Reply to Economics of Dating a Divorced Man w/ 2 noncustodial kids

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I am married a previously divorced man. He does not pay his ex alimony, but did provide child support and is now paying for college. Step-kids are 18 and 20, and we have 5 year old twins together. My salary does not go towards child support/college costs, but it definitely impacts our family budget and the choices we make for our whole family. I love my stepkids to pieces, and have no regrets about marrying a man with children at all, but there are a lot of things to consider before you jump into this. The combination of having step children and having a large family can be very challenging. Time and resources are limited, and it's hard to balance it all.

Some things I had not really considered when I was dating DH:

-we had to buy a house with enough room for a family of six, and within close proximity to older kids schools and their mother's house
-we have to have a car big enough to fit everyone
-we are taking a vacation with just the two five year olds this year for the first time because the college aged kids have a different spring break (don't worry, they are going on great vacations during their own spring breaks), and it's crazy how much cheaper/logistically easier it is to travel with only four of us
-having older kids/teens and babies/toddlers at the same time is HARD, especially for my husband who was extremely careful to continue spending a lot of time with the older kids, he didn't want them to lose out because we chose to have more kids. DH has limited time off, and if stepdaughter had a volleyball tournament, he would go to that (rightfully!) and I would be home with the babies, DH and stepkids went on several ski weekends away (as they had always done) etc. OF COURSE I support him spending time with kids, but it can be tough to balance and it's hard not to feel a tiny bit resentful when you are home with the little kids and he is off doing fun things with the older kids. It's gotten a lot better now that the twins are old enough to do fun things with, we have had a lot of great family adventures and trips, but it's hard to find things to that interest everybody.

[/quote]

I'm wondering if his older kids lived with the mother, as that all sounds excessive.  Our situation was the every other weekend visit so didn't impact our house or car decisions. We had our own young children so we did take our own vacations.  His older child was either in school or went with the mom to visit family so never a issue.

When he was a teen the mother got tired of his attitude, and tried to get us to take him full time.  Since she wanted full custody to begin with we weren't going to play along, plus it wouldn't have worked. When she found out I was pregnant she promptly took us back to court for more CS.  It all backfired on her, she only received $40 extra a month.  We chose never to fight with her, simply disengaged from all her antics to where she didn't have a choice but to leave us alone.

My advice would be to find someone without kids, and remember the ex could also be a problem.  All different situations, but since you don't have kids I would move along.[/quote]

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