2) If you deny him access to his father, at least as long as he’s not REALLY deathly looking (after which the father should want to avoid him himself) the kid will resent it and/or fail to understand it for the rest of his life.

Trust me, My father left my mother when I was one, divorced when I was three, and was intermittently in my life for various times after that. When I was 12 his liver failed for the last time, and for that last six months he was around A LOT. When it came close enough to the end that he was in the hospital all the time, I was sent to summer camp for a few weeks, so I wouldn’t be around as he wasted away, to remember him like THAT. It was as close as I managed to get to him.

Two is worse, but it’s still much the same. He can, if he dies, give his son a memory of his father. If he does live, then perhaps the reason is to reconciliate him with his son, if not the rest of his family.

I would not suggest SHE trust him all that much, at least not until he’s proven once more that he’s actually serious about staying, but there is a difference between their relationship and his relationship with his son.

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I also point out the inherent sexism in this question. If it were the mother, there wouldn’t BE any question about letting her into the child’s life. She could be a reformed junky prostitute that ran off and left the swaddling infant with the father for 5 years, and she’d probably be successful if she sued for custody…

Why are the Fathers’ rights different?

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Also — judging from the responses, some people need to actually get in touch with God, and stop mouthing platitudes about Him instead of that.

This is EXACTLY the sort of way in which He works to right things.

Again: Her trust of him is one thing. The child’s experience of him is another. The two should not be equated, conflated, or mixed together — one does not require, nor does it need to affect, the other.