GLASTONBURY, CONNECTICUT · FAMILY LAW + FAMILY-VIOLENCE DEFENSE
Custody, parenting time, and child support do not depend on marriage. Unmarried parents have the same access to court orders and the same standard applies.
Under C.G.S. §46b-61, the Superior Court can make orders about custody, visitation, and support for the children of unmarried parents. The test is the same best-interest standard that governs any custody case, under C.G.S. §46b-56.
There is no maternal preference, and the fact that parents never married carries no weight of its own.
Parentage may need to be established before the court can enter orders. If parentage is already established — by an acknowledgment signed at the hospital, by a court adjudication, or by a statutory presumption — you can proceed directly.
If it is not, that is the first task.
What distinguishes these cases is rarely the law. It is that there is often no existing framework — no prior order, sometimes no history of shared decision-making, and occasionally no clear record of the relationship between the child and one parent.
That makes the parenting plan more important rather than less, because there is nothing else to fall back on.
Connecticut does not recognize common-law marriage. Long cohabitation gives an unmarried partner no claim to property division or alimony — but it changes nothing about rights and obligations toward children.
Connecticut’s Parentage Act replaced the old paternity framework in 2022. How parentage is established, and the deadline to undo an acknowledgment.
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What goes into a Connecticut parenting plan, how schedules are built, and why vague language causes problems years later.
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Connecticut custody attorney Daniel M. Morton on legal and physical custody, parenting plans, relocation, and how judges decide. Glastonbury office.
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Every case starts with a conversation about what you’re facing and what it would take to handle it.
