ok my fiance's brother has a son that just turned 5 in feb. The problem is dad has court ordered visitation every wens and every other weekend. Dad or family has not seen this child sience Oct 2004. Dad quit paying support mom pulled child from going to visits. Dad will not do anything about it. Mom just enforced the order because he is behind 3000 in support there is a warrent out for his arrest. Mom will not speak with any of us we have wrote letters requesting time with child mom refuses. Is there anything we can do to be able to see this child. We miss him so much. Dad does not care so there is no use in asking him to do his part as a father, We live in michigan

Im not sure about MI laws, but I would check into trying to get visitation through the grandparents/family members in place of the father. I have a family member that has court ordered visitation with her grandparents because the father was in jail.

How would that work. Would grama have to get a lawyer? because at one time the foc stated the grama had to have a lawyer to get visitation?

Well, the grandparent visitation is ordered in very limited circumstances. This isn't one of them. If the father will not utilize his visitation, there is not much you can do. If y'all started requesting visitation after she started trying to enforce the support order, you're not going to get very far. The first thing the judge will want to know is why nobody was worried about persuing visitation in the past 2 years.

One more thing: you are not even related in any way to this family. Engaged is not married. You would have NO standing. Neither would the other relatives, but you definitely would not. I don't mean that to sound ugly, just the way it is.

Right i understand that if I'm not related I can't do anything. But we were woundering if grandma can do anything. We have tried numerous things contacted her by phone by email by letter and she does not want to communicate. We even offeres to give her money because dad is a dead beat and we have offered free babysitting and she just won't go for it.

What state are you in? In the states that will allow this, there are very specific circustances for gp visitation. They generally include death of the parent, gp having a HUGE impact in the child's life (former custody, that sort of thing) and divorce where the other parent is not allowing visitation, but there is an established bond between the gp and the child. I don't know of any that will allow it if the FATHER has been granted visitation but won't take advantage of it. The reasoning is that the family can see the child during the visitation times granted to the parent. So, in essence, there is visitation allowed, he's just not taking advantage of it, thereby not allowing you and your family to take advantage of it. Sorry.

So in other words we are screwed? Thank you everyone for your advice.