When couples do what couples like to do, they must both accept the mutual risk they’re taking. In one woman’s case, however, the man she was with left her when she got pregnant and, now that she’s found a supportive and well-paid husband, is trying to shake off his child support obligations as well.

In a Reddit post, she asked commenters whether she was wrong for continuing to pursue child support from her ex despite having a loving husband who her child recognized as his real father. The details of this story are what really make it, so read on!

Even if a family split is ultimately for the best, these situations can quickly become ugly

Image credits: Anastasia Shuraeva (not the actual photo)

In one woman’s case, her son’s deadbeat biological father wanted to cut off child support for his son when she found a wealthy and supportive husband

Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)

After commenters showed interest in her story and support, she filled out a lot of extra details

Image credits: DisastrousAfternoon1

Commenters were, quite understandably, almost entirely supportive. Some even offered advice

When it comes to pregnancy and childbirth, nearly every step of the process is riskier for mothers than it is for fathers. Though child support laws can sometimes come under criticism, they are a key tool for helping ensure that mothers left with children after a family split receive some sort of support. As most of the commenters under the author’s post seem to agree, we can also be glad that those laws came into play here as well.

The key issue that many commenters latched onto that made this story so compelling (and the author’s ex’s behavior so unlikable) is the question of custody and parenthood. Most jurisdictions, including the one that the author is in, acknowledge that adults can sign away their rights to guardianship over a child, whether or not the child is biologically theirs.

The ex seems not to want to have anything to do with their child. He tries every trick in the book to avoid paying child support and hardly ever visits. While this can be hard to understand or condone, this is exactly the sort of situation in which it would make sense for the ex to nullify their parenthood/guardianship over a child they seem to have no interest in. But they declined to do so, thereby restricting the wife’s supportive husband from becoming the child’s father and transferring legal responsibility for childcare costs from the ex.

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Some commenters were particularly upset by the biological father’s behavior

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