Need help with parental rights problem. Very comlex!

[jatiwonyja]

So here is the situation. My girlfriend got married to a European guy in the state of North Dakota but eventually moved with him back to Europe. She had a son with him. He was very abusive and she had no real friends or family there so he had separation papers created in which she agreed to pay him for medical debts she had accrued while married to him and presumably gave him parental rights. She then she moved back to the States. Around a year after being back she got pregnant with her boyfriend at the time and had a daughter. She broke up with him and we dated and she got pregnant with another daughter. We broke up for a time while she was pregnant and she went back to the previous boyfriend whom she had had her other daughter with and he signed the birth certificate for my daughter. We are now back together and trying to straighten out the details of parental rights and such. We have talked to social services and the child support enforcement agency. Social service's lawyer says since she is technically still married the children are her husbands no matter what a paternity test might prove and they seem unwilling to spend any time investigating whether her husband has followed through with a divorce. She did get legal papers from him a few years ago but they were not in English so she could not read them and now has lost the papers. Child support agency says they will only open a case for child support payments and that would in no way affect parental rights. She desperately wants to get a divorce and get parental rights corrected for both of her daughters and receive child support from her ex-boyfriend. We are both working but have a lot of debt and not much income. We are poor and in a terribly complex situation causing the both of us a lot of mental and emotional stress. I want her ex-boyfriend off my daughters birth certificate and parental rights to her. She wants a divorce, child support for her other daughter, and a correct birth certificate for our daughter. We are so lost right now and I'm trying to reach out for any kind of help possible. I know we are going to need a lawyer to sort all of this out but we literally cannot afford one for the foreseeable future. Please please please help us.

 

[Proserpina]

You really can't afford NOT to get an attorney involved.

And really - where in Europe?

There is a reason for my question....

(And perhaps more to the point, which county in ND? I lived there for quite awhile....)

 

[jatiwonyja]

Belgium Europe. We don't know any better exactly where as he has moved around and not given his address. He is refusing to cooperate in anyway (letting her see or talk to her son or giving address, only is her friend on facebook) until she sends him money for her debt. They were married on the Ransom County courthouse. That is where the marriage certificate is from.

 

[BayState]

So here is the situation. My girlfriend got married to a European guy in the state of North Dakota but eventually moved with him back to Europe. She had a son with him. He was very abusive and she had no real friends or family there so he had separation papers created in which she agreed to pay him for medical debts she had accrued while married to him and presumably gave him parental rights. She then she moved back to the States. Around a year after being back she got pregnant with her boyfriend at the time and had a daughter. She broke up with him and we dated and she got pregnant with another daughter. We broke up for a time while she was pregnant and she went back to the previous boyfriend whom she had had her other daughter with and he signed the birth certificate for my daughter. We are now back together and trying to straighten out the details of parental rights and such. We have talked to social services and the child support enforcement agency. Social service's lawyer says since she is technically still married the children are her husbands no matter what a paternity test might prove and they seem unwilling to spend any time investigating whether her husband has followed through with a divorce. She did get legal papers from him a few years ago but they were not in English so she could not read them and now has lost the papers. Child support agency says they will only open a case for child support payments and that would in no way affect parental rights. She desperately wants to get a divorce and get parental rights corrected for both of her daughters and receive child support from her ex-boyfriend. We are both working but have a lot of debt and not much income. We are poor and in a terribly complex situation causing the both of us a lot of mental and emotional stress. I want her ex-boyfriend off my daughters birth certificate and parental rights to her. She wants a divorce, child support for her other daughter, and a correct birth certificate for our daughter. We are so lost right now and I'm trying to reach out for any kind of help possible. I know we are going to need a lawyer to sort all of this out but we literally cannot afford one for the foreseeable future. Please please please help us.

Sigh...

I will STRONGLY SUGGEST that you don;t involve yourself (emotionally or financially) in ANY of her support/custody issues EXCEPT as it applies to your (perhaps) child.