wrote in message
news:-IKdnQS4CJ-nap_bnZ2dnUVZ_qmpnZ2d@wightman.ca...
> Hi.
>
> I am the stepmother of a 6 year old girl. My husband and I are
> non-custodial but very involved in her upbringing. Stepdaughter, her
> mother, and mother's boyfriend just moved to another city and enrolled SD
> in a new school. My question is about emergency contacts. Who has the
> legal right to approve emergency treatment of my SD? I know my husband
> and her mother do, but do I?
>
> With the mother's boyfriend, she goes around calling the boyfriend SD's
> stepdad and saying they have a common law marriage - but the boyfriend is
> still married to someone else so I don't think that's legally possible.
> So if he's just her boyfriend and not a common-law husband/stepdad, can he
> approve emergency treatment of my SD?
>
> I'm concerned that SD's mother might have just listed herself and her
> boyfriend as emergency contacts at the school, so I'm concerned that the
> boyfriend even if reached wouldn't be able to give approval for
> emergencies so he wouldn't be a reasonable alternate for SD's mother.
1) In the divorce documents who has guardianship rights? The Mother or is it
equally shared? Custody and Guardianship are two separate issues and should
be spelled out in the divorce.
2) Even marriage (or common law marriage) to a CP does not give the new
parent any automatic guardianship rights. If your spouse's ex is the child's
only guardian she may have the right and the power to register her partner
as a guardian without your spouses permission.
In my case I have/had 50/50 custody and guardianship of my two boys (only
one is now a minor) and (as I had to point out to my ex) her husband can not
make life or death decisions for our children now or ever, as I will never
give him the right! She had put her husband down as the secondary contact at
the school and I had it changed to me.
John