After a divorce, dating can be complicated and exciting; add children into the equation and you’ve got yourself a whole new set of factors to consider.
So you’ve made it through the months of negotiations and waiting period and made it to the finalization of your divorce. You’ve worked through, or at least examined, the issues that you contributed to the ending of your marriage and you’ve grown from the experience. Now, you are feeling strong enough, and confident enough, to date again. The world of dating has most likely changed since you were single. People move faster and dates are often not as romantic as they used to be. As we grow older, our expectations change, our tolerance for drama and games diminishes, and we tend to judge from the start whether or not we can see ourselves with a person long term. Throw into this menagerie of factors the presence of children, and the idea of dating takes on a whole new meaning.
Things to Consider When You Have Kids
When you’re coming out of a marriage with children of your own, one of your main goals is to protect your children from further heartache and pain. This is something to consider when you enter the dating world. As a rule, it is best to keep the two lives separate to spare your children from confusion and from becoming attached to someone whom you barely know yourself. It is in children’s nature to let people in, to open them up to meeting new people and find the positive. This can be dangerous if you have just met someone and are bringing them around your family when one parent has left the picture (even if the divorce is amicable, one parent is not present when a new “friend” comes into the home.) As a rule, when you are out in the dating environment, wait a while and get to know a person one on one before introducing him or her to your children because you would not want to take another person out of their lives at such a precarious time.
Once your kids are introduced to a new person, it is also important to consider the boundaries that you set for yourself and the newcomer. Do you want to show affection in front of the kids or keep things on a friend level when they are present? Would you want them to see the other person only during the day or for overnight stays? Remember that you are modeling dating behavior for your kids for the first time, because up until this point they only saw a married kind of love or relationship interaction. Also, be aware of how you want your new friend to interact with your kids. Things to pay attention to are tickling, giving hugs, or being alone with the kids. If this new person has children of his or her own, much of the same issues will be running through their head…
Blending Families: This Can Get Sticky
As exciting as it may seem to introduce your children to “built-in” new friends, there are a slew of important decisions to make when blending families. If you have already discussed the relationship boundaries with your new partner that you will have when the children are around, then the next step is to discuss the progression of the relationship between the children. If you jump right in to the kids being together all of the time, things can get very serious very quickly. Your new, fresh dating life can turn into a “family” style relationship before you even realize it, and this can jeopardize the growing attraction between yourself and your new love. Hopefully, you have spent an ample amount of time together before you introduce the children, but even in that case there is still of risk of relationship shock.
My mother told me, after my divorce finalized and I began dating seriously, that the hardest part of dating after divorce is blending families. She could not have been more right. She knew from experience that when two families come together there is bound to be two sets of rules, two ways of dealing with discipline, and two ways of expressing love to the children. Some things to think about are: What role will you play in the children’s lives? New friend? Confidant? Distant acquaintance? You are bound to find yourself feeling emotionally tied to the children the more you spend time with them. Also, what will you do if your kids get attached to their new friends and your new love interest? If you get into a fight, how will you handle the children’s connection? The worst thing you can do is to create a new “family” environment, only to rip it apart when you and your new friend start feeling overwhelmed. This being said, children are very resilient and can overcome what hits them much easier than their parental counterparts.
The Next Step
So you’ve been dating for a while and have decided to create strong friendships between your children, or you have allowed a new person to play a major role in your child’s life…At this point, you may feel nervous or apprehensive to get too comfortable. In my experience, this is to be expected. The issues that occurred in your marriage may be creeping into your thoughts, causing you to worry, “What if this doesn’t work?”
To keep from self sabotaging your new relationship, try to remember how far you have come since your divorce. Remind yourself that you have changed to be better; better at relationships, and better at being yourself and being alone. Most importantly, do not allow the growing family situation overshadow your partnership with the new found love. Often in marriages, the dating feeling dies and things become stagnant. This is the last thing you want to happen in a relatively new relationship, especially if it is caused by the everyday-ness of including children in the picture. Go out on dates regularly, do things without the kids, even if it means you pay for a sitter and go on a “free” date. Make yourself and your new love number one priority, because in the end, you are showing your children what love should look like when they grow up.
