dads

Hey Single Dad… 5 Signs The Single Women You’re Looking At Are Actually Interested

August 17, 2018

Dating for a single dad can be challenging. On the one hand, you want intimacy and fun. On the other, you’ve got kids and they make things more complicated. Fortunately, single women usually like kids and are actually interested in being a child’s confidante. This means, keep your chin up! 5 signs the single women you’re looking at are actually interested in you will give single dads a head’s up on how well they’re being received and what to look for.

Dating a man with kids is often super fun for single women. Not all women, sure. But for the majority, our DNA is wired to take care of others. Children included. You’ll know she’s into you by the way she responds (over and over again).

Let’s take a look at the obvious signs: she shows an interest by smiling, laughing with you, dressing up, and being pleasant. All the things we do when we’re interested in another person. But then there’s the interest in your children, the inquiries about their lives or the concern about how they’re doing.

On a cynical level, I believe we all show up super sweet, smiling, laughing, pretty or hot, pleasant, interested, concerned, and nice during the beginning stages of dating and building a relationship. Why else would any one of us stay involved with anyone else otherwise? This is where things get confusing.

The single dad declares, “She really likes my kids!” Please excuse my scorn, but, like… duh!? You wouldn’t be dating her otherwise. BTW this is the same for single moms dating single men too. To be clear, don’t you think you wouldn’t, or maybe you shouldn’t, date someone who doesn’t like your kids?

However, dating a man with kids is not the stuff of movies and storytelling. Families are complicated and it’s not easy to blend a family into one unit. The challenge of being a single father is finding a woman who not only adores you but also one who can handle the obstacles all blended families go through on their way to becoming a united family.

I grew up in with 5 step brothers and sisters. They were older than me and didn’t live at my home with their father, my step-dad. My dad and my step-mom also had a daughter. Altogether, there were 12 kids. None of it was easy. The age differences were broad and we, fortunately, did not all live under the same roof.

Growing up in the Brady Bunch era, I had fantasies we would all get along. But that’s all it was – fantasies. The older kids had their own lives and several never bonded with my mother. When my step-dad passed, most of those step-siblings went on with their lives. Sure, wounds were opened but my mom is a tough gal and she carried on with those who wanted to share their lives with her.

Talk about some tough love.

But in order to grasp the amount of emotional stuff kids bring with them, we have to develop a thick skin. All children resent sharing their parents. So why should a new lover or step-mom be any different?

I say all this to single dads (and moms) as a way of giving you a head’s up. She’s interested but is she aware? You’re interested but are you prepared? Here are 5 signs the single women you’re looking at are actually interested:

She likes that you still like women and you make her feel good

Men who like women treat women right. They’re not stereotyping all women into a cookie cutter mold that looks like their ex-wife. By letting women show up as they are, it allows single dads to find healthy, fun women.

Women want to feel good around a guy so single dads need to have things in perspective before settling into a long-term relationship. Guys who don’t feel great about themselves or about women in general (usually that’s a sign of unhealed trauma) need a little more healing time before they settle down.

You’re a single dad who’s fun and adventurers.

You enjoy doing new things and you enroll your kids in joining you. You’re able to manage your kids’ moods and are able to keep yourself in check. These skills will entice a woman into falling in love with you. Most women can handle kids, they just can’t handle all the responsibility of parenting them. So if you’ve got this figured out, that single woman is going to find you very appealing!

You’re expressive instead of withholding.

This goes hand in hand with a man who’s done some healing work. Women, especially single women, want to emotionally process and get to know who you are today. They want to know about your relationship with your kids and how your day goes. If you’re the kind of man who’s unable to express his feelings or unable to talk about his day, you might have a more difficult time finding a single woman who can take on you and your children in one fell swoop.

But if you’re the type of man who can engage in a conversation, express feelings, and allow her to talk (while you listen); if you can just hold her while she verbally expresses herself and give her room to feel her feelings while you step into yours, then you know she’s into you.

She lets you do the things you need to do without pressuring you

Single women have become used to being independent. You may find if she’s really into you that she lets you do your thing without pressuring you. This is huge for a single dad who’s balancing parental duties with dating.

At first, this may seem contradictory but it really isn’t. Single women need down time too. They want girl time, primping time, time to work out. By letting you do the things you want to do (with your kids) without her pressure, she’s also setting herself up for the personal time she needs to feel good about herself and her life too.

She makes sure you include your children in the things you’re doing together.

A woman who’s secure is going to be willing and able to include your children in her life without making too big a deal about it. Sure, you welcome her company and perhaps even another set of eyes. But more importantly for someone dating a man with kids, she wants to be with them. She also likes being with them when she’s with you. This is huge and valuable. You really can’t be with a woman who doesn’t like your kids no matter how cynical I may be. That kind of single woman is one to hang onto.

Dating a man with kids, she doesn’t force herself onto your children.

This is one of the most difficult and most important steps to take note of. Does she let your kids live their own life? Is she secure enough not to have to be with them whenever you are? Does she use your kids’ affection as some measure of your commitment to her? Be careful here. Too many single dads have gotten themselves into trouble because a woman pressures your kids to do things with her that they don’t want to do.

Dating a man with kids is complicated and at times confusing. Many women you’ll meet will want to be in a family dynamic. The challenging part is reading the signs that she’s ready and able to be in a healthy relationship with you and your children. As you grasp her intentions and read the signs, you’ll be better able to find the right partner for you and your family.

Laura Bonarrigo is a Certified Life Coach and a Certified Divorce Coach. Laura’s a writer, public speaker and the founder of doingDivorce™ School an online coaching program for those ready to shed the pain of divorce. For empowering and practical ways to lose the identity of your past, visit www.doingDivorceSchool.com and laurabonarrigo.com.

Adjusting To Being A Single Dad When You Are Miserable (And Missing Your Ex)

May 10, 2018

Sometimes it doesn’t matter who wanted out. Adjusting to being a single dad when you are miserable (and missing your ex) is tough. There’s this enormous amount of pressure from kids and frankly, from yourself, to do things the way their mom did. However, way too often, no matter how much you try, your kids still find a way to criticize the efforts you’re making. Which is why adjusting to being a single dad can be particularly lonely and isolating. Nothing seems to go right and it’s tough to reach out for help and to get the right kind of support needed to smooth out this period of time.

Kids have a way of scrutinizing the best of parents.

It’s not that they don’t want you to succeed, they simply see the struggle, the differences, and zero in on your lack of confidence. They, like, you, aren’t comfortable with all the changes in the family and lifestyle. They can’t grasp heartache to the extent you can. They’re also not well-equipped with a sense of compassion or an understanding of the amount of effort you’re making to get their lives running smoothly in the right direction.

The task in front of you is real. How to adjust to being a single dad and manage the emotions coursing through you? That ex, no matter what happened, also was a familiar presence in your home. She didn’t leave just to make your life miserable (even when she did). In the big picture of things, she left so that you could figure out how to step into your independence. The gifts? A chance to grow. An opening for a re-do halfway through your life. An opportunity to build a new relationship with your kids dependent upon what you and they want. No mothers allowed!

In the midst of the changes are the feelings.

It’s frustrating to be angry and miserable at the same time. It can be confusing to be missing someone who wanted to leave or who made your life difficult. And it’s confounding to still be physically attracted to someone who just blew up your home.

Many men even argue they don’t miss her and don’t want her back. But yet, they begin searching for a new lover long before they’re emotionally healed or ready to give wholeheartedly to a healthy partner. So I argue, covering up that hurt, shame, and loneliness with a new girl on your arm only makes matters worse, not better. The confusion of conflicting emotions just doesn’t make adjusting to being a single dad any easier.

A bad marriage rips apart parents’ roles. Moms trash dads and dads become super insecure and defensive. I see this over and over again. As a mom, I wasn’t able to support my own children’s father either as he forged ahead to create a new lifestyle with my kids. A life without me. No matter what he thought or felt about me, adjusting to being a single dad was difficult and confusing to him and to my kids. I know, because my kids told me.

However miserable adjusting to being a single dad when you are missing your ex is, it gives you a real chance to change the course of your future.

It sets you up to get in touch with feelings you’ve probably shoved down with food, alcohol, cigarettes, and sex (sometimes for years). It allows you to home in on the parts of you that are undeveloped and needing some maturing up.

This looks like showing up for your kids as the kind of adult you want them to become. Teaching them how to develop resilience in the face of fear or disappointments. Being there for them when they need a compassionate, warm, and strong presence even when you don’t feel up to it. Reminding them that you’ve got this and together, that you’ll figure things out whether you believe you will or not.

Sure, this appears immense in the face of loss. It’s difficult when you’re missing her and they’re crying for their mom as you’re trying to put them to bed on the nights you have them. It’s awful when you go to pick them up on your weekend but the kids don’t want to come with you or they hang up on you when you call to check in.

I remember being that child.

I recall how my poor dad just seemed to shrink in the face of my tears and how he lost the words to comfort me. This is a normal experience for divorced parents and it’s tough to bear witness to your child’s pain. However, it also provides you a chance to create a different relationship with your kids. To help them bond with you by being there for them in the role of being their parent no matter how you feel inside.

In fact, these feelings inside now have a chance to be expressed. Modeling how you express them allows your child a healthy example of vulnerability. By acknowledging the pain, by expressing your own confusion but delivering the words with age-appropriate statements, you as the single dad, are showing your kids how to handle life’s difficulties.

Separation and divorce bring immense changes into everyone’s life.

It’s not easy to ride out the tough moments without losing it a bit. And lose it a bit you probably should though in a safe space and at the right time. (Instead of hiding behind the pack of cigarettes or another beer.) Some people write others compose, still, others learn to channel their feelings into exercise or something creative in the kitchen.

I find it exciting when the dads I coach teach their kids family traditions. Or when they bond over their mutual enjoyment of rides or activities and hobbies.

All of these emotional experiences are normal and natural. They make sense only in the context of this modern-day rite of passage. How else are you, a single dad, going to forge ahead and make your home life happy without her? How are you going to grieve so you can forgive? Let go so you can have what you’ve always wanted? Figure things out so you can earn back your self-esteem, your self-respect? Never mind let go enough to have an open heart?

If I could leave you with one piece of advice, it would be this: know that you and your children will manage and even thrive if you allow the roller coaster of emotions to go through you without shaming or blaming. As you begin adjusting to being a single dad when you are miserable and missing your ex, you begin your healing from the loss of your family. This is an important and vital step in the experience.

If you find yourself at a loss sometimes, you may want to consider getting my daily inspiration emails. I fill them with hope, inspiration, and perspective. I do my best to help those navigating this rite of passage with more grace and confidence.

Laura Bonarrigo is a Certified Life Coach and a Certified Divorce Coach at laurabonarrigo.com. Laura’s a writer, public speaker and the founder of doingDivorce™ School an online coaching program for those ready to shed the pain of divorce. For empowering and practical ways to lose the identity of your past, visit www.doingDivorceSchool.com and laurabonarrigo.com.

Dating As A Single Dad? Here’s 3 Things To Know Before Introducing Your New Love To Your Kids

March 7, 2018

Single dads, single men, often want to rush into relationships during their separations and after their divorce with such frequency that it becomes a sort of cliche. As a woman, I don’t always get it dating as a single dad. What is the rush? Why rush into a commitment when everything else in their lives is upside down? Children, typically, don’t get it either. Children have the hardest time dealing with their father’s new relationships especially if those relationships are being forced upon them. If you’re a single dad and you’re dating, here are 3 things to know before introducing your new love to your kids.

Here are 3 things to know before introducing your new love to your kids.

Dating as a single dad, please have as much fun and all the sex you want while your kids are with their other parent, but when the children are with you, remember this: they need to be your #1 priority. You need time to re-build or re-create your relationships with them away from their mother before they’re capable of welcoming someone new into your life.

Your children need to trust you again; to know that no matter what happens, you’ll be there for them unconditionally whether they push it or not. (I never said this was going to be easy!)

1) Single dad, those kids of yours want and need your attention.

Your kids know that trust is earned, it’s not rewarded. They’ll dole out trust carefully. You can’t expect them to trust someone they don’t know (especially if you’ve raised them well!) and this is where your feelings could get hurt.

I realize that children are all different, but they’re still coping with your family’s divorce. Bringing someone new into their lives and expecting them to immediately trust this new adult because you’re having sex or are seriously considering marrying them, doesn’t mean your child is on the same page. I recently heard a teen say this about her father’s latest girlfriend: “I’ve met her about 6 times… she’s nice but I’ve spent more time with my bus driver than I have with her.”

2) Your role, single dad, is to parent and to love them.

When children live with different parents, essentially having two homes, there’ll be twice as much stuff they’ll have to deal with. I’m often asked what to do with the child who sides with the other parent? My answer is usually, always, the same: love them where they’re at.

As kids, they’re testing, trying to win your attention, your approval. They manipulate and use adults the same way you did! They know what buttons to push and how much trouble you can handle them getting into.

Why rush into a commitment when everything else in your life is upside down?

We’ve all seen enough after-school movies to know what a child will do to get their parents to see them. Your role, as a parent, is to also raise them to be competent, productive members of society. (Ideally, we need children to be competent adults for the good of all). Often your child is simply testing just how far they can push. They want to know how long you’ll back them up. But just as often, kids will sense during the pushing and the manipulating, the needing of attention, whether you still love them. Or not. You know this too. You know that unconditional love is something we’ve all craved; to know that no matter what’s really going on – the amount of trouble or punishment – you still believe in them.

I have spent time in the police department with my son. As a parent, I may not have liked what was going on, but no matter what, I love the man I know my son is capable of being. I let him know that I wasn’t happy about the circumstances but that I had his back and we’d figure it out. Now, I’m not an expert with the police as some parents are, but I do get that my anger only goes so far. Loving my children during the difficult times is way more important than loving them during the easy ones. And any parent who forgets that love is equally if not more important, will lose out in all their relationships.

3) Single dads, your new love will need to be patient.

There’s a lot of truth to having patience. As a child with step-parents, it wasn’t easy to fall in love with my step-dad or step-mom. After all, they weren’t my biological parents. Even though eventually I did fall in love with both of them, at first and for many years, it wasn’t easy.

Dating As A Single Dad? Here's 3 Things To Know Before Introducing Your New Love To Your Kids

Despite the fighting at home, having a new adult in the family was an adjustment. And visiting my dad and his new family was awkward and unfamiliar more often than not. There’s still a formality in my relationship with my step-mom even though I’ve confided in her, sought her advice, and leaned on her for years. She and my step-dad did everything they could for me and my brothers and sisters. We were the lucky ones!

Saying all that, however, I’m still not sure how much love they felt from us. I’m not sure they always enjoyed having my brothers and sisters underfoot, and I’m not positive they always felt wanted and adored. In truth, these things take time to build.

Children have the hardest time dealing with their father’s new relationships

When you bring a new adult into your children’s lives, they have to be the kind of adult that can put kids’ needs first without expecting much in return. Coping with divorce, kids don’t form the same kind of relationships as adults do with their new lovers. It’s an impossible task to Dating As A Single Dad? Here's 3 Things To Know Before Introducing Your New Love To Your Kids expect kids to be able to bond as quickly as you do.

So this new adult in their lives, this new lover of yours, has to be willing to put up with a lot before expecting much respect, love, admiration or even manners in return. We don’t live in a culture where those rules really apply anymore and even if you want your kids to be polite or your family home is strict, be careful of setting yourself up for failure.

If you’re dating as a single dad, don’t rush things.

I watch my children closely. It’s easy for me to remember how it felt when my mom and then my dad brought home my step-parents. To recall how the new rules in each home took some time to learn. Some of us really balked at them which of course just set everyone up for more arguments. It wasn’t smooth sailing for a very long time.

When my kids talk to me about their fathers’ relationship I have to keep a really open mind. I’m not in his home anymore and I don’t know his lover. So I listen from the perspective of an adult who was once in their shoes. They are viewing things from their perspective, not their dad’s. I know it’s tough on them, there are new expectations and new rules. This woman hasn’t earned their trust and they haven’t bonded with her the way he has. Her presence is uncomfortable and confusing.

Trust is earned.

But I also know that over time, if she’s patient and kind they will learn to like her. If she continually shows up for my kids, and their dad is able to put our children first, they will learn to even love her. She will become a part of their lives and share memories with them. Separate from me. I not only know that, I welcome that for my kids.

I always felt that step-parents and new relationships were about having more love in one’s life. (It’s the only way I let my children have a nanny, go to sleep away camp and to go away to college!) It’s the same with new lovers and if you remember while dating as a single dad that your kids are working through their first divorce and new relationships, over time, everyone will experience more love in their lives.

5 Tips For Being A Single Dad To A Daughter After A Divorce

November 16, 2017

Sugar and spice and everything nice you’ve spent months or years imagining the perfect father-daughter moments once you’ve got her alone. Being a single dad, you want calm, respect, and appreciation. You want to be able to tuck her into bed when she’s younger and make sure she remains safe the rest of her life. You want her to be your little girl even when she heads to college, and you want her to have fun and enjoy being with you.

The truth is it’s not always easy being a single dad.

Your daughter is a real person filled with anger over your divorce (even when she advocates the split). She’s a human being governed by hormones as much as she’s ruled by her mind. She’s not always going to revere what you have to say or believe you, and she’ll resist and resent your advice over and over again. After all, you’re the guy who left the image of her perfect family whether or not you wanted the separation.

As your buddies join you on their single dad parenting weekends, you’ll share roller coaster rides and rock concerts. Your daughter becomes the perfect playmate you’ve always wanted up until the moment she can’t deal with another go-cart ride with dad.

The single dad disappointment and rejection.

As much as you want to play with your daughter, keep her safe, and have some fun around school obligations, your daughter has a full life. With everything your kids have going on these days, she, that little girl of yours is your daughter, not your therapist, girlfriend or best friend. She needs herself, a dad!

In today’s world, girls and young women need good men.

The opportunity is ripe for the picking. You are your daughter’s most important male role model and she will seek to marry a man just like you. I think you know that. Most dads want to do their very best. I trust you’ve got your daughter’s best interest in mind. And I know you’re a bit confused at times, overwhelmed, and sometimes lost. So let’s get a few things out in the open and ground those concerns.

When you pause and take a good look at your daughter, you’ll remember what she truly needs from you.

She needs to feel safe. Safety – the #1 concern for girls and women – taps into your DNA. Her need allows you to step into your protective role and gives you another chance to get it right. Above and beyond the playdates, meals out, and shopping with your credit card (some examples of a dad who’s cool to a kid) she needs your protection. She needs to know she can count on you to step in and be there for her when things are tough.

You’ve got to take some time to develop patience and learn to listen rather than simply advise.

Being a single dad with a daughter means you’ve got to listen and give her the space to express herself. That means she needs you to marvel at her emotions and her mind. To watch her display all she has to offer the world without shutting her down or discounting what she has to offer. She’ll be your greatest teacher if you let her. Especially as you let her struggle to find her way and generate her own life on her own without stepping in and trying to help her fix it.

When dads let their daughters figure things out, they teach girls to trust themselves and to trust men.

Girls need to learn to trust themselves and to trust men more these days. Girls who know men who will let them tell their truth and work things out are very, very fortunate. We need dads to do that heavy lifting. It is their job to teach their daughters it’s safe to express their truth, to reach for that goal, to fail and recover. It’s dads who watch just how much to push, how much to guide, how much to listen. After all, you’re raising a future wife and mother; a future employee or CEO. We need women who appreciate men and want to lead, not women stuck and uninterested in growth.

The superficial duties of parenting often get in the way of these deeper lessons.

Being a single dad to a daughter, you’ve got to manage the day’s schedule, fit in the obligations – practicing instruments, going to sports practice, rehearsals, and tutoring while fitting in homework, meal times, and a bedtime routine. Those duties (which if you mess up, will be criticized by your daughter’s mother) usually overrule the deeper moments. After a day of running around, it’s way easier to numb out in front of a TV or to fill an hour with another playdate. I advise you to slow your lives down. Nothing is more important than simply listening and being there for your girl. (News Flash: this goes for those adult women you’re interested in too.)

A frazzled man doesn’t feel safe.

As sweet as she is, your daughter can’t right your world. She needs you steady and calm. You’re the one who’ll have to find some outside support – a men’s group, a coach, a therapist who gets it.

In order to get the respect and calm you desire, you have to be that calm, centered, respectful single dad.

Do yourself a favor and grieve your separation so you can let up any of the guilt about the choices you’ve made. The stronger and more independent you become in your role of being divorced, the easier it’ll be for your relationship with your daughter (and her other parent). You’ll become more comfortable with your choices, more confident with your decisions.

It won’t always be perfect, and anyway, you know there isn’t perfection. You’ve got to step away from the drama of your divorce fight; step out of the old dynamic with your daughter’s other parent. Remove the story of self-righteousness and fear. It starts with trusting yourself and relaxing into the truth. Become the kind of man you’ll want your daughter to marry.

Laura Bonarrigo is a Certified Life Coach and a Certified Divorce Coach. Laura’s a writer, public speaker and the founder of The Better Divorce and doingDivorce™ School – online coaching programs for those ready to shed the pain of breakups. For empowering and practical ways to lose the identity of your past, visit www.doingDivorceSchool.com

The Biggest Problems With Dating After Divorce When You’re A Dad

October 20, 2017

Dating after divorce when you’re a dad is different than simply preparing your heart for a new relationship. The problem is knowing how to balance your care and concern for your children with your emotional needs to be in a relationship with another adult. You have to heal from the legacy of wearing the Scarlet D.™ It’s not just about dating and it’s not just about being a dad. There are big problems with dating after divorce when you’re a dad that you’ll want to understand so you can help your children and help yourself.

You’re allowed to date as a divorced dad.

As an adult, you want intimacy, whereas most kids, don’t want to share their father with another person, period. There are times when getting on the bench is useful – especially at the beginning of your separation and divorce. While, at other times, when the family has regrouped and the bonds between you and your kids are stronger, you may find that you’re all ready for you to date. Ready or not, introducing your kids to a new partner is tricky and has its own etiquette of dating after divorce!

When do I bring a new lover into our life?

As a parent, the shame and stigma around divorce are what you must heal in order to wisely bring a new partner into your life and into your heart. If you don’t, the legacy goes with you into your new relationship. It colors how you can love, how you can trust. It will permeate how you interact with your kids’ mother and how you will introduce your kids to someone you finally can intimately love – when you do. Your family is worthy of a happy, emotionally healthy father. You’re worthy of sharing your life with another emotionally healthy adult who you can have in your children’s lives.

It goes without saying though that dating after divorce with a child is more complicated than dating as a bachelor.

When you are ready to date, you may try to keep your dating (and having sex) on the level of previous bachelorhood behavior (sneaking around during the day, in between work appointments or late at night) or when the kids are with their other parent. But at a certain point, that person you’re having sex with is going to begin asking for more and wanting to enmesh themselves in your life. You won’t be able to simply have casual sex without the demand and need for commitment. Commitment as a parent means, introducing your children to your lover. This is when things get more difficult.

How you introduce your children to your lover as a divorced dad takes quite a bit of finessing. You’re going to want to be thoughtful, strategic, and committed. When it comes to introducing your kids to a new partner after divorce, it will not serve you or them to have your children meet a casual lover or simply a friend with benefits.

The last thing your children need to do is to get to know your friend with benefits.

When you work on your own healing, you give your children an enormous gift. If you don’t do your work, if you bring someone new into their lives because you need any woman or man to help you feel whole, you’re setting yourself up to have that person leave. Even years down the road. As a result, your children will be left with even more work to do on themselves.

Passing on the legacy of pain.

Statically speaking, unfortunately, your children will also suffer a divorce working through the issues that you refused to do when you could. No amount of sex or the comfort of another adult in your life can take the place of the kind of healing your heart and mind must go through after divorce. This is a big mistake most people make. Instead of doing their own work, parents leave their kids the legacy and scars of their divorce to clean up for themselves.

Your children are already dealing with their first divorce.

They too are grieving the loss of their family. They’re worried about trusting others. They’re nervous about their new schedules and maybe withdrawing from you even during your appointed parenting time. It’s not going to help your children to meet someone you’re casually sleeping with. You want to be sure they won’t lose this person too. When a divorced dad introduces his children to his most recent lover, she has to stick around. If she breaks up with him at some point, the kids will most certainly develop even worse abandonment issues or other relationship insecurities.

So when should you start seriously dating after divorce when you’re a dad?

When you’ve done your work and properly healed your heart and mind. Ask yourself if you can be around your kids’ mother without getting into a fight. Are you able to see her with another man without becoming upset? Can you honestly talk about your life and your feelings with your children without blame and resentments? When your family has adjusted to the new arrangement and everyone is doing well. This doesn’t happen in year one or two… (News Flash: sometimes it doesn’t happen until year six or seven even… just sayin’). Wearing the Scarlet D™ is real and you’ll want to do your healing around it.

Some people feel they can introduce their teenagers to their dates without too many repercussions. Others feel divorced parents should wait to date until their children are at least eighteen. My experience is this: when that lover can show up for you and your family – putting themselves second to being a co-parent to your children – then, and only then, do you introduce them to your kids.

Those lovers…

You see, your lover will want to “play house” with you. They’ll want to help you with holiday shopping and gift giving at birthdays. Perhaps they’ll want to be at your kids’ recitals and baseball games. Then they’ll enmesh themselves in your parenting woes and try to help you figure out how to handle your kids’ mom.

Unfortunately, this is not your lover’s role until they’re properly invited into your family structure. The invitation isn’t simply extended because the two of you have been intimate. Most divorced dads don’t get this and then find themselves with a lover who’s ingratiated themselves into their kids’ lives but who shouldn’t be there. Dads who give away their responsibility to the newest lover in their bed aren’t helping themselves or their family.

Your kids will know this better than anyone.

They’ll let you know they don’t feel comfortable. They won’t want to have your lover spending time with them. They’ll begin to play games and you’ll be put in the middle negotiating terms between your partner and your kids which isn’t fair to you either. This is the cost of forcing or allowing a lover to enmesh themselves without being properly invited into the family. And your children will break you up. Or make your lives pretty miserable replicating the fighting and drama you just left. So be careful, wise, timely and certain before you bring your lover into the role of step-mom.

Patience…

Which is why so many people will advise you to wait for dating after divorce when you’re a dad. They recommend you slow down before you bring a partner into your kids’ lives. I know this is difficult. It’s not about a date or an age, it’s about getting your healing work done. The legacy of divorce is real – your children will be left with the scars – the pain and stigma and shame of your divorce. If you don’t do your work. So do your work. Find good help. Reach out. You deserve a healthy, happy home. And you’ll get there if you allow yourself a chance to learn how.