How soon in new relationship to introduce your kids?
January 19, 2010 by barryk
Filed under Dating & Sex
This conversation comes up often and the feedback I get is mixed. So I figured it would be a great topic for discussion.
How soon after beginning a new relationship should you introduce your kids?
I have been a big believer in waiting until you are sure the relationship is for real. No need to bring someone into your children’s life only to have them gone sooner or later. I have been challanged by others who say they do not even want to begin building a serious relationship until they see how they interact with their kids.
What has been your experience and thoughts on this issue?
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I think the question is HOW MUCH time his kids spend with his girlfriend. The comfort level of the woman being dated should always be taken into consideration first. That aside, if contact is limited in comparison to other female figures: their mom, grandmothers, day care workers and if the guy is not all smoochy smoochy in front of the kids – in other words, that she’s just another female that they occasionally platonically interact with, then I think it’s ok for the kids at any stage of the game. After all, kids have friends too, and those change pretty frequently.
I think the comfort level of the kids should be the first consideration but I agree with Seth. The kids see me with lots of adult friends male and female and they’re fine with that – mostly they ignore them!
They don’t want to see me being sexual so as long as we give an appearance of it being platonic I would be OK introducing them after a month or so. If you’re lucky/ unlucky enough to have a string of partners I’m not sure that is such a healthy thing so would restrict to those people who are likely to be around for a while.
Seth, completely agree with the limit to the over the top affection early on in front of the kids. Good points.
Normal guy makes the important point to make sure you feel like the relationship is going to be around for a while.
The comfort level of the women being dated should be considered 1st? LOL yea right. My son will never meet a women I am dating till I am sure its going to be a serious relationship. I do not want women I date coming in and out of his life. I don’t want him having memories of different women in his life.
When to introduce a new partner to your children will depend a lot I think on the maturity of the children and your relationship with your children. The degree of comfort of the children should be the first consideration.
In deciding to introduce my new partner to my 7 & 11 year old the first thing I considered was how would they react. A few things crossed my mind – how would the children feel if I didn’t introduce them for a lengthy period of time – would they feel excluded, what if I waited until I was certain the relationship would be long term and the children didn’t like him, what was the worst that could happen if I introduced him in a limited way early in the relationship – children have new people come into their lives all the time (friends, teachers, coaches etc). I worried about what would happen if the children did become attached to him and the relationship didn’t last but in the end reminded myself that nothing in life is certain and we would have to deal with that if it happened.
I ended up introducing the boys to my new partner very early in the relationship. The meeting was in their environment so there was a degree of comfort for them. For me the result was positive, I observed positive interaction between my partner and the children which gave me a certain degree of comfort in my new relationship and the children have since been able to build a positive relationship with my partner.
Everyone’s situation of course will be different and the maintenance of a fairly positive relationship with my ex-partner to provide an open, loving and secure support network for the children has I think been key to the children’s acceptance of both of our new relationships.
Hi my husband has just left and we have a 9 year old son, he is going to move straight in with his new love who is a friend of the family and her 8 year old son, who our son knows, when should we tell our son what is happening? I almost cannot believe that they are moving in together straight away as she is only just leaving her husband and the father of her child, I do not feel they are considering the feelings of her son and just being very selfish! But then what do I know!?
If anyone has any advice it would be very much appreciated.