since we have so many opinions on this grea board, Let me get the opinion of some of the people here. OM and his wife want me to give the baby his last name. He is very adament about this and doesnt back down. This offends my husband, because He gave baby his name, when she was born and he has taken care of most needs emotional and financial up untill the last few months.
Now D has siblings and they all share last name, I dont want to take that from her. I fear it will confuse her more. OM says she needs to have his name, that my last name is my husbands and he doesnt want her to have it, period, no way no how. He has alot of anger for husband.
so while I spend many hours trying to appease every one, this is one question I dont have a clue how to handle.

Is the OM paying CS> How old is your daughter? How old are her siblings? I personally think that her having different names than your other children, with your H her primary parents,and father, could damage your child and hurt your other kids. Just my opinion.Still, as long as the OM has visitation rights,and is paying CS, he may go to court to fight this. Has paternity been established in a court? If so, he may be able to force you to do it.

mom of five,
In most states, the law states, if the father is paying CS then it is right to have the child to have his last name. He can go to court and fight you on this if he wishes. Did your H sign the birth certificate? Whoose name is on the BC? In most states, the law states that your H is the father and you would have to go to court to get his name off the BC.<p>Dawn<p>[ April 20, 2002: Message edited by: Dawn71 ]</p>

Mo5,<p>Although our situations are entirely different, I am under the understanding that unless MM files in court to establish paternity and files in court for a name change, the child is assumed your H's for the time being (unless I'm wrong...)<p>I feel that in your case, the child would be better off with your and your H's name as this is what she was given at birth. That's just my two cents. I hope your situation gets resolved peacefully.<p>Hugs,
Twiisty

Well he is paying cs now, but it has not been established legally, he and i did paternity testing on our own decided amount on our own, and husbands name is on ertifiacate for now, so legally he is the father. for now, but we will be changing that soon. my concern is not what is right for me or him it is what would be right for child.
siblings range from teen to preeteen.
My husband stepped forward because OM did not come forward in the begining to put his name even though asked, he came later anting it changed.
No he would not take me to court for it, because he wants this to be friendly and refuses to let turmoil enter D's life. I feel like I am hurting my husband and the other children by this. H feels if he needs to have his name he sould have stepped to the plate when asked.

Mof5,<p>You are attempting to please everyone. You can't. You have to chose. Will you chose the feelings of the man you took marriage vows with and your children, or will you put XOM ahead of them all? <p>You should check with a lawyer, but if your OC was over 2 when the DNA was done, I think your H is still legally liable for this child, regardless of the DNA.<p>One "cause" of affairs is that a person is a conflict-avoider (see www.affairs-help.com for types of affairs). The affair becomes a passive-aggressive way of getting back at the spouse you're unhappy with (not surprising you did it if your H is a serial adulterer!). After my H and I could agree that conflict-avoiding is an issue for both of us, we could bring it out in the open and work on it. Perhaps you could consider the same.<p>Good luck,
J
in recovery 3.5 years and happy [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

My husband is legally responsible, untill the three of us take care of some paper work, which my husband wants done. we have al3ready checked all this.
and yes i know someone will get hurt , with me trying to please everyone, But its my daughter I dont want to be hurt. we will have to all sit and make sure we have chosen the right thing.

jenny,
you may be right, I hadnt thought of this before. I did read about it, but didnt see it the same way, thanks for all the input.

Hey Mo5,
Our oc has ow/H last name. Our lawyer had her sign an agreement stating that during cs negotiations.
It would be better for her and her other 3 kids to have same name. And her H... if they ever resume being married and living together.<p>Lawyer said in the best interest of oc it would be better to share the name of live-in siblings.<p>Also in best interest of ow's marriage.<p>Said judge would agree probably 99%.<p>Debi

thank you gem.. I personally agree with you that it would be best. Now to convince them of this.

pops and i decided it would be best for grace to have the same last name as pops and me and her siblings, we felt it would be less confusing for her as she grew up and it wouldnt seperate her from us. i think even if i was a single mom i would have her take my last name. you could always choose a hyphenated name-- om's first than yours--just to make the om content if that would make you feel better. i just think that as long as you are married it really is yours and your husbands decision. graces birth certificate was left blank when it came to info about bio dad, i didnt want to lie on it (cause it could be difficult to change later on if i wanted)plus at the time it was (and still is) very hurtful to pops--i felt he did not want me to fill it in, i felt at the time this was best for all.
so i do not know what will happen in the future if om tries to come into her life--what his legal rights are if any, hopefully we will not have any problems (i know this is just wishful thinking) only time will tell,
fh

It grieves me to hear how OM is adamant about the OC having his name. He is obviously only thinking of himself and how he feels and not considering the ramifications to your child. It seems to be all about him instead of the child.<p>It's going to make you crazy trying to please everyone. Someone is going to have heartburn over this regardless. IMO, the ONLY thing you need to consider is what is best for your child and just keep repeating that to the OM over and over again until it penetrates.<p>Good luck<p>Catnip =^^=

Mo5,
XOM wanted D to have his last name very badly in my situation also. When I explained my reasons for not wanting to do that(all the same reasons everyone is giving here) he saw that it was in her best interest to keep my last name and dropped it. I hope xOM in your situation can put your D first on this one.

this man is a little more stubborn than most, and sees it as an insult to not have his fine name. he doesnt listen to reason when it comes to this name thing. I may have to throw a fit over it, which i hate to do. she has had my name for almost two years. He says he doesnt understand why i didnt name her his name to start with. well my guess is when i caled from the hospital, he said no he couldnt do it. duh

mo5,,,,, after reading this thread and the responses including fh's response we went out to diner last night just the 3 of us. older kids stayed home. i felt their was something i had to let her know. the fact is that one of fh's ideas was her maiden last name - om last name - my last name along with just her maiden name, om's name or my last name. she asked me several times which way i thought best. i knew in my heart that his name anywhere on that little girl would have been the final straw for me. i did not mention that to her though. instead i simply discussed all the pros and cons of each name. the hers - om's - mine was very simple, to me it placed the om directly between her and myself. i did not like it at all. all i told her was that i had no say in the matter and it is her choice. i placed my faith in her to listen to our conversations and make the right choice which she did. this was one of the first real signs to me that she was not only over her emotional attachment to him but was placing my feelings higher on her list of priorities. whether that was true or not it was how i viewed it. <p> now onto your delema about your child's last name. i don't know (and i am no attorney) of any law or legal reason that requires a child to have the bio fathers last name. i am under the impression that it is the mothers right to name HER child as she pleases. if this was not so all sperm banks would be filed alphabetically so as to make sure all children get their proper last name. i don't see how om's have any rights or say so in the last name matter unless mother chooses to give him a voice, period. mo5 make your decision, explain to om if needed and forget it. <p> this is also my opinion on the idea that om has rights as to decisions regarding the child. grace is living in my house and fh and me will choose her education, religion, etc.. he has the right to pay his child support, 1/2 her health care and 1/2 of her child care, again period. he also has the right to take his visitation as set up by the courts IF he so chooses. and that all. as far as interacting with him that will be at a minimum. when grace is with him i will never be able to enforce a feeding schedule or nap time so those are his decisions. if he does not keep her clean (diaper wise and other) those are health issues and will be handled through the legal system in ways that may cost him his visitation rights if he fails in this manor. i am not a very forgiving person in these types of situations. he and i will never sit down for a beer. i know many of you have discussed the blaming of the op matter but in my case and in imho this guy is a scum bag. he knew that fh and me were having troubles and he knew that i was trying to work on my marriage and he still persued my wife. so i completely understand catnips feelings on these people. and this is in NO WAY removing any fault from fh. again imho if a person sees anothers married partner stuggling in his/her relationship then if that 1st person had any character, virtue or morality and they called themself a friend to the one struggling they would encourage them to seek help to either rebuild or end if the case may be that relationship. NOT try to be compassionate any jump down their pants. this is my opinion in cases such as my own.<p> sorry i went off in a tangent. anyway my point is mo5 that the last name of your child is exactly that, YOURS.<p> good luck with this,
pops

POPS,
THANKS for your response, I do see how hurtful this can be, In the state I live in it will be up to the judge if we cant agree among ourselves.
My husband says it is my choice as you, but I bet he feels the same way. He is not the kind of person that shares anything, so I mostly guess when somethng is wrong.
I was just curious how others had handled this, seems we have done everything differently.
I look at my husband playing dolls on the floor with her at this very moment, and how can I let someone take his name from her, she deserves it.

Thought I'd drop in again...Mo5,
Yes he does deserve that. It's the least of your worries. Again I must say a judge is inclined to give surname of home c lives in to not make c stand apart from others in family.
Good luck and you are correct in saying you guys did things a lot different from most here [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img] .<p>Whatever makes it work.<p>love
Debi

MO5,
You are light years ahead of me but I'd like to give you my opinion anyway. Someday, maybe sooner than later, I may face this very thing.
How unfortunate for him that he didn't give her his name at birth. I believe not only would your D be best served with your H last name, but this is also best for your H. He stepped up when she was born and now that OM has change of heart, why should H's name be striped? You have said a few times that your H is her daddy. So then that says it all. I know your ex-om tries to be a good father to your D and you all seem to be doing what is best for your children. I so admire you MO5. (and everyone involved in your situation) You all are a class act.

cmiranda,
I think that as well, but will have to find away to make every one understand. Things are not perfect, I wish I had more communication with my husband and He doesnt always see a reason to be nice in this situation. So we havent reached our goal yet. But we all work on it.
H does as well, he is just not as open a person as I am. I dont see OM and His W as much of a threat all though I did at one time. So we are able to work on these goals.
But many of the problems we have in our marriage did not stem from this child. They were there already. So those things are my true goal to work on. This is an issue of concern and I didnt know there were other people dealing with this, so I Joined this board to understand how others deal with things and were we doing the right thing.
I do believe we are, but I also have learned so much from others and to accept how they may feel about these issues. As you and every one else here, I guess we all have to have a contstant state of working on our marriages. and lots of praying doesnt hurt either. I do wish you the best. I understand alot of what you are saying and why you feel this way. I have been through so many of those same emotions.