Thread: Can I file for child support even if my husband and I aren't divorced?

It all depends, the laws vary from state to state. My advice to you would be to contact a local family law attorney in your area. I realize attorneys are expensive... BUT... majority of them offer FREE consultations. You usually get an hour of free legal advice. I know in most states if you are not living under the same roof the non custodial parent is supposed to pay child support... BUT... if there is no documentation (such as a legal seperation, parenting plan that stipulates child support and visitation) Then there is no legal documentation requiring him to pay. If you and your child were on public assistance then the depart. of child services would go after him for child support but they would more than likely use that payment for your monthly public assistance payment. As I said before, the laws vary from state to state so it would be in your best interest to speak with an expert in your state.

I don't know how your finances are set up (if you are employed fulltime/partime or a stay at home mom etc... but if his income is considerably larger than yours is often times the court will require him to pay for your attorney. So like I said before, at the very least contact an attorney and get a free consultation and ask their advice on what the best way to proceed is. Also, you may want to look into if you do get "legally seperated" (instead of filing for divorce) some states require the husband (depending on what the financial situation is) pay the wife spousal support (Alimony) during the seperation and sometimes for x amount of years following the divorce or until the wife re-marries.

Oh yeah... one more thing that is VERY important.... get a notebook and keep notes on how much contact your soon to be ex has with your daughter. Record date/time of phone calls, visits, if he purchases her any thing (like clothing, medical expenses, school tuition/activity fees etc...) record the length of call, visit etc...
ALSO... record (and save reciepts whenever possible) the money that you are spending for those items (especially medical/dental expenses) that way when you do go to court to set up child support you have specifics on what financial support he has provided (or not provided) with dates, times, amounts etc.. and with detailed records like that he won't be able to justify his lack of financial support for your daughter.

Don't know how much help this was but hopefully it helped a little. (You can also google family law in your state for specific laws where you live). Hang in there, things will get better once you get all the paperwork in order and filed with the courts.

Thank you! I called today and they said I can!

Excellent! Are you going into see an attorney for a free consultation? I would if I were you just to find out what your legal rights are things that you need to do etc.... afterall, it's free. Just make sure if you do go in you write down a list of questions you want/need answered prior to going in because often times there are a million things you want to ask but when you are in there and have the opportunity to do so, you forget what you wanted to ask.

He will probably be ordered to pay any back support from the date he started living outside the home. Good luck, getting an order for support and actually getting paid the support are two different things. Hopefully he is fairly responsible.

If he is employed you can have his wages garnished if he doesn't make child support payments like he is supposed to. A lot of times it's just easier that way because as long as he is getting a paycheck if it's being garnished then you will get the child support payment.
Since you aren't legally divorced and if/when you do file divorce papers you are going to want to make sure you have all your documentation in order so make it a habit of ALWAYS writing down any financial support he provides for your child(ren) and make sure to include if he gives you money to pay for school tuition, school supplies, clothing etc.... If you have access to his pay statements (or at least one recent one) try to make a copy of it so an accurate child support amount can be determined based on his income. I actually knew someone that took unpaid personal time off of work because he wanted it to appear like he made less money than what he actually did and he submitted the pay stubs from that time frame. I thougth that was appalling... trying to manipulate the system to get away with providing your child with less. One more thing to consider... if you are setting up a support document you should also consider sections that account for various circumstances such as... what the support amount is during summer vacations if they spend any significant time with him (like summer breaks I would only make stipulatins for child support if they spend more than a consecutive month with him, AND.... this is an important one, just because you NEVER know what could happen but if you don't have medical insurance that pays 100% of medical/dental bills and prescriptions then you should stipulate something so he will be responsible for paying at the very least 1/5 of those bills.
Just one more thing to think about/consider. I know it's not normal proceedure but you can also request that he carries life insurance and names your child(ren) beneficiaries of a certain percentage of his life insurance because god forbid if anything were to happen to him then the child support would come to a screaming halt. If he isn't comfortable leaving you that kind of money he can name someone of his choosing as the trustee to issue your kids monthly payments