Getting a divorce while pregnant by someone else could exhaust you financially and emotionally. You could also face charges of adultery in this situation.
Read this complete guide to have the correct understanding of the process and experiences you will face in this endeavor.
Can You Get a Divorce While Pregnant by Someone Else?
Yes, but negotiations over a settlement may be affected if you become pregnant by someone else. If your spouse finds out you are seeing someone else, he might not react well. This could make your decisions challenging, especially if you and your partner have been attempting to reach an agreement.
– Filing for a Divorce While Pregnant by Someone Else
In family law issues, it occurs frequently that a woman gets pregnant while still married. The child’s biological father is assumed to be the husband by law. It makes divorce more difficult.
Most courts will halt the divorce process, order a guardian ad litem to be established for the child, and order DNA testing for all three if either the mother or her husband raises the concern with the trial court that the husband may not be the father.
Some courts even go so far as to require that the mother initiate a paternity action and obtain an adjudication of the father’s identity before the divorce may be finalized.
In some states, a divorce won’t be complete until the baby is born and another 60 days have elapsed, regardless of whether a woman is pregnant by another man while going through a divorce or pregnant with her husband’s child.
It could take longer if you and your spouse cannot agree on all aspects of the divorce since that is the fastest scenario.
Because it can take months to reach an agreement, it’s better to start the divorce procedure quickly if you want it to be finalized just after the baby is born. This is especially crucial if you are married but carrying another man’s child.
– Effects of Adultery on Divorce
It is adultery to have a close relationship with someone other than your spouse while being married. It gets worse if you are pregnant with another man’s child. Additionally, your husband may add adultery as another reason to the original divorce file, which can complicate things and drag out the divorce process.
The final divorce decree will state if adultery was a factor in the decision to divorce a wife. If infidelity is discovered in the divorce case, the court will typically not order long-term alimony.
In most cases, adultery has no bearing on the court’s decision regarding custody and maintenance. Instead, while making any such decision, the court will take the child’s best interests into account.
However, depending on the situation and whether a husband can prove that his wife is expecting someone else’s child, the court might not order child support.
– Establishing Paternity for a Child
When your husband is not the biological father of your child, there are two ways for you to prove his paternity, which are mentioned below:
Denial of Paternity and Voluntary Acknowledgement
This happens when you and the father of the child agree to sign an Acknowledgement of Paternity (AOP) establishing that the man in question is the child’s biological father. Your husband would also have to affirm on a denial of paternity form that he is not the child’s biological father. Together, these two kinds function well.
Your child’s biological father would become their legal father once both the admission of paternity and denial of paternity are completed and submitted to the court. In other words, he would be granted all of the parental and conservatorship responsibilities.
In some states, your husband’s parental rights and obligations would terminate. If you become pregnant while you are married, your husband is presumed to be the child’s father by law.
Court Order
To request a paternity order, you, your spouse, and the biological father of your child can file a paternity case. The court presiding over your case could impose a genetic testing.
The biological father of your child becomes the child’s legal father and inherits all of the child’s rights and obligations as soon as the judge signs the paternity order, sometimes referred to as an Order Adjudicating Parentage. The same goes for your husband’s parental rights and obligations.
In the same vein, you can find out if you are a child’s biological father through a DNA test. The mother of your child might acknowledge your paternity, while her husband might deny paternity or otherwise take part in a paternity lawsuit.
However, having a skilled family law attorney by your side can be helpful when it comes to ensuring that you could play a role in your child’s life.
– Impact on Child Custody and Support-Related Issues
The courts will need the couple to appear once the child is born, but a divorce during pregnancy can still be legally finalized. This is so that non-existent expenses cannot be covered by the initial divorce settlement and the courts cannot determine maintenance or visitation until the baby is delivered safely.
Child Custody
Just because you are pregnant by someone else, you won’t lose custody. The courts usually avoid getting involved when they don’t have to interfere because this is seen as a common occurrence.
You shouldn’t be concerned that having a child with someone you’re dating will instantly affect your custody situation. As mentioned above, the judge will only look after the interest of the child when deciding on custody and support issues.
Child Support
Since it is challenging to prove paternity for an unborn child, the court is unlikely to grant child support. However, child support may be paid if the father admits that he is the child’s biological father.
To help you receive the child support — and even medical support — you require for the benefit of both you and your kid, it can be helpful to seek the counsel of an experienced divorce attorney.
Alimony
Adultery may prevent you from collecting alimony and impact how your assets are divided, depending on the divorce laws in your state. You can lose more than you anticipated if your husband uses your pregnancy as leverage to achieve what he wants. Some provincial rules state that alimony ceases the moment you start living with someone else.
– Proving That Your Wife Is Pregnant With Someone Else’s Child
In order to prove adultery, you must present strong, convincing proof. However, you can prove that actual intercourse took place by using circumstantial evidence such as emails, texts, or other forms of direct interaction.
Additionally, your spouse is protected by the privilege against self-incrimination, so any admissions they make to you will not be admissible in court. The testimony of a third party may be used as evidence as long as they did not only learn about the physical encounter through the spouse’s confession to them. This means that for the information to qualify as proof of adultery, it has to be independently gathered.
FAQs
– Do I Need a Lawyer During Divorce Proceedings?
You are not required to work with a lawyer, although it is highly advised in all court cases involving minors. Consider hiring a lawyer now if you aren’t already doing so for your divorce.
If you do not hire a lawyer, you might be able to acquire legal advice and assistance filling out paperwork at a local clinic, from a lawyer, a legal technician who offers restricted services, or from a community clinic.
Your county prosecutor’s office Family Support Division may be able to assist you if you want to submit a Petition to Decide Parentage that will be independent of your divorce.
– Will the Person Other Than the Spouse Be the Child’s Legal Parent?
Not necessarily; the husband and wife may contend that establishing paternity is not in the child’s best interests, despite the fact that a third party who thinks they may be the father may bring a paternity action while the woman is married.
The other person might think that he will automatically be considered the parent of the child that is born, but this will not be the case if the judge decides so.
The court must dismiss the case and disregard ordering DNA testing if it is determined that establishing paternity is not in the best interests of the child under these circumstances. That would make it impossible for the third party to prove that he is the biological father of a child born to a woman who was married at the time.
Conclusion
In conclusion, getting a divorce while pregnant by someone else is possible, but it could drag on for a longer period of time than a normal divorce proceeding. Although a divorce can be started while a woman is pregnant, it cannot be finalized until the child is born.
- Even if the spouse is not the child’s biological parent, the law presumes that they will be the child’s legal parent.
- The final divorce decree will state if adultery was a factor to divorce your wife. If you commit adultery, the court cannot order you to pay alimony in perpetuity.
- Orders for custody and child support must be included in the final divorce decision if your husband is the child’s biological father. These orders cannot be included until your child is born.
- To obtain a court order proving the paternity of a child, you must file a paternity lawsuit. A paternity case may be started by the spouse, the child’s mother, the child’s genetic father, or another authorized individual.
- Pregnancy during a divorce complicates several matters and may impair your ability to obtain a divorce. Make sure to speak with your divorce lawyer about it.
Though getting divorced while pregnant by someone else complicates the process, we hope after reading this article you may have a good understanding of the process and the issues involved in it. Thus, it would be best to take legal action accordingly.
- Divorce After Citizenship: How Does It Affect the Status? - March 20, 2023
- Date of Separation: What Does It Mean in Divorce Cases? - March 19, 2023
- Divorce Discovery: Getting the Information You Need - March 18, 2023