This question is for my significant other. We have been together for 5 years. He has 2 children from a previous relationship that he pays child support for and we get every other weekend. He had a child very young (he was 16, she was 16.) They were together for the first year of the baby's life. Their relationship did not work out, they broke up, and she did not file for child support. about 3 months later, he is told that the girl has taken the baby and moved to OK (we are in TX) with his step-grandfather. My boyfriend was distraught and lost for a couple of years after that. She sent one letter letting him know that they will have nothing to do with him or his family in TX and that she wants nothing. He didn't know where she was, a phone number, or anything. Since he was very young, it hurt him so much that he quit trying to find her.

Here it is, almost 15 years later, thanks to facebook, he has found her. The few messages they have had left him feeling like she is bitter at him for not being there, and that the mother isn't doing that well financially. As much as he wants to be in her life, as he always has, the child support scares him.

Could the mother come after him for retroactive child support? He is on the birth certificate, but she has kept his daughter away from him for all of these years. If there is back child support, can they get him for all 15 years??

Thanks

Mom isn't going to get awarded child support spanning back over a decade. She can ask for it, just like she can ask for the moon and the starts, but no court is going to award 13 years of retroactive support when mom up and took the child out of state and disappeared for most of the child's life. The court may question throwing in the towel on looking for the child, but although the judge may have some unpleasant commentary on that, it's not likely to impact any request for support from mom.

She'd be able to collect child support that would be retroactive to the date that she files for it. So if she files for support next month, in Feb, and the court actually finishes the case and orders support in, say, August, he'd only POTENTIALLY be on the hook for support since February.

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I agree with aardvarc on this. Have you browsed through the information in LawInfo's Free Legal Resource Center to learn more about your issue yet? See: http://www.lawinfo.com/consumer.html and http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/index.html. You can certainly try to speak to a lawyer to determine what legal options may be available. In the meantime, you may be able to learn more on your own. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.