Oklahoma man forced to pay child support cheating wife’s baby: Should culpability be based on DNA or time limits? An ex husband challenges paternity laws.
Disconcert has come to the fore after Oklahoma ordered a former husband to pay child support for the child of his former wife and her lover.
The mandate comes after Thomas failed to ask for a paternity test within the stipulated time of two years after the child’s birth.
At the time of the wife’s pregnancy, unbeknownst to Thomas the child had been conceived with the woman’s lover. It wasn’t until after much later after the child was born did Thomas find out that the child wasn’t biologically his.
In an interview with News On 6 the man told he had no reason to suspect his wife, whom he married out of high school was cheating.
With his then girlfriend getting pregnant while still at high school, Thomas and the woman wed.
It wasn’t until after Thomas’ marriage fell apart that the Oklahoma man asked for a paternity test.
At the time, the child was three years old.
According to Thomas, at the time of the marriage breakdown, ‘something’ led to the man asking for a paternity test.
He took the test twice, with each test showing that he wasn’t the father. But it did not matter because in Oklahoma a man has to question paternity within two years. Legally, the non-biological child he was raising was his.
Told Thomas: ‘I wish I was telling a lie. I wish it wasn’t the truth but it is.’
‘That’s what makes it so crazy. Everyone I talk to about this can’t believe where the court system is coming from.’
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Of note, News On 6 reports a judge initially ruled in favor of Thomas. But after revisiting the law, the judge ordered the man to pay $500 per month in child support plus $15,000 in back support plus interest.
Responding to the decision, Thomas told the court he had no reason to suspect that his child may have never been his in the first place.
Which also raises the awkward question, how did Thomas come to suspect the child may not have been his at the time of the marriage breakdown and not before? Or was the man willing to accept the boy who had only known Thomas as his father as his own?
Forced to accept his fate, Thomas is pushing to change the law, arguing that DNA should be a determining factor for whether or not a man must pay child support rather than the child’s age.
Reiterated the duped dad: ‘At this point, there’s really nothing I can do to get out of the $15,000 or get out of the child support, it’s done, it’s the law.’
According to the Oklahoma law, the child’s mother and biological father could decide to let Thomas off the hook. But without their approval Thomas will be liable for child support for the next 15 years.
At present it isn’t clear whether Thomas’ wife or her ex lover have decided to accept the responsibilities of rearing their child, instead passing the buck to Thomas.
