Stepchildren

Hi, my name is Clint Hastings. I’m an attorney here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and you can find me here at Dads.Law. Today, I want to talk to you about what happens to your stepchild or stepchildren during a divorce. Now, one of the more tragic things that happens in a divorce is that you may lose all rights to visitation with the stepchild.

That’s because the court does not consider stepchildren to be subject to your divorce action. In other words, the court does not have jurisdiction to order visitation or custody or anything regarding that stepchild. Now, I know a lot of dads have stepped in and become the primary dad or only dad to a lot of stepchildren. And there are ways in which dads can adopt that stepchild at some point in a marriage.

Negotiating Agreements

But if that didn’t happen, if the adoption never went through or you weren’t eligible for the adoption because the dad was still in the child’s life, then the court has no subject matter jurisdiction to decide anything. So what we do in that manner in that case is try to work something out with the other side. Hopefully, the mother will be reasonable and understand that it doesn’t just hurt the dad to cut off that contact. It also hurts the child.

So we try to emphasize that. We try to make the opposing attorney understand how important that relationship may be to the dad and the child. And hopefully, we come to some kind of agreement. However, that agreement is not going to be in a court order. It’ll just be an off the books agreement that both parties promise to abide to. And that’s the best you can do regarding a stepchild.

Guardianship in Special Cases

Now, there is one other exception in a case where a mother is unfit to be a parent and maybe that’s part of the divorce of the kids that you have together. Maybe those are the issues. Maybe there’s alcoholism, drug abuse, mental health issues. Then you could, if dad’s not in the picture, you could file for a guardianship of that stepchild, which would give you the right to take care of that child to make decisions for the child, to have the child live with you, all of those things.

However, a guardianship is temporary in nature. So it is not intended to be forever. It is intended to be just long enough. And until the mother is fit, has fixed those problems, can show the court that she’s fixed those problems, and then the child would be returned to the mother’s custody. Another thing to be aware of is in a guardianship like that, often grandparents or other relatives may step in and try to do their own guardianship of the child.

Seek Legal Guidance

All right, I hope that helps. Hopefully you can get some kind of agreement. And it also serves to say that you, you know, if you’re having a high conflict, bitter divorce, those are the cases where I see that mom cuts off contact with the stepchild. So trying to be agreeable and a workout, your divorce is always better and can help aid you keep in contact with that stepchild.

All right, if you have any more questions about this or anything else, you can contact me at Dads.Law. And I will be glad to try to respond to you.