mortensorchid Posted November 18, 2019 Posted November 18, 2019 Hmm... A dicey situation to be sure. I am facing this possibility myself as I started seeing this man about 2 months ago - he is divorced with 3 kids. I have jot met his kids yet (2 boys and a girl - ages 11, 9 and 6), but he has told me many a tale of his ex wife (how she started hitting the bottle and cheating on him, plus how she paraded her bf before the kids and this and that happened, etc.). I anticipate that I will meet his kids someday but not pushing it by any means, I said if he wants to spend more time with me (he has the kids every other weekend) I will join in on the kid activities if and when. Meet his ex wife? I imagine I will. Be polite to her, as I plan to be if and when. This is new territory for me as I'm sure it is for you as well.
chillii Posted November 18, 2019 Posted November 18, 2019 Just wondering , was it your divorce or your ex's , her being emotional and all ? And what's your ex's sitch is she seeing anyone, have you met him ? Anyway , glad it went well , good for everyone in that case l guess.
elaine567 Posted November 18, 2019 Posted November 18, 2019 GF met my kids today and it went fantastic; they were really excited to meet her and are already asking "when am I going to marry her?" Now that threw me for a loop. Your kids just want stability so they want to lock this new gf into the family. They want to make sure there is no more heart ache. The fact you were thrown into a loop about making this long term, suggests perhaps you were a bit premature in arranging the meet up with your kids. Keeping the kids separate is for their sake, so they don't get attached before a new relationship is on an even footing. They lost the security of having two ever present parents, you don't want them now to go on a merry go round of Mom and Dad's "current" bfs/gfs... 1
Blind-Sided Posted November 18, 2019 Posted November 18, 2019 (edited) GF met my kids today and it went fantastic; they were really excited to meet her and are already asking "when am I going to marry her?" Now that threw me for a loop. Kids are very observant. They may not fully grasp adult emotions, and relationships, but they know "Daddy" needs to be happy, and yes... they want stability. In my case... my older kid (13) wants to know why I'm not going out at all. She's even gone as far as to tell me that I need to go out. I've told her that making our lives stable is my job right now. ..... of course it depends on the relationship you have with your ex. If either party still holds any feelings for one another, I'd probably advise against it. But in our case it seems to have worked out great. I have ZERO feelings toward the ex. I dropped off my youngest kid last night, and I am amazed how there is simply nothing there anymore. I think it's a combination of her cruelty, her turning into her mom (also nutz) and she is starting to look old. Also... on some level, I feel bad for her new BF, as I've see this with her mother. Anyway... thanks for the outcome on this, and I'm glad it was good for the kids. Oh... how long have you and the new GF been seeing each other? Just trying to get a feel on the time-line. Edited November 18, 2019 by Blind-Sided
Trail Blazer Posted November 20, 2019 Posted November 20, 2019 I was in a similar predicament with my ex-wife and now ex-girlfriend some 15 months ago. We had been dating for six months or so at the time and I had already informed my ex-wife a couple of months prior that I'd been seeing someone new. The only difference between this situation and mine, was that I did not introduce my girlfriend to my ex-wife first. I had informed my ex-wife of my intention to introduce the kids to my then girlfriend, to which she was somewhat unimpressed (by the fact that I was seeing someone else and the fact that I'd planned to introduce the kids to her). When the time came that I introduced my kids, I'd told my ex-wife on the night I'd dropped them back. She got pretty hysterical and told me how inappropriate it was of me to introduce the kids to "a woman I've never met and know nothing about. It's a hard situation as on one hand, why should I have to get approval from my ex? She essentially is being allowed to choose my girlfriend. And, one of the reason why we broke up was because she was a controlling gaslighter who pushed me away. However, I digress... Eventually my ex-wife accepted my new girlfriend in mine and the kids' life. Unfortunately we broke up six months after that. I feel that time has mellowed her somewhat, so, if and when I am at that junction again with another woman, I feel it would probably be best to introduce my new girlfriend to my ex-wife first, before she meets the kids. I'm glad to hear everything went well, rightondude. Good luck with everything and keep us updated.
Author rightondude Posted December 21, 2019 Author Posted December 21, 2019 On 11/18/2019 at 6:53 AM, Blind-Sided said: Anyway... thanks for the outcome on this, and I'm glad it was good for the kids. Oh... how long have you and the new GF been seeing each other? Just trying to get a feel on the time-line. Hey sorry for the delayed response; not on here quite as much since I'm not dating around currently. We have been seeing each other for 6 months. That would ordinarily be too soon for me to feel this involved, make intros to family and all, but this whole relationship has been on hyperloop and progressed rapidly. We've done so much together already. I know, this would appear to be a red flag pace or honeymoon phase or whatever, but all I can say is I think I'm pretty good at seeing such a thing for what it is and recognizing signs of trouble vs serious progression of a relationship. So far so good. 2
Marc878 Posted December 21, 2019 Posted December 21, 2019 Sounds good so far but you do need to understand that no one wants an X in the mix. You'd be smart to keep that in mind going forward.
OatsAndHall Posted December 22, 2019 Posted December 22, 2019 There's really no point to this, from a practical standpoint. You ex-wife can't demand that the kids not see your girlfriend is she dislikes her so she's creating a zero sum game here; no one wins, either way. If she's kosher with your girlfriend, then great, everyone moves on and there's no muss, no fuss. If she has an issue with her, then she stirs up drama for you, your girlfriend and the the kids (potentially). But, at the end of the day, you're still seeing your girlfriend, she's around the kids and your ex-wife has to deal with it. The only real change she could affect would be to make your girlfriend uncomfortable enough to rethink dating you. My ex-wife's ex brought some seriously shady women into my former stepsons' lives but there wasn't anything we could do about it. There wasn't to be any drinking (or drug use, obviously) around the kids and her ex and his gf's always toed that line so there was no legal recourse we could take. We found out one of his gf's was drinking around the boys (Facebook pic) and tried to take him to court for violating the parenting plan. Absolutely nothing came out of it; the DA wouldn't look at it.
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