or am I missing something here?

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She is in financial ruins due to her own actions and she ignored all my help to try to get her on her feet, she blows all her money so I don't want any ties to her financial world. I would rather ALL the baby's bills come to me so that I can pay only the babys bills and won't have to pay the mother money that will go to her lavish lifestyle and expensive car she is always about to have repossessed. There are women who take advantage of child support to not work and supplement their lifestyle, and this one is the worst offender.

My insistance at being actively involved with the child led her to propose me signing away all responsibility.

I just want an agreement in place with her that will keep her from requesting "back child support" while she is keeping me from seeing the child at all (as she claims she will do). I understand going to court right after the baby is born would get me a very tiny bit of visitation (probably no overnights) requiring hours of my driving there, with a huge child support order for me without me able to compete with her breast feeding & all that but if I wait till the breast feeding is over (assuming she doesnt chase me for support first) I can fight for sole custody if she won't agree to joint.

I wanted to be active in the childs life with or without her but she is fighting that. Does any of this make sense?

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I really need to find a legal way to make it impossible for her to come after me for child support later

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There isn't one. No, seriously, there isn't one. One way or another, you're going to end up paying child support, and trying to dodge it will only make things harder for you.

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I wanted to be active in the childs life with or without her but she is fighting that.

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Fight back. The law is actually on your side. Well, it's on kiddo's side - all children have the absolute RIGHT to be supported by BOTH parents, even if the parents hate each other.

Go to court and establish paternity via DNA testing. Once you've done that, voluntarily work with your local DHS office to set up child support. (Calculators and worksheets are here.) Then go to court and petition for custody/visitation. I don't see 50/50 physical custody happening just yet, but joint legal certainly, with her having primary physical custody and you having generous visitation. As for breastfeeding, it's not a factor. The courts will tell her to learn to pump, or start supplementing with formula. The longer you wait to pursue custody and visitation orders, the less visitation you'll get. Mom will have the status quo on her side, and there's no way you'll be able to show that it's in the best interests of the child to upend the status quo. Be proactive, not reactive.

Also, wow, I'm always amused by people who consider an hour and a half drive to be next to impossible. Here in the Midwest, it's not at all unusual to drive that far - or further! - to and from work daily. We drive up to 2 hours each way for Wine Trail events a couple times a week, no sweat, and my husband used to drive up to 2.5 hours each way 5 days a week when he was running a District for his company.

If you're serious about being involved in kiddo's life, an hour and a half each way a couple times a week (or, realistically, every other weekend to start) should be one great big shrug, just something you do. Sell whatever honking gas guzzler you've got, buy a used hybrid (our used Prius gets 48 miles to the gallon, baby!), learn to love audio books or creating your own music playlists so you're not stuck with whatever gawdawful crap is on the radio, and get used to driving a little bit. Eventually, you'll come to love those drives, as kiddo tells you all about everything s/he's been up to all week.