Finnish man ordered by court to pay alimony for a child resulting from his wife cheating: this week in the strange death of Europe

[Metaphor]

I'm pretty sure you didn't answer my scenarios. You may have said something like "well, that would be unfair, of course it wouldn't happen under my system because what I'm proposing is a fair system" - but that's not an answer,

I said 'a bio dad claiming fatherhood would not automatically nullify a social father's claim to fatherhood' is a rule I am proposing. It is not a claim that a bio dad would never try to claim fatherhood.

that's hand waiving in how vague it is. What's missing is a set of rules that produce the right outcome. You still owe us that.

Frankly speaking, Jokodo, I owe you shit. We both agree the Finnish law resulted in an unjust outcome, yet you haven't challenged anybody else who also does not support the outcome of the Finnish law (like laughing dog) to draft a family law act, nor have you challenged people who do support it as to why they support an unjust outcome.

I answered multiple scenarios from you and I laid out the principles of what I would consider to be central to family law legislation. But since you are so interested in my opinion on the matter, as a courtesy to you, I will give you my thoughts on your scenarios.

• John and Mary have an open marriage. That means, John knows and approves that Mary occasionally hooks up with Tom, under the strict provision they always use condoms. One day, Tom and Mary's condom breaks, which she immediately confesses to John. When later they learn Mary is pregnant all three sit down on a table. They know there is a chance that Tom is the father, but decide to just assume John is and never go through the complicated route of having a paternity test, and having John adopt the child should it be Tom's - and more than anyone else, Tom is happy about the arrangement as it gets him off the hook. Years later, Tom secretly has a paternity test done, finds that he is indeed the biological father, and decides to use that knowledge to extort money from John and Mary, knowing that going to the court he could easily undermine John's relationship with his 10-year-old daughter.

What's the problem?

What's Tom going to court for? To be identified as the bio father? I don't see a problem there. He is the bio father. Of course, in your scenario, he wants to be off the hook. So, he isn't going to do anything that puts him on the hook, is he?

Are you worried about the power Tom has over John and Mary? Why? Revealing he is the bio father isn't anything that requires a court system. He could do it over Facebook. He could take out a full page ad. It would not be illegal for him to reveal he is the bio father. He bloody well is the bio father. John and Mary made the decision that Tom might be the father so they already know he might be the father.

Or has Tom changed his mind, and wants...what? Visitation rights? Well, John and Mary can negotiate that with Tom. And if they can't, Tom can go to court to sue for visitation. Since he is the bio father, I do not see a problem with the court granting him visitation rights. In fact, it seems nice that he has changed his mind about abandoning his offspring.

I do not understand what you think the problem is here.

• John and Mary want children, but John is infertile. Instead of shelling out 1000s or 10,000s of $ to fertility clinics, they decide to help themselves by more traditional means: Mary hooks up a few times with Tom, a mutual friend they trust, until she gets pregnant. Tom has agreed to the terms that he's acting more or less as a sperm donor, but none of this is recorded in writing or notarized. Five years later, John and Mary are pretty broke and decide to go after Tom for child support.

John and Mary get nothing. Tom agreed to be a sperm donor and that's all he agreed to. If you are saying 'but the problem is the evidence', that is nothing unique to family law. It would have been better for Tom to have made the agreement in writing, but contract law does not hinge on something being in writing, only that it was agreed to.

• John and Mary are a couple. One day, Mary is raped by Tom. Since she believes it wold be a he-says-she-says situation and doesn't want to re-ignite the trauma for nothing, Mary doesn't report Tom. When Mary finds she is pregnant, John and Mary know that there is an off chance that the rapist is the father. 10 years later, Tom, the rapist, finds out he may have fathered a child, secretly has a DNA test done, and now demands visitation rights. Given that a 10 year old rape case is even harder to prove and he would just say it was consensual, Mary has no choice but to let her rapist into her house to play with her child on a regular basis.

She doesn't have to let anybody into her house. That isn't how visitation works. Plus, a ten year old child should get some say in who she wants to see. She might not want to see her bio father. But what if she does? Why shouldn't she?

All of these are from simply dropping any kind of term limit and assuming, as the default, that a legal father (who has not given to protocol that he knows he is not the biological father) wants to skip his parental role and get the bio-dad on the hook when he finds out he's not the biological father. Call it "automatic transfer" or not, but without such an assumption (at least as the default, until and unless we have conflicting declarations from the parties involved), most of your objections collapse.

What on earth are you talking about? I don't even understand your sentences. What does "(who has not given to protocol that he knows he is not the biological father)" mean?

And what the hell does 'term limits' have to do with anything? In your last scenario, would it somehow have been acceptable for the rapist bio dad to have sought out access within two years instead of ten years? I can't make head nor tails of your objections or what you think the alternative is. Or do you think that there should be a rule that any woman who accuses a bio father of rape can exclude him from seeing his offspring? If you don't think there should be such a rule, what rule are you proposing?

 

[Metaphor]

Whether there should be child support at all is a separate issue. Even welfare states like those in Finland or other Nordic states usually have some sort of child support laws, and the basic benefits granted by the government don't cover all the costs of the child. No single mother is going to be forced into prostitution or selling their organs, but they will have slightly lower income and therefore less to spend on the child. This is undesirable for two reasons. First, unequal opportunities for the child. It is very desirable to give the kids as even playing field regardless of whether they come from poor or middle-class backgrounds. Second, albeit a less important consideration, is simply to incentivize people to have children. In Finland for example the fertility rate is 1.4, well below the 2.1 required for population replacement.

I do not believe the government has a role in incentivizing people to breed, but that aside, I have not suggested anywhere that a father should not be on the hook for child support for children he consented to. I disagree with some people in this thread on who the person should be. I think in the OP case it should be the bio dad, not the cuckolded husband.

I also do not see a problem with material standard of living going down when people have children. That's inevitable unless you have more money than the vast majority of people.

The downside of generous benefits are of course that it costs money and means more taxes. By pinning some of the responsibility to the biological or social parents eases this burden. Also, if the state were to provide very generous benefits, the incentive for some women to game the system would still be there, the "victim" would just be the society as a whole, not the cuckolded or biological husbands. It's also psychologically easier to leech off money from a faceless bureocrat than a real person, so costs would be higher. Already now certain groups like immigrants to be stigmatized for having lots of "single mothers" on paper, because that's the way you get the highest benefits.

So the tradeoff is how much socialized welfare you want versus people taking care of their own kids. Idealistically the former might sound more appealing to some, but in practice I don't think any country has 100% socialized child support.

I have never said I don't want parents paying for their own children. I have never suggested that the State should bear all the costs. I have simply suggested that going after a single person who did not consent to be a father to that child is morally wrong.

In this particular case the sticking point though is not whether there should be child support or not, but rather whether a non-biological father who failed to take measures to protect himself should be on the hook for the child support.

But 'failed to take measures to protect himself' is like saying 'you failed to take measures to protect yourself from getting bashed and robbed on the night train home, so you need to live with the bashing and robbing'.

 

[Jokodo]

I said 'a bio dad claiming fatherhood would not automatically nullify a social father's claim to fatherhood' is a rule I am proposing. It is not a claim that a bio dad would never try to claim fatherhood.



Frankly speaking, Jokodo, I owe you shit. We both agree the Finnish law resulted in an unjust outcome, yet you haven't challenged anybody else who also does not support the outcome of the Finnish law (like laughing dog) to draft a family law act, nor have you challenged people who do support it as to why they support an unjust outcome.

Nobody else started a thread about how this Finnish law spells the death of Europe, why would I challenge them to come up with a better solutions?

I answered multiple scenarios from you and I laid out the principles of what I would consider to be central to family law legislation. But since you are so interested in my opinion on the matter, as a courtesy to you, I will give you my thoughts on your scenarios.

• John and Mary have an open marriage. That means, John knows and approves that Mary occasionally hooks up with Tom, under the strict provision they always use condoms. One day, Tom and Mary's condom breaks, which she immediately confesses to John. When later they learn Mary is pregnant all three sit down on a table. They know there is a chance that Tom is the father, but decide to just assume John is and never go through the complicated route of having a paternity test, and having John adopt the child should it be Tom's - and more than anyone else, Tom is happy about the arrangement as it gets him off the hook. Years later, Tom secretly has a paternity test done, finds that he is indeed the biological father, and decides to use that knowledge to extort money from John and Mary, knowing that going to the court he could easily undermine John's relationship with his 10-year-old daughter.

What's the problem?

What's Tom going to court for? To be identified as the bio father? I don't see a problem there. He is the bio father. Of course, in your scenario, he wants to be off the hook. So, he isn't going to do anything that puts him on the hook, is he?

Are you worried about the power Tom has over John and Mary? Why? Revealing he is the bio father isn't anything that requires a court system. He could do it over Facebook. He could take out a full page ad. It would not be illegal for him to reveal he is the bio father. He bloody well is the bio father. John and Mary made the decision that Tom might be the father so they already know he might be the father.

Or has Tom changed his mind, and wants...what? Visitation rights? Well, John and Mary can negotiate that with Tom. And if they can't, Tom can go to court to sue for visitation. Since he is the bio father, I do not see a problem with the court granting him visitation rights. In fact, it seems nice that he has changed his mind about abandoning his offspring.

I do not understand what you think the problem is here.

He can do much more than that. He can sue for nullification of John's status as legal parent, he can accuse John and Mary of perjury for attesting the child was theirs when they new it might be his and sue for sole costudy.

A term limit avoids a case like this from arising.

• John and Mary want children, but John is infertile. Instead of shelling out 1000s or 10,000s of $ to fertility clinics, they decide to help themselves by more traditional means: Mary hooks up a few times with Tom, a mutual friend they trust, until she gets pregnant. Tom has agreed to the terms that he's acting more or less as a sperm donor, but none of this is recorded in writing or notarized. Five years later, John and Mary are pretty broke and decide to go after Tom for child support.

John and Mary get nothing. Tom agreed to be a sperm donor and that's all he agreed to. If you are saying 'but the problem is the evidence', that is nothing unique to family law. It would have been better for Tom to have made the agreement in writing, but contract law does not hinge on something being in writing, only that it was agreed to.

Sure, but a case like that wouldn't come before a court with term limits, and it shouldn't, so this is an example where the current Finnish law produces a better outcome than what you propose.

• John and Mary are a couple. One day, Mary is raped by Tom. Since she believes it wold be a he-says-she-says situation and doesn't want to re-ignite the trauma for nothing, Mary doesn't report Tom. When Mary finds she is pregnant, John and Mary know that there is an off chance that the rapist is the father. 10 years later, Tom, the rapist, finds out he may have fathered a child, secretly has a DNA test done, and now demands visitation rights. Given that a 10 year old rape case is even harder to prove and he would just say it was consensual, Mary has no choice but to let her rapist into her house to play with her child on a regular basis.

She doesn't have to let anybody into her house. That isn't how visitation works. Plus, a ten year old child should get some say in who she wants to see. She might not want to see her bio father. But what if she does? Why shouldn't she?

All of these are from simply dropping any kind of term limit and assuming, as the default, that a legal father (who has not given to protocol that he knows he is not the biological father) wants to skip his parental role and get the bio-dad on the hook when he finds out he's not the biological father. Call it "automatic transfer" or not, but without such an assumption (at least as the default, until and unless we have conflicting declarations from the parties involved), most of your objections collapse.

What on earth are you talking about? I don't even understand your sentences. What does "(who has not given to protocol that he knows he is not the biological father)" mean?

And what the hell does 'term limits' have to do with anything? In your last scenario, would it somehow have been acceptable for the rapist bio dad to have sought out access within two years instead of ten years? I can't make head nor tails of your objections or what you think the alternative is. Or do you think that there should be a rule that any woman who accuses a bio father of rape can exclude him from seeing his offspring? If you don't think there should be such a rule, what rule are you proposing?

Denial doesn't make reality go away. Reality is that every plausible system has potential pitfalls, situations where it suggests non-ideal solutions. If you want to show that your system is better than Finland's current one, you need to make an honest estimate of the number of cases both systems will tend to mess up, not just proclaim that yours is built on noble principles and delivers better in this one case.

 

[Jayjay]

In this particular case the sticking point though is not whether there should be child support or not, but rather whether a non-biological father who failed to take measures to protect himself should be on the hook for the child support.

But 'failed to take measures to protect himself' is like saying 'you failed to take measures to protect yourself from getting bashed and robbed on the night train home, so you need to live with the bashing and robbing'.

But the fact that there were things he could have done differently to avoid this outcome is a mitigating factor. A law that gives the man no recourse whatsoever to address injustices, would be worse than a law that at least gives him an opportunity to do so. The trade-off is between rights of the child to have proper support and stable parents, and the man having freedom to walk away. I'm not saying that this particular compromise is optimal, just that there are two sides.

 

[Metaphor]

Nobody else started a thread about how this Finnish law spells the death of Europe, why would I challenge them to come up with a better solutions?

I did come up with a better solution: a man who did not consent to be a father (and, indeed, isn't a father) should not be held financially responsible as if he were a father.

You appear to agree with me on that, yet you also appear to oppose me saying that.

He can do much more than that. He can sue for nullification of John's status as legal parent,

Really? Where is it implied in my framework or principles that he can sue for nullification for John's status?

he can accuse John and Mary of perjury for attesting the child was theirs when they new it might be his and sue for sole costudy.

Well, they did perjure themselves, didn't they? They lied on a birth certificate about the bio father, didn't they?

But, where is it implied in my framework or principles that a bio father should be able to sue for 'sole custody' because he co-operated with the bio mother in lying about paternity?

A term limit avoids a case like this from arising.

How? Are you now proposing that the 'term limit' is no limit at all? That the father named on the birth certificate is the bio dad and social dad and that can never be overturned by the named father or anyone else???

Sure, but a case like that wouldn't come before a court with term limits, and it shouldn't, so this is an example where the current Finnish law produces a better outcome than what you propose.

I'm sorry, what? Why would a case like that not come before the court? I can't make sense of your scenario. If you mean 'under Finnish law, nothing can extinguish a social father's fatherhood after five years, so John and Mary cannot hope to gain', why do you regard that as a rule without negatives? I find it an extreme negative that social fatherhood cannot be extinguished after five years.

Kill every child at birth and nobody ever dies from cancer again.

Denial doesn't make reality go away. Reality is that every plausible system has potential pitfalls, situations where it suggests non-ideal solutions. If you want to show that your system is better than Finland's current one, you need to make an honest estimate of the number of cases both systems will tend to mess up, not just proclaim that yours is built on noble principles and delivers better in this one case.

So, you can't answer my last scenario at all?

I don't have "a system", I didn't write a family law act, I laid out some principles that I would base it on.

But since we apparently disagree on what counts as a 'mess up', I can't possibly get you to assess the evidence anyway.

 

[Metaphor]

In this particular case the sticking point though is not whether there should be child support or not, but rather whether a non-biological father who failed to take measures to protect himself should be on the hook for the child support.

But 'failed to take measures to protect himself' is like saying 'you failed to take measures to protect yourself from getting bashed and robbed on the night train home, so you need to live with the bashing and robbing'.

But the fact that there were things he could have done differently to avoid this outcome is a mitigating factor. A law that gives the man no recourse whatsoever to address injustices, would be worse than a law that at least gives him an opportunity to do so. The trade-off is between rights of the child to have proper support and stable parents, and the man having freedom to walk away. I'm not saying that this particular compromise is optimal, just that there are two sides.

The child does not have the right to stable parents. That's fantasy. The child never had that right anyway, even before no-fault divorce and 50% divorce rates. The Finnish law cannot compel a man to love a child or spend quality time with a child or do any of the non-material things a father should do for his child. The Finnish law is as hopeless here as any legal system could be, because no legal system can achieve the impossible.

So, in this case, where being the genetic father to the child was an important part of the man's acceptance, nothing the law can do will make the man accept the child. My system would not be able to do it either. You can't force a man to visit children. Or can you?

So, the second question is about 'proper support', which I take to mean 'material financial support'. In this case, the person who should be providing that support is the bio father and not the cuckolded husband. You appear to agree with me on this. So why not say 'this part of the Finnish law should be changed, and it is the bio father and not the cuckolded husband who should have to pay child support'?

 

[fromderinside]

This thread isn't about what should be it's about what is in place. Current law includes the propositions that males are more equal, that males lead marriages, so one need to interpret the judgement from that perspective. What should be is an entirely different thing and should be addressed in a separate OP.

Everything you present is presented from false assumptions. Current law has no mechanisms to handle responsibility from causer outside the family unit. Find ways to handle personal behavior and preference and you'll need to invent a super computer the size of the world to deal with options.

 

[Jayjay]

But the fact that there were things he could have done differently to avoid this outcome is a mitigating factor. A law that gives the man no recourse whatsoever to address injustices, would be worse than a law that at least gives him an opportunity to do so. The trade-off is between rights of the child to have proper support and stable parents, and the man having freedom to walk away. I'm not saying that this particular compromise is optimal, just that there are two sides.

The child does not have the right to stable parents. That's fantasy. The child never had that right anyway, even before no-fault divorce and 50% divorce rates. The Finnish law cannot compel a man to love a child or spend quality time with a child or do any of the non-material things a father should do for his child. The Finnish law is as hopeless here as any legal system could be, because no legal system can achieve the impossible.

So, in this case, where being the genetic father to the child was an important part of the man's acceptance, nothing the law can do will make the man accept the child. My system would not be able to do it either. You can't force a man to visit children. Or can you?

So, the second question is about 'proper support', which I take to mean 'material financial support'. In this case, the person who should be providing that support is the bio father and not the cuckolded husband. You appear to agree with me on this. So why not say 'this part of the Finnish law should be changed, and it is the bio father and not the cuckolded husband who should have to pay child support'?

In this case that would probably be the better outcome. But when it comes to a general case, its necessary to weigh this outcome to the potential side effects that extending or abolishing time limits might have. For example, a mother who knows that the husband is not the father could blackmail him indefinitely by threatening to challenge his fatherhood and take away the kid. Or a husband could force the wife to stay with him by threatening to leave her and the kid out to dry in case of a divorce.

The intent of the law is to force parents to settle the dispute over parenthood quickly, so as not to cause disruption to the child. I'm not entirely sure if that's good, but that's why the legislation is what it is and is probably not going to be changed.

 

[Metaphor]

In this case that would probably be the better outcome. But when it comes to a general case, its necessary to weigh this outcome to the potential side effects that extending or abolishing time limits might have. For example, a mother who knows that the husband is not the father could blackmail him indefinitely by threatening to challenge his fatherhood and take away the kid.

No, she couldn't. Where do you get these scenarios? What is it in my principles that makes you think my preferred system would support this?

A mother who knows the husband is not the bio father could not 'blackmail' the husband. If he has accepted the role of social parent, indeed including with the bio mother's consent and participation, the bio mother would not be able to unilaterally declare null and void a social father's fatherhood. She could divorce him, certainly. But why would that imply he could not get custody or visitation rights under my system?

Or a husband could force the wife to stay with him by threatening to leave her and the kid out to dry in case of a divorce.

No, he couldn't. Where do you get these scenarios? What is it in my principles that makes you think my preferred system would support this?

Depending on the scenario, if he is not the bio father but he knew that and accepted the role of social father, then he consented to being the social father. Under the groundwork I laid out, consent is central. He would have the right and obligations that go with being the social father. He can decide to forego his rights to see the child, but he can't forego obligations he agreed to.

 

[Jayjay]

In this case that would probably be the better outcome. But when it comes to a general case, its necessary to weigh this outcome to the potential side effects that extending or abolishing time limits might have. For example, a mother who knows that the husband is not the father could blackmail him indefinitely by threatening to challenge his fatherhood and take away the kid.

No, she couldn't. Where do you get these scenarios? What is it in my principles that makes you think my preferred system would support this?

A mother who knows the husband is not the bio father could not 'blackmail' the husband. If he has accepted the role of social parent, indeed including with the bio mother's consent and participation, the bio mother would not be able to unilaterally declare null and void a social father's fatherhood. She could divorce him, certainly. But why would that imply he could not get custody or visitation rights under my system?

How do you prove "consent and participation", if not with time limits of some sort? i.e. if a parent sticks to his or her role for five years, can he or she withdraw consent? Two years? Six months?

Or a husband could force the wife to stay with him by threatening to leave her and the kid out to dry in case of a divorce.

No, he couldn't. Where do you get these scenarios? What is it in my principles that makes you think my preferred system would support this?

Depending on the scenario, if he is not the bio father but he knew that and accepted the role of social father, then he consented to being the social father. Under the groundwork I laid out, consent is central. He would have the right and obligations that go with being the social father. He can decide to forego his rights to see the child, but he can't forego obligations he agreed to.

So for example, if a guy finds out about not being the biological father, but continues in that role for a long time before filing to annul his fatherhood, he should not be allowed to do that?

 

[Metaphor]

How do you prove "consent and participation", if not with time limits of some sort? i.e. if a parent sticks to his or her role for five years, can he or she withdraw consent? Two years? Six months?

I don't understand in what capacity 'time limits' are supposed to help.

Let's say you agree with your wife that, despite her pregnancy to another man, you will be a social father to the child. The child is born with that agreement in place. Well, you agreed and she agreed. The woman cannot unilaterally break that agreement. I don't understand what time limits have to do with anything. So what if the mother threatened to sue for 'sole' custody? The social father not being the bio father does not help her case. My system does not somehow always favour bio parents over social parents. My system would not take away parenthood from people who wanted to be parents.

What do you think the Finnish system would do now? It seems to me if the social father had fathered the child for less than two years, then there is nothing he could do in your scenario.

So for example, if a guy finds out about not being the biological father, but continues in that role for a long time before filing to annul his fatherhood, he should not be allowed to do that?

No, he should be allowed to annul his fatherhood. His continuing to be a father was a kindness and courtesy, despite no moral obligation to do so. He did not consent to become a father and material provider to someone else's genetic offspring. I do not understand how a time limit that permanently locks him in after a certain time, or permanently frees him before a certain time, makes any sense or benefits anybody.

What would the Finnish system do? It seems to me, if I understand Finnish law correctly, he would not be allowed to annul his fatherhood, and (if I understand correctly), if he'd already fathered the child socially for two years before he found out he had been cuckolded, he would be forced into the role of material provider, even though he never consented to being the material provider for somebody else's child, and even though there is a bio father out there who ought be the material provider (if that bio father consented to being a father, I mean).

Something else: in my preferred model, a man would be able to have a 'financial' abortion if he learns he is a bio father but does not want to be a father with that pregnancy. He would disavow the rights and obligations that come from parenthood, just as a woman can do. Consenting to sex is not consenting to becoming a parent: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

[ruby sparks]

I agree with there being legal time limits in principle.

I think a better law might be (I am not an expert) 2 years, or a year at least, from finding out the facts, not from birth? It seems reasonable to allow that 'cooling-off' time period because it can often take people that sort of time to properly emotionally process what has happened and, if there's been infidelity and paternity dishonesty involved, to have a chance to get significantly, even if not completely, over it. It may overall also be in the best interests of the child, because it theoretically allows the adults more room and time to reflect. It seems to me that in this case, things all happened a bit too quickly, and the man had not recovered from the shock. Hurt can cause people to do things they might not otherwise do.

There would be other factors too in this case, such the wife apparently not wanting him back in any case, and then later seeking sole custody of the child, and that the husband apparently found out that his wife had wanted to be a family with the lover, not him. There are quite a few profound rejections in all of this.

It would be interesting to hear the woman's side of this, in case she has things to say that might produce a more nuanced picture. And it would be interesting to read the court transcripts or detailed decision.

 

[ruby sparks]

.... when it comes to a general case, its necessary to weigh this outcome to the potential side effects that extending or abolishing time limits might have. For example, a mother who knows that the husband is not the father could blackmail him indefinitely by threatening to challenge his fatherhood and take away the kid. Or a husband could force the wife to stay with him by threatening to leave her and the kid out to dry in case of a divorce.

The intent of the law is to force parents to settle the dispute over parenthood quickly, so as not to cause disruption to the child. I'm not entirely sure if that's good, but that's why the legislation is what it is and is probably not going to be changed.

Yes. My gut feeling is that the laws and decisions are made in order to try to produce the best overall, general, social and financial outcomes for Finnish society, in particular the interests of children.

I think this man has unfortunately fallen foul of that, from what we can tell. Perhaps we could say he is a sort of collateral damage.

What I mean is, the courts do need to be quite tough on what constitute exceptional circumstances before extending time limits, otherwise the legal viability of the time limits might be eroded. Failure to know what the laws are (if indeed he did not know a time limit was about to expire) is often not deemed a valid excuse, in many situations. Legal decisions of all varieties often hinge on such technicalities. The court will also be concerned about the future general outcome of setting a precedent for relaxation in this case.

But, on a personal level and away from legalities, my sympathies are much more with the husband, based on what we know so far. And whatever I might think I might do in his shoes, I'm disinclined to tell him what he should have done, given the very difficult circumstances he was faced with.

As to the innocent and probably adversely affected child, that's a very important but slightly separate matter from the above or from considerations about all the adults involved. I think someone said the husband should have stayed and been a proper father? That may not have been either the best result for the child, or indeed an option for the man. I don't think children's interests are necessarily served by two parenting adults either yoking themselves or being yoked together in some shared parenting way, if they do not want it. Bear in mind also that according to reports, the husband was still seeing the child at a time after the woman had filed for divorce.

 

[ruby sparks]

It would have helped if you'd at least got the facts as far as we know them right. It was the wife who reportedly instigated divorce proceedings. She also later filed for sole custody. The husband stated that he wanted to continue to see the child. This has all been said in the thread.

Can you point to me where I said differently?

Well you said he divorced her, for starters, rather than the other way around or even 'they got divorced'. As to 'rejecting the child' that might also be more nuanced, it seems. You also said he has a choice as to whether to maintain a relationship with the child, and that's not clear, and it was the wife who asked for sole custody. And your modified use of the word monster (now you're saying monstrous) is still harsh, imo, all things considered. It's as if, like a few here, you only need to know the genders of those involved in order to more or less automatically decide which way your sympathies will lean. If no one had noted it, goodness knows how long it would have taken you to eventually get around to voicing even any criticism at all of the woman in this case. It's not so much just your imo harsh judgements of the man, as the ongoing lack of balance.

 

[Jayjay]

How do you prove "consent and participation", if not with time limits of some sort? i.e. if a parent sticks to his or her role for five years, can he or she withdraw consent? Two years? Six months?

I don't understand in what capacity 'time limits' are supposed to help.

Let's say you agree with your wife that, despite her pregnancy to another man, you will be a social father to the child. The child is born with that agreement in place. Well, you agreed and she agreed. The woman cannot unilaterally break that agreement. I don't understand what time limits have to do with anything. So what if the mother threatened to sue for 'sole' custody? The social father not being the bio father does not help her case. My system does not somehow always favour bio parents over social parents. My system would not take away parenthood from people who wanted to be parents.

What do you think the Finnish system would do now? It seems to me if the social father had fathered the child for less than two years, then there is nothing he could do in your scenario.

It's not just about the two year time limit, but also the fact that the father did not file immediately after hearing about not being the father. He took over seven months to do so, due to grief and ignorance. Had he found out after the child was two, but acted fast, he might have been successful.

So for example, if a guy finds out about not being the biological father, but continues in that role for a long time before filing to annul his fatherhood, he should not be allowed to do that?

No, he should be allowed to annul his fatherhood. His continuing to be a father was a kindness and courtesy, despite no moral obligation to do so. He did not consent to become a father and material provider to someone else's genetic offspring. I do not understand how a time limit that permanently locks him in after a certain time, or permanently frees him before a certain time, makes any sense or benefits anybody.

What would the Finnish system do? It seems to me, if I understand Finnish law correctly, he would not be allowed to annul his fatherhood, and (if I understand correctly), if he'd already fathered the child socially for two years before he found out he had been cuckolded, he would be forced into the role of material provider, even though he never consented to being the material provider for somebody else's child, and even though there is a bio father out there who ought be the material provider (if that bio father consented to being a father, I mean).

Something else: in my preferred model, a man would be able to have a 'financial' abortion if he learns he is a bio father but does not want to be a father with that pregnancy. He would disavow the rights and obligations that come from parenthood, just as a woman can do. Consenting to sex is not consenting to becoming a parent: what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Wouldn't that just allow some bastard to do a "financial abortion" to severe any chance of having to pay child support, in order to force the woman to stay with him?

In the Finnish system, the state is obligated to try to pin the fatherhood on someone. If the child is born out of wedlock, that would fall on the biological father regardless of whether he wants to be a social parent or not.

 

[Metaphor]

It's not just about the two year time limit, but also the fact that the father did not file immediately after hearing about not being the father. He took over seven months to do so, due to grief and ignorance. Had he found out after the child was two, but acted fast, he might have been successful.

Okay, but why does it suddenly make it okay to have a man who did not consent to be a father on the hook, and the bio father to be off the hook?

Wouldn't that just allow some bastard to do a "financial abortion" to severe any chance of having to pay child support, in order to force the woman to stay with him? .

Jesus Christ JayJay, what kind of people do you hang around with??

I'm not sure what the motives are of the people in your scenario. A woman is pregnant, and her husband wants her not to be pregnant and to stay with him? Or? A man threatens financial abortion so that - what, exactly? She will stay with him and not abort the baby? I think I've missed something with your scenario. When men and women cohabit with children they generally entangle their finances, so any man living with his own children is going to be providing material resources to that child. Or is he threatening to leave if she has the baby? Well...what about it? He did not consent to being a father.

In the Finnish system, the state is obligated to try to pin the fatherhood on someone. If the child is born out of wedlock, that would fall on the biological father regardless of whether he wants to be a social parent or not.

Well, okay. So do you believe it is necessary for the State to 'pin' the fatherhood on 'someone'? Why? Seems pretty conservative thinking to me.

I mean: I know (at work, we're not friends) a single woman who, when she turned 40, realised she wasn't going to catch a man and have children with him, so she went to a sperm clinic and chose to become a single mother. She has a child that she is raising on her own. There's a bio father out there, the sperm donor, but he has no obligations towards or rights to see this child. It seems to me that the State should not try to 'pin' fatherhood on anyone, since this woman chose to have a child without ensuring there was a father.

(Now, I believe this woman probably needed to examine exactly why no man she had dated in her entire life wanted a child with her, or, alternately, why she rejected every man she dated as worthy of being a father, but we're not really here to discuss her).

 

[ruby sparks]

(Now, I believe this woman probably needed to examine exactly why no man she had dated in her entire life wanted a child with her, or, alternately, why she rejected every man she dated as worthy of being a father, but we're not really here to discuss her).

Just on no man wanting a child with her, it is reported that she and the husband were trying (unsuccessfully) for a child.

And as to her 'rejecting every man', she had, apparently, deemed the lover a suitable, even 1st preference, partner/father, but presumably he didn't reciprocate (did not leave his wife for her and the baby, and has not as far as we know come to be with her and the child following his own subsequent divorce).

We don't know, but my guess is he (the lover) probably knew the baby was his, and he surely must know now. First, she may have told him during the affair that she and the husband could not conceive, and second, according to reports of what his later ex-wife told the cuckolded husband, she wanted him (the lover) to be with her, so letting him know who the biological father was (she herself apparently knew) would make more sense than concealing it from him. Or he may have guessed, either just from general circumstances or from seeing some resemblances in the child. I wonder how the conception happened? But that's something we don't know. The woman may not have had a deliberate, conscious plan in that regard. We can only speculate, but if the husband is in his 40's, and she a similar age, and they had not previously had a child, it was getting to the point where if they wanted one, then regardless of the psychologies and motivations involved, the clock was ticking.

I wonder whether the wife's lover and his own wife had any children themselves, and where they are now, after that divorce? It's possible she divorced him, having found out in 2016 about the affair and the paternity of the child here.

Messy stuff.

 

[Metaphor]

(Now, I believe this woman probably needed to examine exactly why no man she had dated in her entire life wanted a child with her, or, alternately, why she rejected every man she dated as worthy of being a father, but we're not really here to discuss her).

Just on that, it is reported that she was trying (unsuccessfully) for a child with the husband. Also, she had, apparently, deemed the lover a suitable partner/father, but presumably he didn't reciprocate (did not leave his wife for her and the baby).

Sorry, I was talking about a woman at my workplace, not the woman in the OP.

 

[ruby sparks]

(Now, I believe this woman probably needed to examine exactly why no man she had dated in her entire life wanted a child with her, or, alternately, why she rejected every man she dated as worthy of being a father, but we're not really here to discuss her).

Just on that, it is reported that she was trying (unsuccessfully) for a child with the husband. Also, she had, apparently, deemed the lover a suitable partner/father, but presumably he didn't reciprocate (did not leave his wife for her and the baby).

Sorry, I was talking about a woman at my workplace, not the woman in the OP.

Ah. Sorry.

 

[Jayjay]

Okay, but why does it suddenly make it okay to have a man who did not consent to be a father on the hook, and the bio father to be off the hook?

It's not okay, and it's rather arbitrary. But the trade-off is not between bio father and the (now unwilling) social father. The trade-off is between having mercy to those who miss deadlines, and attempting to avoid lengthy disputes over who the father is. The latter is considered important because it's in the interest of the child to have stable parents, even if it is just as source of income.

Jesus Christ JayJay, what kind of people do you hang around with??

I'm not sure what the motives are of the people in your scenario. A woman is pregnant, and her husband wants her not to be pregnant and to stay with him? Or? A man threatens financial abortion so that - what, exactly? She will stay with him and not abort the baby? I think I've missed something with your scenario. When men and women cohabit with children they generally entangle their finances, so any man living with his own children is going to be providing material resources to that child. Or is he threatening to leave if she has the baby? Well...what about it? He did not consent to being a father.

I'm trying to think of the worst case scenarios, if laws were such that the consent to fatherhood could be recalled more freely. One such case is where a rich husband uses the child as a tool to exert power over a woman. Powerful men using their power to keep women under their thumb is hardly a novel concept.

In the Finnish system, the state is obligated to try to pin the fatherhood on someone. If the child is born out of wedlock, that would fall on the biological father regardless of whether he wants to be a social parent or not.

Well, okay. So do you believe it is necessary for the State to 'pin' the fatherhood on 'someone'? Why? Seems pretty conservative thinking to me.

Right to have both parents is considered to be in the interest of the child.

As for the example about donor sperm, that can be handled as a special case.