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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

I disagree with this. The kids may appreciate the time they have with their dad without someone else around. My kids see my XH very little these days because his new family is always there and they never get any one on one time with him. Someone can have a relationship with the kids without assimilating their lives. I think it’s fine for the OP to keep her place.

This is a false comparison. I did not say that a dad that prioritized his 'new family' is a good dad. You are simply presenting an equally bad option on the other side of the equation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I’m seconding that 50% time doesn’t equal 50% responsibility. Especially if much of that 50% is weekends, holidays, and summers. The state of MD didn’t care that my ex had fewer than 90 school days, just how many overnights. HW, permission slips, packed lunches, uniforms, projects, and other school related responsibilities mostly fell to me and my DH (DD’s stepdad). By third grade, it was easy to see a pattern of tardies s and missed hw when XH had her. In 7th grade, she’s more self-reliant, but still tardies coming from dad’s.

I'm sorry your XH sucks but not all step-dads are like that. I'm not.

Our weekends, holidays, and summers are evenly split, as are school days.

HW, permission slips, packed lunches, uniforms, projects, and other school related responsibilities -- I did that before the divorce, I do it now. I want my kids to succeed at school, and they know they can come to me for help.

All the tardies my kids have gotten have been from XW.

So yeah, OP, if you want to be a step-mom, make sure you don't marry someone irresponsible and incompetent. But that would be good advice even if he didn't have kids.

I’m not sure what you mean by step-dads. I thought we were discussing custodial parents. And what I said can apply to women or men. 50% time doesn’t mean 50% effort or even 50% financial expenditures. My DD’s step dad is awesome BTW. It’s her bio dad that sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

Then just break up with him. If he's not grown up enough to manage a household like an adult, you won't enjoy living with him or even dating him long-term. See, if you live there, and his kids are there, there's going to be a lot of mess. And if he's not going to enforce chores on the kids, then who will? If you try, he won't really back you up, because he doesn't actually care about cleanliness and doesn't actually want to do any chores himself. So you'll be miserable and the kids will hate you.

Golly gee, I wonder why he is divorced.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

I'm a woman and a now grown up step child.

You're setting up kind of a strange roadblock. No one moves in with another person with the expectation that nothing would change about the living circumstances.

I'm not saying you have to live in a moldy old frat house, just that if you decide to make a life with him it would be ludicrous and insulting for you to leave whenever the kids come over. That isn't a marriage it's a friend with benefits.

Kids move, families change etc. etc.

You seem very focus on what I think of as small problems. Where you would live is a small problem because it's easily solved. But you seem pretty dismissive of big problems like the fact that you don't want to be a stepmother but uh oh, that's all that's in the booty pool lately.

You don't sound like a bad person but you do sound like kind of a superficial person. Or I dunno that's probably too harsh. A person very cavalierly unfamiliar with the pitfalls this relationship might present and weirdly focused on inconsequential things, so much so that you're framing living quarters as this dealbreaker and your solution to the problem (living in a different apartment) is so not in line with creating a successful new unified family that it makes it seem like you're really not interested in a real relationship with anyone other than this man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

Then just break up with him. If he's not grown up enough to manage a household like an adult, you won't enjoy living with him or even dating him long-term. See, if you live there, and his kids are there, there's going to be a lot of mess. And if he's not going to enforce chores on the kids, then who will? If you try, he won't really back you up, because he doesn't actually care about cleanliness and doesn't actually want to do any chores himself. So you'll be miserable and the kids will hate you.

Golly gee, I wonder why he is divorced.

This. Is it much of a relationship if you can't spend more than a few hours in his home without an inhaler? Come on. Time to call it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

Then just break up with him. If he's not grown up enough to manage a household like an adult, you won't enjoy living with him or even dating him long-term. See, if you live there, and his kids are there, there's going to be a lot of mess. And if he's not going to enforce chores on the kids, then who will? If you try, he won't really back you up, because he doesn't actually care about cleanliness and doesn't actually want to do any chores himself. So you'll be miserable and the kids will hate you.

Golly gee, I wonder why he is divorced.

This. Is it much of a relationship if you can't spend more than a few hours in his home without an inhaler? Come on. Time to call it.

To be fair to the guy the only concrete things she's said is that he had old furniture and lives in an old house that she believes has mold.

[Anonymous]

Op here. So to the former, now grown step kid - what role do you think someone in my position - if we got married, if we've been dating seriously - should play in a step kid's or potential step kid's life? What do you think is the ideal interaction? The best way to be? That was my original question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. So to the former, now grown step kid - what role do you think someone in my position - if we got married, if we've been dating seriously - should play in a step kid's or potential step kid's life? What do you think is the ideal interaction? The best way to be? That was my original question.

Did you read my original response? It would be to be a confidant, a trusted adult.

Not a friend, probably more like a trusted teacher or aunt. But if you want a future where you're playing the theoretical role of grandparent you'll need to establish yourself as someone who cares deeply for them and who doesn't want to usurp the role of parent, but who cares and is dependable.

I would imagine an ideal future of a wedding where you know enough to hold back and let mom and dad be the proud parent but you've become important enough to the kid that they want to include you in some way. It's a difficult tightrope to walk.

You show up to plays and championship games and concerts, you ask them about their life, you encourage their dad to spend one on one time with them but also actively participate in some family things. You never say a bad word about their mom, never say much at all about her, with your eyes or your mouth.

Do you have any relationships with any children/teens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here. So to the former, now grown step kid - what role do you think someone in my position - if we got married, if we've been dating seriously - should play in a step kid's or potential step kid's life? What do you think is the ideal interaction? The best way to be? That was my original question.

Did you read my original response? It would be to be a confidant, a trusted adult.

Not a friend, probably more like a trusted teacher or aunt. But if you want a future where you're playing the theoretical role of grandparent you'll need to establish yourself as someone who cares deeply for them and who doesn't want to usurp the role of parent, but who cares and is dependable.

I would imagine an ideal future of a wedding where you know enough to hold back and let mom and dad be the proud parent but you've become important enough to the kid that they want to include you in some way. It's a difficult tightrope to walk.

You show up to plays and championship games and concerts, you ask them about their life, you encourage their dad to spend one on one time with them but also actively participate in some family things. You never say a bad word about their mom, never say much at all about her, with your eyes or your mouth.

Do you have any relationships with any children/teens?

This. Caring and responsible adult who minds her own business and knows when to keep her mouth shut.

The thing is, if you really really can't stand loss of control over your home, then you won't be able to do "caring". Because that's not what caring is. Cohabiting with other humans involves a lot of compromise, and his standards of cleanliness and the cultural norms of the home are already established. They're part of a family culture and you can't expect it to change just to suit you, when everyone else is fine with it. And it doesn't exactly say "caring" to be so bothered by their presence that you can't live there on their custody days.

I understand that you like this guy and want to make it work, but I just don't see how it can if you're having a hard time being in the house at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

Then just break up with him. If he's not grown up enough to manage a household like an adult, you won't enjoy living with him or even dating him long-term. See, if you live there, and his kids are there, there's going to be a lot of mess. And if he's not going to enforce chores on the kids, then who will? If you try, he won't really back you up, because he doesn't actually care about cleanliness and doesn't actually want to do any chores himself. So you'll be miserable and the kids will hate you.

Golly gee, I wonder why he is divorced.

This. Is it much of a relationship if you can't spend more than a few hours in his home without an inhaler? Come on. Time to call it.

To be fair to the guy the only concrete things she's said is that he had old furniture and lives in an old house that she believes has mold.

She said it would be like living in a college group house. What exactly that means, I dunno, but it isn't good. He sounds like a man-baby who doesn't know how to manage a household without his mommy-wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

Then just break up with him. If he's not grown up enough to manage a household like an adult, you won't enjoy living with him or even dating him long-term. See, if you live there, and his kids are there, there's going to be a lot of mess. And if he's not going to enforce chores on the kids, then who will? If you try, he won't really back you up, because he doesn't actually care about cleanliness and doesn't actually want to do any chores himself. So you'll be miserable and the kids will hate you.

Golly gee, I wonder why he is divorced.

This. Is it much of a relationship if you can't spend more than a few hours in his home without an inhaler? Come on. Time to call it.

To be fair to the guy the only concrete things she's said is that he had old furniture and lives in an old house that she believes has mold.

She said it would be like living in a college group house. What exactly that means, I dunno, but it isn't good. He sounds like a man-baby who doesn't know how to manage a household without his mommy-wife.

She's coming across as an unreliable narrator to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

Then just break up with him. If he's not grown up enough to manage a household like an adult, you won't enjoy living with him or even dating him long-term. See, if you live there, and his kids are there, there's going to be a lot of mess. And if he's not going to enforce chores on the kids, then who will? If you try, he won't really back you up, because he doesn't actually care about cleanliness and doesn't actually want to do any chores himself. So you'll be miserable and the kids will hate you.

Golly gee, I wonder why he is divorced.

This. Is it much of a relationship if you can't spend more than a few hours in his home without an inhaler? Come on. Time to call it.

To be fair to the guy the only concrete things she's said is that he had old furniture and lives in an old house that she believes has mold.

She said it would be like living in a college group house. What exactly that means, I dunno, but it isn't good. He sounds like a man-baby who doesn't know how to manage a household without his mommy-wife.

She's coming across as an unreliable narrator to me.

Op here. I'm in the process of trying to assess how competent he is. For traditional male things, he seems pretty competent. I think he's kind of a guy who just doesn't care too much about his surroundings. His bathrooms and kitchens are clean. But his ex took most of the furniture when she moved out and he replaced it with - I don't even know where he got it but it's all mostly used.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

Then just break up with him. If he's not grown up enough to manage a household like an adult, you won't enjoy living with him or even dating him long-term. See, if you live there, and his kids are there, there's going to be a lot of mess. And if he's not going to enforce chores on the kids, then who will? If you try, he won't really back you up, because he doesn't actually care about cleanliness and doesn't actually want to do any chores himself. So you'll be miserable and the kids will hate you.

Golly gee, I wonder why he is divorced.

This. Is it much of a relationship if you can't spend more than a few hours in his home without an inhaler? Come on. Time to call it.

To be fair to the guy the only concrete things she's said is that he had old furniture and lives in an old house that she believes has mold.

She said it would be like living in a college group house. What exactly that means, I dunno, but it isn't good. He sounds like a man-baby who doesn't know how to manage a household without his mommy-wife.

She's coming across as an unreliable narrator to me.

Op here. I'm in the process of trying to assess how competent he is. For traditional male things, he seems pretty competent. I think he's kind of a guy who just doesn't care too much about his surroundings. His bathrooms and kitchens are clean. But his ex took most of the furniture when she moved out and he replaced it with - I don't even know where he got it but it's all mostly used.

Ok, so you moving into the house where they used to live with their mom is a whole different deal. Expect pushback if you change anything at all. Their memories and all the trauma of their parents' unhappy marriage are all over the house and can never really be shaken off.

Personally I would not do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP it sounds like (because you have basically said this) that you want a relationship with him but not his children. That really isn't reasonable. His children will be hurt if the person he ends up potentially marrying finds them so unsavory that she keeps her own apartment. As many PPs, blending families is difficult, but the difficulties don't vanish after graduation, they just change. It is fine to accept and plan to never be a 'mom' to a kid that you're meeting as a teenager. But you should have a baseline expectation that you would be a confident, a trusted adult in their life. Because if you don't put some effort into having relationships with the kids, then that will likely eventually pull dad away from his kids and be unfair to them.

If I were a divorced parent and dating someone who said what you said here I'd honestly drop you in a heartbeat. Or at least drop you as a long term prospect. Joining a family IS joining a family, no matter how old/young everyone is. And the idea of having a separate house to avoid them when he has custody I mean...you're setting yourself up as the villain in a disney movie. I mean I kind of understand it, but that will hurt his children, and any guy that marries a woman and lets her go back to her apartment when his kids come over is a bad dad, and therefore likely a bad partner.

op here. wondering - are you a man or a woman? a now grown up stepkid or parent?

if i meet the kids and dont like them, i would probably end the relationship. i'm not going to marry someone if i dont like his kids. i havent met them. i have seen the house and....I cant live there. It would be like living in a college group house. It's got all these "old house" issues like possible mold that cause my allergies to act up. i cant live somewhere than i literally cant breathe in. i've slept there five or six times and each time i wind up having to use my asthma inhaler in the middle of the night.

Then just break up with him. If he's not grown up enough to manage a household like an adult, you won't enjoy living with him or even dating him long-term. See, if you live there, and his kids are there, there's going to be a lot of mess. And if he's not going to enforce chores on the kids, then who will? If you try, he won't really back you up, because he doesn't actually care about cleanliness and doesn't actually want to do any chores himself. So you'll be miserable and the kids will hate you.

Golly gee, I wonder why he is divorced.

This. Is it much of a relationship if you can't spend more than a few hours in his home without an inhaler? Come on. Time to call it.

To be fair to the guy the only concrete things she's said is that he had old furniture and lives in an old house that she believes has mold.

She said it would be like living in a college group house. What exactly that means, I dunno, but it isn't good. He sounds like a man-baby who doesn't know how to manage a household without his mommy-wife.

She's coming across as an unreliable narrator to me.

Op here. I'm in the process of trying to assess how competent he is. For traditional male things, he seems pretty competent. I think he's kind of a guy who just doesn't care too much about his surroundings. His bathrooms and kitchens are clean. But his ex took most of the furniture when she moved out and he replaced it with - I don't even know where he got it but it's all mostly used.

Former step kid here. This is normal op. Divorce is expensive. Becoming a single parent is very challenging. Sounds like he's doing alright. He got tee house suitable for kids. It doesn't sound like he's ever going to be a neat freak but it sounds like he wouldn't give an eff about new furniture appearing.

My husband is the same way and lets me do whatever I want to our house. He appreciates what I do but wouldn't complain if it wasn't done. It's easier then two people fighting over the patio furniture selection imo.