Reply to Divorced dads with kids under 18 shouldn't date women without kids

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Just an anecdote but I saw this go down with a family friend. He divorced his “horrible” wife then took up with a much younger woman who did not want kids. He thought his kid would adore her, too. Well, his kid, now an adult, doesn’t talk to him. it came down to his kid or the younger hot wife and he chose the younger hot wife. His own family of origin doesn’t like what happened and now he’s estranged from them, too. So he lost quite a lot for the young hot wife who did not want kids.

I think when anyone dates a divorced parent they need to really do some soul searching and consider what they’re walking into. And the parent, if they care about the other relationships in their life, needs to accept nit everyone will love their new spouse as much as they do. [/quote]

I think many adult men are very naive about relationships. Both romantic relationships and parent-child relationships. I think one reason you often see adult men making choices that damage their relationships (with their own kids, with their ex/co-parent, with girlfriends, etc.) is because they often just have not been socialized to think empathetically about how their choices are going to feel to the other party. Women tend to be much savvier about this.

I watched this with my brother and his divorce. His ex (my former SIL) just better understood how the divorce, and any subsequent relationships by either party, was going to impact their kids and their co-parenting situation. She was a lot more cautious about dating, really good about communication, intuitively understood how to navigate certain boundaries. My brother, while being well-intentioned, did not. He kept doing boneheaded things that any woman would have been able to tell him were not smart, creating drama, and then having to resolve it. Like he would introduce his young kids to pretty much any woman he dated immediately. He got into a relationship with a woman who also had a kid and then when she suggested the kids start referring to each other as "brother and sisters," he was like "okay sounds good" even though this relationship was months old, the divorce was only a year old, and he hadn't discussed any of this with his ex. When his ex found out through the kids (never a good way to share this kind of info), she was actually very mature about it and set up a time to talk to him and ask for some ground rules regarding introducing kids to SigOs and other boundaries (she was also dating but much more cautiously and only when my brother had the kids). My brother immediately was like "oh yeah, that makes sense, sorry" but then when he relayed this to his girlfriend, SHE flipped out about feeling like she was being told what to do by his ex. In the midst of all of this, the kids were all very confused and jerked around.

It was exhausting to watch and be supportive of him through this because so much of it was totally avoidable by just *thinking* before acting. Like take your new relationship a little slower. Talk to your co-parent about anything major that will impact the kids (including pretending your GF's child is their new sibling). Learn to explain things to various parties without blaming any issues on someone who isn't there (blaming his GF when talking to his ex, then blaming the ex when talking to his GF). Make decisions about the kids before telling the kids about the decision. Etc.

I sense a lot of men are like this and that's why there are often a lot more issues with divorced dads dating than divorced moms dating. I just think the moms tend to be thinking ahead a bit more and using social skills to ease these awkward situations, and the dads... not so much.[/quote]

Moms generally don't want to have more kids, so they're more invested in their existing family structure with their ex.  Men are more open to starting over.  Their biological clock is longer and they generally do less of the parenting work anyway.  Typically women are not tolerant of playing a secondary role to a first family.  Most women would never marry a man with kids in the first place.  The ones who do are naive and have unreasonable expectations.  They either earn through experience and become miserable and leave, or their husbands decide they do not want to live with a miserable wife/life, nor do they want to go through the shame, financial hit, and logistical challenges of a second divorce, so they end up prioritizing their second wife/family. [/quote]

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