It is not unheard of for married parents to separate without taking the necessary steps to get a divorce or obtain court orders for custody and support of their child.
In some cases, even though a couple is no longer together, both parents may remain involved in their child’s life after ending their relationship. They may spend time together with their child and one spouse may continue to contribute financially to the family despite living separately without divorcing.
In other situations, one parent may wish to escape any further interactions with an estranged spouse by simply moving out and moving on with a kid in tow. Instead of taking the steps to get a divorce and having to potentiatilly agree to shared custody, a parent at odds with their spouse may use time and distance to sever the family relationship even if means foregoing financial support – anything to avoid dealing with the other parent.
Still another possibility is one spouse leaving their spouse and child, never looking back or taking financial responsibility for their child. The parent who remains may not seek a divorce, perhaps to avoid costs or inconvenience, picking up the slack left by abandonment to raise a child on their own.
In any one of these scenarios, spouses that never dissolved their marriage through divorce, or secured orders for child support or custody, may have second thoughts.
A parent that has enjoyed an estranged spouse’s informal financial support of the family may be unpleasantly surprised when their spouse finds a new romantic interest and abruptly stops contributing financially or, in the case of custody, either starts demanding more time with a child or simply will not participate leaving one parent in a lurch if they depend on the other spouse to provide care. Without court orders, child support and custody cannot be enforced if the tide changes.
A parent that wished only to escape their spouse, not wanting to deal with the drama of divorce, or who had reservations about leaving their child in the care of their estranged spouse, may at some point regret not tying up loose ends by getting a divorce so they could really move on, or find that, years later, they need financial support for their child and have no support orders to compel their ex to contribute financially now, or to seek back support for all the years that have gone by.
As for the parent who abandons their spouse and child, never taking responsibility for the financial needs of their child, there may be a day of reckoning, particularly if a spouse and child had to lean on the state for housing, daycare or other financial support. Despite not going through the steps to obtain a divorce or establish orders of support or custody, a dead- beat parent seldom escapes the long arm of the law and may be subject to child support arrears, penalties and fines for not fulfilling their responsibilities.
There are numerous downsides of not getting a divorce after legal separation. Avoid future problems by taking the necessary steps now to secure your and your family’s financial future. When you and your spouse are estranged and there are children involved, it is important to discuss the next steps with an experienced attorney who can assist you with divorce, to include child support and custody orders to establish jurisdiction in your case and ensure that your child receives ongoing financial support and that any custody arrangement is in the child’s best interests. Contact Wisconsin family law attorney Jane Probst for help today at 414-210-3135.