Mother won't let father see child

My nephew needs advice: :baby::broken_heart: He had a child with a girl, they aren’t married, and now they’ve split up—all within a couple of years. They’re both young. At first, after the breakup, the young mother was letting him see the child, and things were going smoothly. However, the issues that caused the breakup are now affecting their attempts to co-parent. Neither have lawyers or any sort of custody agreement, although the dad does pay court-ordered child support.

Currently, the mom isn’t letting the dad see the child at all, citing his “instability” and inability to hold down a job. She also doesn’t want her kid around the people the dad is now dating. Is a court order the only way to enforce visitations? :judge::family_man_woman_boy:

Why hasn’t the father requested custody of his child through legal means? The only assurance is that. Furthermore, mum has no say in who dad associates with the child.

Dad does pay a court ordered child support. Something is a little strange here… Did the Attorney General’s Office (the state of TX) help establish child support? If so, in Texas, child support court orders will also address paternity, conservatorship (legal custody) and possession and access time (physical custody). Have your nephew to review the court order, because visitation should 100% already be legally established. If your nephew claims otherwise, I would highly recommend you have him provide you a physical copy of the order for you to personally review. He already has court ordered visitation, he simply needs to sue his ex for contempt.