Tips for dating divorced dads? How to interact with their kids or their mom if you meet them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, just don't. Really, if you don't like the idea of being a stepmom, it's unfair to the kids to be one. They have no control over this and you do. "Blending" a family (or suffering through one that hasn't really blended) is extremely difficult. Having someone around who doesn't really want that lifestyle just makes it more difficult for the people who are stuck with it.

You can try to live separately, but the children will still be an enormous part of his life and will necessarily affect your life even if you don't live with or spend time with them very much. And it is forever. Yes, children grow up and usually they move out, but sometimes they move back in. Sometimes they have their own children and then you're a step-grandmother. You will never, ever be done compromising and accommodating and scheduling things around his ex. Even if everyone is on their best behavior, it's logistically difficult.

Date someone else.

She's not blending a family. She doesn't have kids. She is in a relatively easy situation. Single mom trying to make it work with single dad is much, much harder. Kids can deal with a stepmom. Step-siblings are much more difficult.

She's trying to blend herself into an existing family. Look, OP, if you don't want to be a stepmom, don't. It's really, really hard even if you do want it. You have a choice and the children don't, so don't impose yourself into their lives if you don't actually want to be there. It's just going to lead to resentment on all sides. You will find a childless man if you keep trying.

Her choices:
1. Stepmom (really not that hard)
2. Find some 40-ish never-married guy (weirdo/incel/workaholic)
3. Cats

Maybe the Unicorn would be childfree widower?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, just don't. Really, if you don't like the idea of being a stepmom, it's unfair to the kids to be one. They have no control over this and you do. "Blending" a family (or suffering through one that hasn't really blended) is extremely difficult. Having someone around who doesn't really want that lifestyle just makes it more difficult for the people who are stuck with it.

You can try to live separately, but the children will still be an enormous part of his life and will necessarily affect your life even if you don't live with or spend time with them very much. And it is forever. Yes, children grow up and usually they move out, but sometimes they move back in. Sometimes they have their own children and then you're a step-grandmother. You will never, ever be done compromising and accommodating and scheduling things around his ex. Even if everyone is on their best behavior, it's logistically difficult.

Date someone else.

She's not blending a family. She doesn't have kids. She is in a relatively easy situation. Single mom trying to make it work with single dad is much, much harder. Kids can deal with a stepmom. Step-siblings are much more difficult.

She's trying to blend herself into an existing family. Look, OP, if you don't want to be a stepmom, don't. It's really, really hard even if you do want it. You have a choice and the children don't, so don't impose yourself into their lives if you don't actually want to be there. It's just going to lead to resentment on all sides. You will find a childless man if you keep trying.

Her choices:
1. Stepmom (really not that hard)
2. Find some 40-ish never-married guy (weirdo/incel/workaholic)
3. Cats

It is definitely not that easy to be a stepmom. For one, the kids will never really accept you, whether or not they tell you this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, just don't. Really, if you don't like the idea of being a stepmom, it's unfair to the kids to be one. They have no control over this and you do. "Blending" a family (or suffering through one that hasn't really blended) is extremely difficult. Having someone around who doesn't really want that lifestyle just makes it more difficult for the people who are stuck with it.

You can try to live separately, but the children will still be an enormous part of his life and will necessarily affect your life even if you don't live with or spend time with them very much. And it is forever. Yes, children grow up and usually they move out, but sometimes they move back in. Sometimes they have their own children and then you're a step-grandmother. You will never, ever be done compromising and accommodating and scheduling things around his ex. Even if everyone is on their best behavior, it's logistically difficult.

Date someone else.

She's not blending a family. She doesn't have kids. She is in a relatively easy situation. Single mom trying to make it work with single dad is much, much harder. Kids can deal with a stepmom. Step-siblings are much more difficult.

She's trying to blend herself into an existing family. Look, OP, if you don't want to be a stepmom, don't. It's really, really hard even if you do want it. You have a choice and the children don't, so don't impose yourself into their lives if you don't actually want to be there. It's just going to lead to resentment on all sides. You will find a childless man if you keep trying.

Her choices:
1. Stepmom (really not that hard)
2. Find some 40-ish never-married guy (weirdo/incel/workaholic)
3. Cats

It is definitely not that easy to be a stepmom. For one, the kids will never really accept you, whether or not they tell you this.

In many cases it works out a lot better if she just tries to be dad's wife and nobody's mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is definitely not that easy to be a stepmom. For one, the kids will never really accept you, whether or not they tell you this.

In many cases it works out a lot better if she just tries to be dad's wife and nobody's mom.

I’m the PP who is a stepmom. Jr high age is TOUGH. my advice would be to take it really slow and avoid spending a lot of time with the kids. This is a delicate age and you’re better off trying to start building a relationship when they are a bit older (16/17 is good).

Are you sure you never want children of your own? If not, you’re golden. If you do, that makes things complicated.

The main thing to remember is that being a stepmother is a thankless job. The kids will never really appreciate you, so only do what you feel comfortable doing and don’t expect any accolades from them. If you go into it expecting them to think of you as a mother or even show gratitude, it won’t work. I treat my stepdaughter well because she is important to my husband and she is a nice young lady and deserves it. But I know better than to think she’ll ever really care about me. Which hurts and sucks sometimes but is what I signed up.

[Anonymous]

Check out steptalk.org....it’s eye opening

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, just don't. Really, if you don't like the idea of being a stepmom, it's unfair to the kids to be one. They have no control over this and you do. "Blending" a family (or suffering through one that hasn't really blended) is extremely difficult. Having someone around who doesn't really want that lifestyle just makes it more difficult for the people who are stuck with it.

You can try to live separately, but the children will still be an enormous part of his life and will necessarily affect your life even if you don't live with or spend time with them very much. And it is forever. Yes, children grow up and usually they move out, but sometimes they move back in. Sometimes they have their own children and then you're a step-grandmother. You will never, ever be done compromising and accommodating and scheduling things around his ex. Even if everyone is on their best behavior, it's logistically difficult.

Date someone else.

She's not blending a family. She doesn't have kids. She is in a relatively easy situation. Single mom trying to make it work with single dad is much, much harder. Kids can deal with a stepmom. Step-siblings are much more difficult.

She's trying to blend herself into an existing family. Look, OP, if you don't want to be a stepmom, don't. It's really, really hard even if you do want it. You have a choice and the children don't, so don't impose yourself into their lives if you don't actually want to be there. It's just going to lead to resentment on all sides. You will find a childless man if you keep trying.

Her choices:
1. Stepmom (really not that hard)
2. Find some 40-ish never-married guy (weirdo/incel/workaholic)
3. Cats

Haha. This is a very DC-like logical argument -- classic write the decision memo with such unpalatable alternative choices that the reader/decision-maker chooses the choice you want which is very unpalatable.

What if I wrote the choices differently:

1) Stepmom (fraught with difficulties)
2) keep dating until you find some other normal man (either divorced or never married) without kids
3) cats

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is in his 40s divorced about four years ago and dating. He has a steady GF who has never been married and has no kids. She is great. One of the most appealing things about her (to him and to me) is that she is just a normal, nice person, very unlike his crazy ex.

She is friendly with his kids without overstepping her role. They like her. She has also met his ex and managed to be friendly and nice to her too. I'm pretty sure ex was flabbergasted and didn't quite know how to act. It was all good, however. By the time she met the ex I think ex had calmed some of her psycho rage down and was able to pretend to be normal for a few minutes.

Just so you know, however, my son has told me that he absolutely will never marry again, no matter what. Not sure he's told her that but I think he has.

Your son should not introduce his kids to someone he knows he will never marry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
It is definitely not that easy to be a stepmom. For one, the kids will never really accept you, whether or not they tell you this.

In many cases it works out a lot better if she just tries to be dad's wife and nobody's mom.

I’m the PP who is a stepmom. Jr high age is TOUGH. my advice would be to take it really slow and avoid spending a lot of time with the kids. This is a delicate age and you’re better off trying to start building a relationship when they are a bit older (16/17 is good).

Are you sure you never want children of your own? If not, you’re golden. If you do, that makes things complicated.

The main thing to remember is that being a stepmother is a thankless job. The kids will never really appreciate you, so only do what you feel comfortable doing and don’t expect any accolades from them. If you go into it expecting them to think of you as a mother or even show gratitude, it won’t work. I treat my stepdaughter well because she is important to my husband and she is a nice young lady and deserves it. But I know better than to think she’ll ever really care about me. Which hurts and sucks sometimes but is what I signed up.

This. Because the truth is, especially if you enter their lives when they are older, you're not really doing whatever you do for them, for them. As a reluctant stepmom, you're doing it because it's the price of admission to your relationship with their father. Nobody's like "oh, I love little Larla so much, I think I'll marry her dad so I can spend more time with her", right? You're putting up with them for your marriage and they're there because putting up with you is the price of their relationship with their father. That can be a polite and amicable relationship if both sides are realistic and nobody's a psycho or a jerk. Maybe in time they'll like you, and they'll probably appreciate you taking care of their dad when he's older (so that they don't have to do as much), they may love you after a few decades. But don't expect any gratitute, because they didn't ask for any of this. Whatever you may do to care for them, they would probably prefer to have done by one of their parents, or maybe not done at all. They didn't ask you to come into their lives and do things for them. You're the one who wants to come in. So there won't be gratitude.

It's very, very hard to walk into teenagers' lives with zero parenting experience, when they're dealing with a divorce, shared custody, and the major life transition of adolescence, and have it go smoothly. You just don't have enough background knowledge to do the job, and if you don't actually want to, it will be hard to motivate. And you will absolutely loathe planning your whole life around custody and compromising with the ex on various things like the schedule. So save yourself the hassle and just date someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, just don't. Really, if you don't like the idea of being a stepmom, it's unfair to the kids to be one. They have no control over this and you do. "Blending" a family (or suffering through one that hasn't really blended) is extremely difficult. Having someone around who doesn't really want that lifestyle just makes it more difficult for the people who are stuck with it.

You can try to live separately, but the children will still be an enormous part of his life and will necessarily affect your life even if you don't live with or spend time with them very much. And it is forever. Yes, children grow up and usually they move out, but sometimes they move back in. Sometimes they have their own children and then you're a step-grandmother. You will never, ever be done compromising and accommodating and scheduling things around his ex. Even if everyone is on their best behavior, it's logistically difficult.

Date someone else.

She's not blending a family. She doesn't have kids. She is in a relatively easy situation. Single mom trying to make it work with single dad is much, much harder. Kids can deal with a stepmom. Step-siblings are much more difficult.

She's trying to blend herself into an existing family. Look, OP, if you don't want to be a stepmom, don't. It's really, really hard even if you do want it. You have a choice and the children don't, so don't impose yourself into their lives if you don't actually want to be there. It's just going to lead to resentment on all sides. You will find a childless man if you keep trying.

Her choices:
1. Stepmom (really not that hard)
2. Find some 40-ish never-married guy (weirdo/incel/workaholic)
3. Cats

Haha. This is a very DC-like logical argument -- classic write the decision memo with such unpalatable alternative choices that the reader/decision-maker chooses the choice you want which is very unpalatable.

What if I wrote the choices differently:

1) Stepmom (fraught with difficulties)
2) keep dating until you find some other normal man (either divorced or never married) without kids
3) cats

I don't "want" her to do anything. I don't have a dog (or cats) in this fight. I'm just telling her the hard truth, which is that your choice 2 (normal man in his 40s (either divorced or never married) without kids) is a very, very small group of men. And I doubt that "normal man in his 40s who was never married" even exists, because not being married by age 40 simply is not normal.

"Divorced men with kids" is a much, much larger group. If she wants to play the odds.

[Anonymous]

Maybe in time they'll like you, and they'll probably appreciate you taking care of their dad when he's older

WTF is this constant shit about "taking care of older men"? Is that some leftover idea from the 1950s or something? Women don't do that any more.

And you will absolutely loathe planning your whole life around custody and compromising with the ex on various things like the schedule.

She already has a couple of months of experience of dealing with that. She'll get a better sense of how annoying it is long before she even meets the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, just don't. Really, if you don't like the idea of being a stepmom, it's unfair to the kids to be one. They have no control over this and you do. "Blending" a family (or suffering through one that hasn't really blended) is extremely difficult. Having someone around who doesn't really want that lifestyle just makes it more difficult for the people who are stuck with it.

You can try to live separately, but the children will still be an enormous part of his life and will necessarily affect your life even if you don't live with or spend time with them very much. And it is forever. Yes, children grow up and usually they move out, but sometimes they move back in. Sometimes they have their own children and then you're a step-grandmother. You will never, ever be done compromising and accommodating and scheduling things around his ex. Even if everyone is on their best behavior, it's logistically difficult.

Date someone else.

She's not blending a family. She doesn't have kids. She is in a relatively easy situation. Single mom trying to make it work with single dad is much, much harder. Kids can deal with a stepmom. Step-siblings are much more difficult.

She's trying to blend herself into an existing family. Look, OP, if you don't want to be a stepmom, don't. It's really, really hard even if you do want it. You have a choice and the children don't, so don't impose yourself into their lives if you don't actually want to be there. It's just going to lead to resentment on all sides. You will find a childless man if you keep trying.

Her choices:
1. Stepmom (really not that hard)
2. Find some 40-ish never-married guy (weirdo/incel/workaholic)
3. Cats

Haha. This is a very DC-like logical argument -- classic write the decision memo with such unpalatable alternative choices that the reader/decision-maker chooses the choice you want which is very unpalatable.

What if I wrote the choices differently:

1) Stepmom (fraught with difficulties)
2) keep dating until you find some other normal man (either divorced or never married) without kids
3) cats

I don't "want" her to do anything. I don't have a dog (or cats) in this fight. I'm just telling her the hard truth, which is that your choice 2 (normal man in his 40s (either divorced or never married) without kids) is a very, very small group of men. And I doubt that "normal man in his 40s who was never married" even exists, because not being married by age 40 simply is not normal.

"Divorced men with kids" is a much, much larger group. If she wants to play the odds.

At least try for a man whose kids are out of the house. Teenagers will haaaate it if you come in to their home and start making what you think are "improvements" and taking up their last few years of time with their father. You know how nobody likes it when their roommate's girlfriend moves in? That's what this is, to them, except grosser.

[Anonymous]

My kids love their step-mom, but they're young. Given how hard the teenage years can be, it has to be the worst time to try to enter a family. I think it's much easier to form that relationship when the kids are younger. (They also have no idea that their Dad cheated on me with her, if they ever figure it out when they're older I'm not sure how that will go.) I think it's been much harder for the step-mom to adjust than it was for my kids though (based on comments she has made to people I know.)

I do have friends that have a close relationship with their step-parent, but in almost all cases its because the original parent was out of the picture for some reason (absentee, deceased, or just minimal custody).

Oh, and as for interactions with the mom--it likely won't ever be an issue. I've met my ex's wife once at an event and we basically just ignored each other. She likely isn't as crazy or difficult as he portrays her to be, and most people aren't going to make a big scene in front of their kids (which is primarily when you're ever going to see her.)

[Anonymous]

Op here. Ugh I agree I think junior high age is the worst age. High school - not really a huge deal because I feel we could just date for a few years and then wait to live together until they are off at college. If they were littler, maybe we'd bond better. But the idea of waiting to live together for full time is hard. And I agree I feel like kids who've gone through divorce etc ideally should not also have to deal with having to adjust to having their dad's new wife living with them and wanting to change things around the house. But then all those people who said the pool of normal men in their forties without kids is small? They are right. Maybe if I don't keep dating this guy, I will try to date guys whose kids are at least juniors in high school.

Sigh. He's nice though. He's really sweet to me. And he pays lots of attention to me. He sees me every night he doesn't have custody and he calls me every day he does not see me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is in his 40s divorced about four years ago and dating. He has a steady GF who has never been married and has no kids. She is great. One of the most appealing things about her (to him and to me) is that she is just a normal, nice person, very unlike his crazy ex.

She is friendly with his kids without overstepping her role. They like her. She has also met his ex and managed to be friendly and nice to her too. I'm pretty sure ex was flabbergasted and didn't quite know how to act. It was all good, however. By the time she met the ex I think ex had calmed some of her psycho rage down and was able to pretend to be normal for a few minutes.

Just so you know, however, my son has told me that he absolutely will never marry again, no matter what. Not sure he's told her that but I think he has.

Your son should not introduce his kids to someone he knows he will never marry.

While I would maybe agree with that in some cases in this case his kids are grown so don't you worry too much about it.

[Anonymous]

Just date older men with grown children.