{"id":22777,"date":"2019-04-02T12:46:42","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T16:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=22777"},"modified":"2019-04-02T12:53:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T16:53:59","slug":"fatherhood-of-a-child-born-after-divorce-in-massachusetts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/02\/fatherhood-of-a-child-born-after-divorce-in-massachusetts\/","title":{"rendered":"Fatherhood of a child born after divorce in Massachusetts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A friend’s son got a call the other day from the woman who’d divorced him a year earlier (wedding planning and uncontested divorce legal proceedings combined lasted far longer than the marriage itself). She had found a higher-income sex partner at some point during the brief marriage and it seems that she’d given birth to a child 13 months after a divorce agreement was approved by a judge (this kind of divorce-by-agreement rather than actual litigation<\/a> happens about 17 percent of time in the county that we sampled within Massachusetts (statistical study for Middlesex<\/a>)).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The divorce didn’t become final until 120 days following the approval by the judge and Massachusetts presumes that a child born within 300 days of the technical end of a marriage is the responsibility of the ex-husband. A birth certificate application with the new husband’s name on it as the father had been rejected (tough to believe that all of these town and county record-keeping systems are linked!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new mom wanted her discarded former husband to sign an Affidavit of Nonpaternity<\/a>. The situation turns out to be sufficiently common that there is a standard form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(It wouldn’t have made great financial sense for her to try to collect 23 years of child support from this guy given his low-ish income and the fact that a DNA test might get him off the hook, but marrying the lover\/biological father and collecting from the ex-husband can work; see “Post-Divorce Litigation”<\/a> for a link to a NY Times article about an example situation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI pay child support to a biologically intact family,\u201d Mike told me, his voice cracking with incredulity. \u201cA father and mother, married, who live with their own child. And I pay support for that child. How ridiculous is that?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related:<\/p>\n\n\n\n