Step parent without legal rights custodial protection?
My wife and I have just recently agreed to divorce. She has a daughter (now 11F)from outside of our relationship, whose life I’ve been a part of since she was 2. The three of us had discussed it several times, but we had not yet filed for adoption as my daughter’s (dead beat, completely absent) bio-dad still has legal rights. We are still in the early phases and have agreed to try to do it as amicably as possible, but I don’t know what steps I can take to try to protect my relationship with my daughter if it gets messy. From my understanding if we finalized the divorce now, I would have zero legal rights to any kind of relationship with my daughter - what can I do to gain legal standing to protect my relationship with her? How would her bio-dad still having legal rights affect my chances?