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[quote=Anonymous]Hello, I was once the new GF of the recently divorced dad and competition was definitely what I witnessed.

For the record, I had nothing to do with the marital breakup, I barely knew him at the time and she cheated and left the marriage. I got together with him shortly after the divorce was final but it didn't last because I was more attracted to his kids (the opportunity to stepparent them) than to him and when I realized his parenting style was entirely incompatible with my values I left the relationship so he could find a like minded woman.

He was in a constant competition to give his kids more - more stuff, more fun experiences, more freedom/lack of structure or discipline in order to be the parent they preferred over their mother.

It was really gross and as you can imagine, was having no good influence on the kids. Kids whose parents compete like that end up learning quickly that they can manipulate parents against each other to get anything and everything they want. It's a bad way to raise kids.

The only thing you can do is ignore it entirely, don't engage. You can listen to what your kids tell you about time and activities with dad and his GF, but don't go down a path of comparisons. Work hard on this because it's a really big parenting fail to nurture manipulative tendencies in your kids - ALL kids have them, it's a human nature thing, but the chief obligation of parenting is encouraging the formation of good character and this is really critical to healthy adult relationships in all spheres.

Good luck, it sucks.[/quote]

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