Caught DTD

[AtSea1979]

So DS (10) walked in. I thought the door was locked, it wasn't. He doesn't want to talk about it. I don't know how much he saw/knows.
I'm not in a serious relationship with anyone, just dating, which I think makes it harder.
How do others DTD as kids get older? Especially when you are in early relationship and don't want to put a guy off by only having sex once a fortnight when DS at his dad's!

OurBlanche yes really, I was 7/8 years old at the time. So stick the books up your arse and your overuse of exclamation marks is very annoying.

Well I don't know about anyone else but I'd be terrified, then panicked, then bloody angry if I woke in the night to find a man I didn't know, and/or didn't know was staying over, in my house in the middle of the night.

And that's without finding him banging my mum.

The responses the OP has received remind me why I don't post any significant questions on this forum - why would anyone asking for advice want to put up with such nasty, sneering invective?

Has the OP been careless regarding locks? Sure, it's a mistake - it happens. Does she need to be mindful of her son's well-being an happiness? Of course. But some of the spiteful fury directed towards her is horrendous - people exaggerating points or plain making things up in order to project their own moral judgements is just totally unnecessary, but then some people can't help themselves. Usually the same collection of people on every thread.

OP: Just be careful with your wee boy. If you are careful and diligent then you can safeguard his well-being and have a rewarding sex life too. It's not a binary choice.

As if being a single parent isn't hard enough as it is...

I get a babysitter Waving and I don't get any time off at all.

I wouldn't bring a bloke back to the house for a shag unless DS already knew him as a friend and as an earlier poster said, the bloke would be sleeping elsewhere as far as DS was concerned if he stayed over. If any shagging took place, it wouldn't be in my bed.

OurBlanche, I would rather have the WTF than the overuse of exclamation marks. I was only asking the questions to try and get a clearer picture of what happened, OK?

I shall remember that and bow down to your superiority on the matter, pilates !

MN always makes me laugh out loud...

I currently rent a spare room in my house to someone, would I want them to come in or vice versa seeing me shag some strange bloke?! No... But I've said they came have boyfriends over and we are adults.

This child, he's 10, from OP's posting history (I checked back to November but it's a bit hard to keep track) it seems she's been Online dating since at least April, is it really good for her kids to see a parade of men in and out of her house in various stages of undress? Factor in that kids may be embarrassed about facts of life....

Far easier for OP to get a babysitter or arrange for kids to be with dad, GPs etc rather than DTD in her house.

Or as someone else says, get a lock and put it on the door! If there had been a lock then this wouldn't have been such an obviously embarrassing situation.

OP, remember that Mn isn't RL and that many of these views are very over the top, verging on hysterical IMO. Anyone would think you'd done something dreadful, reading these responses. You haven't.

Women have sex. Single parents have sex. Single parents sometimes have sex with people they aren't married to. Or people they've only met recently.

I don't think there's anything wrong with any of that and I think you've had a very harsh time on this thread. Get a lock and use it, he'll be fine!

And wrt teenagers, it's harder as they're up LATE and so on but you manage because they go out quite a bit and stay in their rooms quite a bit. Good luck.

I'm single and I have sex sometimes with men who mean nothing to me. I don't think that's something that my junior school aged child needs to know about, along with a whole host of other adult things.

op, parents do have a sex life even with children/teenagers at home. They just have to be discrete. There is a reason it is called a"Private Life". Show your ds some respect and be discrete. If your bf is so desperate for sex that he insists on subjecting your ds to inappropriate behaviour, you need to ditch him(your bf). Your ds will have images of these 'incidents' ingrained in his memory for a very long time.

Bloody hell, the pearl clutching on this thread is ridiculous. What a load of slut-shaming bollocks, dressed up as "but what about the CHILDREN". I feel like I've fallen through a time warp into a clone-ship full of Mary Whitehouses.

"Serious psychological damage"

If a child is horribly traumatised by the idea that their parent can have a mutually enjoyable and respectful sex life then there is definitely other stuff going on. Or, possibly, their sex education has been horribly mishandled by their parents.

pocket I agree psychological damage is going a bit too far but this is OP and a random bloke having it off in both her and her son's home so an intrusion on his privacy.

And her son doesn't want to talk about it so presumably he's upset/confused about the issue.

If her son was fine with the issue there wouldn't be this post and the OP wouldn't be (see couple of pages back) "in tears" over it - the tears are probably guilt and annoyance with herself for not planning it better.

Most people have said a lock on her bedroom door would've solved the problem so why didn't she just do that from the off and plan before DTD like an adult?

Pocket, perhaps you should read the OP's other threads before you dismiss people's concerns as 'pearl-clutching'

Also as I and AF have stated - read OPs back posts which are a bit confused... Seems to be more than one random man in her life right now and that is what may well have confused her son, who mummy is dating/shagging/potential new dad material etc.

I have an ex that has behaved in this way and there is a familiar pattern.

Find man on internet, bring home for sex as soon as possible after meeting, with young child present.

Completely trample over the child's feelings of security and privacy in one of their own homes because finding a 'man', any man is the order of the day.

Then try and involve the child in the new 'relationship' as quickly as possible in an effort to create an attachment and make it harder for the man to leave the 'relationship' once reality kicks in.

Needless to say, it never ends well for child or mother.

A man that will come into your child's home and have sex with you whilst your child is sleeping in the next room after only knowing you a very short amount of time is most definitely not a keeper.

I am not going to judge you for what you did. What I will say though is every man I have met over the last few years post-divorce has wanted to stay over at my home more or less straight away even though they are fully aware I have small children. Some men have put a lot of pressure on.

One guy kept saying he would call over in the evening with a bottle of wine (obviously not intending to drive home.) When I said, where would you stay? he replied, in your spare room? I said, what about in the morning when the kids are up early getting ready for school? No problem, I'll stay in the spare room asleep until they leave.

In other words, as long as he gets a shag out of it, he's happy.

I have learnt it is too much trouble trying to manage work/kids/a social life/a relationship/a sex life and I rarely bother with men these days because it's just a non-starter when you are a single parent unless your ex parents a lot. Mind doesnt sadly.

Spot on Superfly. There does seem to be a lot of confusion and drama.

Spot on superfly.

If a 10yo said they had seen someone having sex I would be obligated to pass it on as a safeguarding concern. Far from the outrage here, it can form part of a wider picture. Seeing mum shag a random once = probably OK. Seeing mum repeatedly bring back randoms, shag them, not protect the child from watching = not OK.

I'm a single parent. Ex has kids every fortnight for one night. I don't have any family support. I manage. I swop sleepover nights with other parents. Even marrieds like a child free night. I would not let anyone stay until my kids had met him and even then it will be months later. It is my private life and it is staying private. When my kids are 18 I don't want them shagging people in their rooms that I've not had the courtesy to meet. It has nothing with clutching my pearls. It would s called respect to my kids and then hopefully they will be the same when they are older in my house.

The OP hasn't explained why the child only lives with their father one night a fortnight.

Is this due to the father being disinterested, logical reasons or something else.

If this was a established serious long term relationship then perhaps I could understand it happened in error. But it isn't.

I only say this as the father would be quite right to be concerned about it.

Finola and penelope God knows I don't like to come over all moralistic and puritanical re a single person (dad or mum) having a sex life. I'm all for single parents having a sex life, my own mum was a single parent (but met my dad when I was 6). But you really need to put your children's thoughts and welfare first in my opinion.

I've lost count of the amount of times that friends' DC when they've been introduced or even get a sniff of a new partner the children can be off creating happy new families and 'new parent' and planning the wedding for their own parent and the new one.

Any man or woman worth his or her salt would wait for sex and any man or woman dating a single parent would be understanding of the fact kids were involved.

Itisbetter raises a good point about how the respect goes both ways eg with teens bringing or not random boy or girlfriends back who the parent hadn't met.

Oh this thread has made me FURIOUS. What a horrible judgemental bunch you are. I am a lone parent because DH died 18 months ago. I was 36 weeks pregnant and had a three year old. They are now five and one. Would one of the smuggy angelic posters on here like to explain what my options are for dating?? Shall I be celibate til they leave home?

No I bloody well will not. Because I have been to hell and back ten times over and deserve some happiness. I have a boyfriend who I have been seeing for a few months. He comes over after the girls are asleep and leaves before they wake. I lock the door. But despite all this there is still a risk they will meet. Unless I cage the kids!!

All you can do is make the best of the cards you are dealt. I used to be one of you smug lot. Now I'm finding a new way. My children are my absolute priority but that does not mean submitting to a life of loneliness.

ALL parents screw up sometimes. Even the smug ones. If you provide your kids with a safe loving upbringing they'll forgive you and get over it.