Moving in a DP? What shd we discuss before? (Have DC)

[xpatmama]

Soooo things going v well with DP. Will be a year in October.

We're discussing him moving in sometime next year e.g. Next summer.

I have 2 young DC and own my house. He doesn't buy is pretty well paid.. I co parent with my ex...

All kinds of financial and other issues to work out!!! What do we need to cover???

I think you have to approach this as a trial period. For finances I'd suggest avoid going the joint account route initially. Carefully work out some budgets for household costs, make the contributions proportional to income, agree to set something aside jointly for one-off and emergency expenses but keep the rest separate to begin with. If it's your own home, protect that asset and don't put him on mortgages or deeds etc.

The next one to fix, I think, would be how you share domestic tasks and looking after the children. Big cause of conflict in a lot of relationships and not only worth setting the expectations at the outset, but revisiting them after a few months to make sure promises are being kept. I think it's also important that you know how you're going to approach discipline for your DCs as a team. Getting on with someone's DCs as mum's boyfriend is a different thing to being their step-parent (effectively)

Finally, even though your children are young, I think it's important to include them in as much of this as possible. If you have a good arrangement for finance and domestic tasks, the rest I think you can work out as you go along. Good luck

Agree with all of the above. I'd discuss how he sees himself interacting with your dcs. He may imagine being a co parent or completely removed- you need to discuss this!

Expenses related to your dcs- will he begrudge "extravagant" purchases, will your money be completely seperate? If seperate, how will you pay for joint purchases?

What have you agreed on the parenting front? IMO, once you move in with someone who has DC, you become a step-parent. It's possible for people to decide that's not for them and move in on an alternative basis, but IME that hardly ever works out. It's an all-or-nothing scenario, because you can't possibly share living space and domestic arrangements without forming some kind of relationship with those under the same roof. With children anything less than real commitment can cause serious friction and damage relationships.

As long as he understands the enormity of what is expected of him, you have similar parenting styles and you're both fully on board with this, your other co-habitation issues are the same as any other couple really - financial balance and the split of domestic labour.

Good luck.

Thanks, lots to think about!

he is really great with the kids, but is more of a 'super uncle' if you see what I mean. IE we need to work out how he'd move into being more of a 'step dad'. i've discussed this a bit with him. he's had stepdads himself so he understands the challenges.

He is an extremely generous person, it's more that I have to stop him buying the kids stuff!

he's someone I've known for a number of years, even if we've only been together since last October..

I think you're right Cogito that we should start with a kind of trial period.

The question really is how much he contributes financially to kids/ balance with how to work out the issue with the house. That last point is complicated, because if we got married eg then I guess the idea would be that we share assets, even if perhaps I protect some part of mine..

situation is strange because he earns more than me but I have more capital assets.. i guess it's all just talk, talk and more talk!

" if we got married eg then I guess the idea would be that we share assets"

Not necessarily. Marital assets are usually deemed to be things acquired post marriage. Whether you own the property outright or whether there is a mortgage, there is no requirement to make a future husband a joint owner. Pre-nuptial agreements are becoming more popular for 2nd time around marriages especially when there are existing children who need their inheritance protecting. However, even with one of those in place, as time wears on and a spouse contributes towards the upkeep of the home etc then their claim on it increases. Should you sell the property and buy somewhere new jointly then it's a marital asset unless you've made another agreement about your share of the cash.

My home is worth a huge amount of money, I have one DS and, if I was ever to consider getting married again, I'd feel obliged to protect the asset - however lovely the man :)