Well, no email from BM today (usually it is literally almost an every day back-and-forth battle between DH and BM) yet, so if she is ready to talk about this signing over of hubby's rights remains to be seen. I can't help but feel not only that this is just a game and she's not serious....I feel like she is trying to bait us and/or set something up.
The biggest thing that stands in the way right now is that there's a warrant on DH. They've both been threatening each other over the courts, saying they want to go back and get things "straightened out". So we're afraid that once DH goes to the court, even if she promises that it's just to sign over the rights and drop the case, we're still very afraid that they will still arrest DH. Or that she will want him to give up complete custody, but she will still want support and arrears to be paid, or the state will require us to.

I am not EVEN ready to get my hopes up about this...but for the sake of playing it out, say she really is serious and will go to court to get the rights signed over. What will happen? Does anyone have experience with this, or know someone who has signed over their rights and had a SF adopt the child? Some people have told us that once all the legal rights are signed over then paying the support money/arrears isn't an issue anymore....is that true? Or can she still have a way where she will still get money? If she's doing this just to get DH "off her back" over custody/legal/ and emotional issues, but still wants the money....we don't want to do that obviously. If she tries to pull anything, can we use the emails where she says to sign the rights over as any kind of proof?

I am just so confused over everything right now......DH and I do feel bad about SS, that we can't have a closer relationship with him and that him and his half-siblings (our kids, not his other half-siblings) don't spend much time together. But we're also weary of dealing with custody "attorneys" who don't help, BM constantly does whatever she wants custody-wise against the order, but DH gets in trouble with the law or in prison, and the constant fighting and crap she sends to us everyday~ it is not healthy for us or the kids. Even SS, though she'll never admit that. If support/warrants and so on cease to be an issue, then that means we can go back to some semblance of a regular life again. We won't have to worry about license suspensions and income tax intercepts and all of that *fun* stuff. If we need or want to get something for our children then we can get it again...his income won't be treated as candy from a pinata with BM trying to grab as much as she can out of it.

That's a related but different issue....it was brought up why she has done all this if she doesn't treat DH as his father. The reason it's obvious that it's about the money is that DH tried to work out an amount he would provide even before she filed with DRS. This was in 2002, right after she told us that the first guy she tested and had insisted WAS the father, wasn't. She said she "didn't know what to do". For most of the next year, she kept to herself and only communicated through emails. She didn't give us her new phone number or email at first, and moved. Even when we found out where she was later on, she wouldn't reply to anything or return messages. Then she told us in late 2003 that she was filing, but she said it was because she "couldn't trust" that DH would pay anything. How could he??? Were we just going to send money in the mail w/o knowing if she even got it?

So anyway, sure enough she filed. And my husband would send partial payments. DRS told him that if they could come to a mutual agreement, they would also accept that, and he tried talking to her about it. Even her 2nd husband has an arrangement like that with his ex for BM's SS. She said sure, start buying him stuff. So we did, a few times, and she signed the receipts. Then DRS told them that they just needed them to be notarized in order for them to count towards support. The next time she saw DH, when he went to pick up SS for visitation, she told him "I'm not going to the notary. NO. I don't have to do anything, just pay support as it's ordered". So there went over $100, because it didn't get taken off support or arrears. Now she also tells my husband to buy things for SS AND continue to pay same amount of support...and she gives us such grief when we say No, that's what support is supposed to be for. She says "why should what you buy count towards support"? Well isn't the *true* purpose of support to help take care of the child? So basically, she's just concerned with the money she can get. If her husband really wants to adopt him, and really cares about SS, it's not at all what we planned for but maybe it will be a good thing for all of us involved? We shall see how things turn out