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

[Anonymous]

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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.

Step kid here. To me it's clear they would need to move into a new place. They've already gone through this with mom wherever she's living. And "their house" has been stripped of furniture and replaced with used stuff. I don't see then crying their eyes out about that specifically if it ever became a possibility in tree future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Step kid here. To me it's clear they would need to move into a new place. They've already gone through this with mom wherever she's living. And "their house" has been stripped of furniture and replaced with used stuff. I don't see then crying their eyes out about that specifically if it ever became a possibility in tree future.

They still might not want to move for whatever reason. OP, demanding that teenagers move for you is not a way to get along with them. And your choice of new home will be constrained by proximity to school, so you might not get a home you really like.

[Anonymous]

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.

And as they grow, there are going to be tons of events that fall on "your time" - if you are not in 100%, how are you going to feel about going to the softball championship, followed by him being gone for the daddy- daughter dinner dance, etc....This is not going to be neatly split into nice chunks of time as it is now....

[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.

Or perhaps she is into superficial things and he isn't, maybe because he is spending his discretionary income on things for kids and college funds.

I am a divorced parent (mom). You would probably describe my house as "college group house". We don't have super nice furniture. I am not focusing on our room decor to the point of making our house look like Pottery Barn with candles on the coffee table. But, I am paying for my kids college education from savings in full without loans. I pay for their very expensive extra curricular sports. We have iPads and laptops and have gone on vacation overseas. How my house looks is not a priority. Whether my house is spotless is less a priority than whether I spend time with my kids and "get" them.

[Anonymous]

They still might not want to move for whatever reason. OP, demanding that teenagers move for you is not a way to get along with them. And your choice of new home will be constrained by proximity to school, so you might not get a home you really like.

This is just a ridiculous position. Step kid again. If dad dates this woman for a few years and ends up marrying her they should absolutely move. I agree within the school district, so everyone compromises a little to get to the best situation for everyone in the family. This is how families work. Kids are in junior high so like 7th grade. OP is going to occasionally sleep in a house that gives her asthma attacks for five years, dating this guy but not really living with his family. That will not work.

I mean I get that it is difficult to move kids. But it happens. No alternative is viable in my mind for OP and this guy making it. Which is fine, dump him if all the possibilities are bad. But you can't shadow a family for 5 years with no negative consequences.

[Anonymous]

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.

And as they grow, there are going to be tons of events that fall on "your time" - if you are not in 100%, how are you going to feel about going to the softball championship, followed by him being gone for the daddy- daughter dinner dance, etc....This is not going to be neatly split into nice chunks of time as it is now....

This. Travel sports, OP!! His, and therefore your, schedule will be at the mercy of their activities.

I am a child of divorce, and both of my parents are remarried to people who also have adult children. Holiday scheduling requires a massive spreadsheet that takes into account the needs and preferences of ten adults and sixteen children. It is very, very complicated and nobody gets all or even most of what they want. When a new adult comes in to the system and thinks he or she deserves more consideration or control than anyone else, a lot of widespread anger and resentment tends to occur. Blended families with adult children are really complicated and you will never, ever be free from the responsibility to compromise with his children, their spouses and his ex who is of course their mother. Do NOT marry in if this is not something you actively desire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

They still might not want to move for whatever reason. OP, demanding that teenagers move for you is not a way to get along with them. And your choice of new home will be constrained by proximity to school, so you might not get a home you really like.

This is just a ridiculous position. Step kid again. If dad dates this woman for a few years and ends up marrying her they should absolutely move. I agree within the school district, so everyone compromises a little to get to the best situation for everyone in the family. This is how families work. Kids are in junior high so like 7th grade. OP is going to occasionally sleep in a house that gives her asthma attacks for five years, dating this guy but not really living with his family. That will not work.

I mean I get that it is difficult to move kids. But it happens. No alternative is viable in my mind for OP and this guy making it. Which is fine, dump him if all the possibilities are bad. But you can't shadow a family for 5 years with no negative consequences.

The kids will not at all resent being forced to move for someone who doesn't even want them in her life at all! Come on. "Best situation for everyone in the family?" This is a mess for the kids and a good father would date only people who actually want children in their home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

They still might not want to move for whatever reason. OP, demanding that teenagers move for you is not a way to get along with them. And your choice of new home will be constrained by proximity to school, so you might not get a home you really like.

This is just a ridiculous position. Step kid again. If dad dates this woman for a few years and ends up marrying her they should absolutely move. I agree within the school district, so everyone compromises a little to get to the best situation for everyone in the family. This is how families work. Kids are in junior high so like 7th grade. OP is going to occasionally sleep in a house that gives her asthma attacks for five years, dating this guy but not really living with his family. That will not work.

I mean I get that it is difficult to move kids. But it happens. No alternative is viable in my mind for OP and this guy making it. Which is fine, dump him if all the possibilities are bad. But you can't shadow a family for 5 years with no negative consequences.

The kids will not at all resent being forced to move for someone who doesn't even want them in her life at all! Come on. "Best situation for everyone in the family?" This is a mess for the kids and a good father would date only people who actually want children in their home.

My whole argument over multiple pages here is that in order for this to remotely be successful, OP needs to establish herself as a trusted adult with a meaningful relationship with the kids. I agree that if she does not want them in her life at all that having them move would be ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

These are teenage boys. Do teenage boys really care about having a relationship with or getting attention from a middle aged woman who did not know them before?

[Anonymous]

As a stepchild, I actually think OP has a really healthy attitude. My stepmother joined the family when I was a young teen and went on a rampage "fixing" everything that was wrong about our living style, all the while insisting that we were one happy family and had to be so happy with all the happiness.

That sucked.

OP seems very realistic and clear-eyed, as well as empathetic to the kids. That is a really excellent way to be starting out as a stepmother.

With respect to the house, though -- I think the main concern here is that this guy and his kids would end up putting all the work on OP. While OP is right to be sensitive about changing the house, doing basic hygeine and repairs, and maybe adding some nicer furniture here and there, is hardly that intrusive or disruptive. But my concern would be whether the kids and their dad actually pitch in to maintain a basic level of cleanliness.

With respect to the kids -- I don't think it's realistic for OP to avoid contact with the kids, but I think it's great to take it slowly. While it's OK not to be their best friend, I do think you at least need to be able to have some positive interactions with them, and see how their dad relates to them. They are a huge part of his life, so if you're not part of that at all, you're missing a big part of him.

[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.

Or perhaps she is into superficial things and he isn't, maybe because he is spending his discretionary income on things for kids and college funds.

I am a divorced parent (mom). You would probably describe my house as "college group house". We don't have super nice furniture. I am not focusing on our room decor to the point of making our house look like Pottery Barn with candles on the coffee table. But, I am paying for my kids college education from savings in full without loans. I pay for their very expensive extra curricular sports. We have iPads and laptops and have gone on vacation overseas. How my house looks is not a priority. Whether my house is spotless is less a priority than whether I spend time with my kids and "get" them.

I think you have the right priorities. As a guy, it's hard for me to understand the many posters that think having a perfectly made up house is a necessity. Cleanliness is a must. But beyond that, no. I'd much rather play an extra hour of baseball with my son, or help him on his homework, then spend time ensuring that everything is perfectly organized and clutter free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are teenage boys. Do teenage boys really care about having a relationship with or getting attention from a middle aged woman who did not know them before?

Teenage boys want a relationship with their father. If their father takes up with a woman who has no interest in knowing them in a meaningful way, that threatens the relationship with their father. Whether or not teenage boys can articulate it at the time, what they will likely want in the long run is to not feel like strangers in their dad's home and to be meaningfully incorporated into his intimate life, because that how kids should be (not INTIMATE but you know what I mean, inner circle).

So if this middle aged woman is going to be their father's lifetime companion, someone who their child might one day think of as a grandparent or grandparent like figure, then the good thing for that kid is to try to have a warm, friendly, trusting relationship with that woman. Doesn't have to be a mother-son operation, doesn't have to be best friends. But it needs to be more than, 'that lady my dad has over when we're at our moms who seems to not talk to us much'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Beware divorced guys with sub-par domestic skills. A lot of them want exactly what you fear... a replacement for their ex, to move in and cook and clean and make the house a home. Hard pass!!! Some of these guys will latch on to the first female willing to sleep with them. Don’t fall for it.

If you really like him and it becomes serious, keep your households separate until his kids are grown and off to college. Blended families are HARD. If your relationship can’t take waiting a few years until his kids are off to college, then it sure as heck won’t survive blended family issues.

Yep, take it very slow. Divorced men are divorced for a reason. Question is what was it - cheating, emotionally abusive, or domestically lazy?

Seriously, anyone divorced, male or female, should set off every red flag imaginable. Make sure you know what role they played in their failed marriage, and no matter how innocent they pretend to be, remember it always takes two.

The OP is in her 40s. The pool of never-married men in their 40s (her target demographic) is small, and frankly, their never-married status is also a red flag. Why didn't they ever get married? Immature, sexually dysfunctional, psychologically damaged, got sent to prison, totally focused on career? Whatever the case, if divorced and never-married men in their 40s both raise red flags, then she doesn't have a lot of options, does she?

Or you could take the view that marriages end for a lot of reasons, and the mere fact that it ended does not make that person damaged goods for the rest of their lives.

Being a man is a red flag. What form of toxic masculinity does he exhibit? Laziness, ADHD, abusive, entitled, expects a domestic slave, irresponsible, even violent? Beware of men!

[Anonymous]

Difficult people have difficult lives. If you come to love this man, you both will make it work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op again. Is that a weird idea on my part? That even if we got married I might keep my own place and then just let them keep living however they want in their current house? I just don't think I could live how they live and be happy. But I also don't want to barge in and start demanding their house be run in a different way.

I’m married but dont think this is weird. If I were widowed, I might date but have no interest in sharing a household with a man before my kids are launched.