Early days but do I let him down?

[Awomanneedingadvice]

Hi,

I posted on here around Christmas time about leaving my my emotionally abusive partner. It was the best thing I did and since then I have been completely single and working on myself. Mentally I am in a much better place and I have learnt to love myself again but I’m not yet where I want to be with my life in terms of my living situation. I am still at my parents trying to pull together some savings to hopefully buy my own property next year. As you can imagine this is tough on my own in the current climate.

A month ago I went on my first date since my split with a seemingly wonderful man and the connection was incredible. It has been going really well ever since, he seems lovely and so far there are no red flags. He is around 10 years older than me and does have children but I guess everyone has a past. He seems like he really has his life together and I just feel pretty much like a loser compared to him (lovely house, no money worries). This is not the reason I am attracted to him as I was unaware of this all at first and on dates we take it in turns to pay ect. I just can’t help but question why he would want me and I just feel I am going to ruin it by being distant.

My plan was to stay single until I had sorted myself out and I was 50/50 about going on the first date in the first place. I just can’t shake the feeling that he is too good for me.

Would you pursue this with the fact he has children (and I don’t) and the fact I am not where I want to be? Or would I be silly to let a potentially good thing go?

Any advice would be appreciated or some success stories xx

If it's going well then why would you want to finish things? Enjoy it and see how it develops.

Of course he isn't too good for you!

Only you can decide whether you want the additional complications which come with a partner having children and even if you don't object in principle, it may turn out to be too much of a complication with this particular man and/or these particular children. With a man I really liked, it wouldn't have been a deal-breaker for me per se but I never needed to consider it because I never dated a man with children before I settled down and had my own.

As for wanting to stay single until you have sorted yourself out - I understand that feeling. I had to do some fairly radical work on myself in the first year or so of my relationship with now DH and there were moments when I thought it would have been easier if I was doing it as a single person. But I valued the relationship too much to let it go for that reason and just did the work within it.

You mention a fear of ruining the relationship by being distant. If that means you already feel he is trying to rush things and go faster than you want to, then that is a red flag and a reason to end it.

But if you are just assuming that taking things at a pace that suits you will make you appear distant, I would say - don't assume: just take the relationship as it comes, one day at a time and at a pace that suits you and which allows you to do the work on yourself which you want to do. If he is a good partner for you, he will allow you that space and time. If he doesn't, then he's not a good partner for you.

Thanks for the advice so far