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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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

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[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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