u/Confident-Chain-1557

Hello all, I have some backstory and a question. I want to remove parental rights to my son from his father. Now hear me out because I know that seems harsh.

Backstory: his father has never really been around. He will be gone for months at a time and pop up for the occasional holiday. This year he didn't even reach out for kiddos birthday. He basically decided that his new relationship and being with his new partner are more important. He has never been a financially stable person, and hasn't helped provide for his son in years. There is the occasional visit where he brings a financed electronic or toy, but outside of that it has been all on me.

I have gotten married (my son's father and I were never married), and my husband has expressed interest in adopting him. With that comes some issues. When speaking to his father, the topic was brought up, and he originally agreed to it, he is continuously going back and forth on wanting to sign the paperwork for the adoption and then not wanting to.

I will say, my kids' dad isn't a "bad" dad, just uninterested and uninvolved. I have my own issues with the situation, but I try to be as understanding as possible

There are always excuses as to why he's not around or financially helping. I don't have a job right now (usually never does; if there is a job, it's a short-lived one), I'm busy, I have no car, I am emotionally not doing well right now, and so on. It has been like this ever since we were together, and nothing has changed, so I am unsurprised by all of the flakiness and instability. This was a large part of why we split up in the first place.

These things are causing my son to see him in a not great light. There was a point in time when I used to tell him when his dad was supposed to show up; I have since stopped doing that because there is always an excuse as to why he didn't come. The fact that I have to make excuses for why his dad didn't show up makes me and him so sad. He knows I'm telling him something to cushion his feelings, and he's just too smart for it. He has stopped asking about his father, and calls his stepdad dad instead. This was his choice; nobody asked him to or forced him in any way. He just sees his stepdad as his dad and acts accordingly. He knows he has another dad and has made the choice to call his bio dad by his name instead of the title of dad.

Now for the question. How do I go about getting his parental rights? We sat my son down and asked him if he wants to be adopted by his stepdad, and he could not have been happier about it. With his father going back and forth about wanting rights at all, it's hard to get the paperwork signed, and I honestly don't want to spend 400$ plus attorney fees to have him go against everything and make it a fight. He currently hasn't spoken to his son in about 6 months, and hasn't seen him in well over a year. Parental alienation is a hard thing to prove, and we have a provisional custody plan in place in the courts that he has literally never adhered to.

I could put him on child support, but the only thing that would do is put him in jail because he won't pay it, and it's unhelpful, so there's that too.

I am a cold-weather person, and I can no longer stay in Florida. We need recommendations on where to move, and we are open to most anything. My husband can run a forklift and is willing to learn almost anything else in most any field. I am a stay-at-home mom, and we have two homeschooled littles. We would love to stay with the one income set up until I finish college, so we will need something both big enough (a two or 3 bed), and also affordable. Where would you suggest looking, because what I am currently doing is googling "cheapest city to rent in..." and then attempting to find an average of the rental costs, as well as potential pay, and a general idea of what the bills will be. As you can assume, this Excel spreadsheet I have running is becoming more than a little overwhelming, and I would love to hear from actual locals to see what the people say vs what Google has to say about it. I appreciate any and all suggestions.