dating someone that doesn’t have children

[AHungryCaterpillar]

If you have children and are a single parent do you think it’s unreasonable to not want to date someone that has children? I say that as I’m a single parent but if/when I start dating again I wouldn’t want to date someone that has children, do you think if you have children you are suppose to only be open to dating those with children? People say now I have children I won’t be able to meet anyone without..

I think it's more to do with age, to be honest. You can set whatever rules you want to about who you'll date, but as you get older, more people have children.

I think if I was single and dating with kids I'd feel the opposite. I'd rather date someone with kids as they will be less likely to want more children and if they're a good father to those kids I'd know they would be good with my kids too.

I think you possibly get to an age where most of your dating pool have children. I have dc and personally would rather be single than deal with the drama of someone else's children. Perhaps when I'm older and my kids are off to uni etc I'd be happy to date someone with adult children.

Ultimately I wouldn't care either way as long as they were happy with the fact that I wouldn't be wanting more children.

I would probably consider adult children but they would definitely need to be grown up 18+

I was a single parent. Wouldn't date anyone with children. Also didn't want anymore. Selfishly, I have no interest in trying g to plan my life around d someone else kids and ex and their new partner and everything that goes along with trying to book, say, a holiday or whatever.

I didn't struggle to find dates. Men seemed more offended that I has a good job and financial independence. That seemed to put more off.

I was mid 30s looking for someone of a similar age.

I now have a great dp, who hasnt got kids and is happy not to have them. But honestly I would have been quite happy being single. Definitely would nor have compromised on the kids issue

I was a childless stepmother for 2 years, now have 2 DC along with my stepchildren and if I were ever to split from DH I would never, ever, ever date someone with children again. I'd rather be single. I could list a million reasons but take it from someone on the other side, it's not fun!

YANBU but you might limit your options. As someone who is childfree by choice, I would only want a romantic relationship with other childfree people. It isn't that I dislike children, I just wouldn't want them as a constant fixture in my life - and the relationship is always going to be unbalanced because the partner who is a parent will have their child(re) to put first, whereas you (in a LTR/marriage) will put your partner first.

I wouldn’t have dated someone with children, not because I wouldn’t want to raise someone elses child, but because my son wouldn’t be able to cope with a part time step sibling, so the relationship wouldn’t be able to progress to living together, getting married etc.

I’d 100% agree that dating a man with kids is a bad idea. It’s very rarely a good deal for the woman involved - you either get guilted into being his free childcare or you get let down and forever some second (or 3rd or 4th) to his kids and his ex.

I was a single mum of 3 and I had that much mither with a boyfriend's ex over the kids I vowed never to date anyone with kids. I met my now dh a few months later, 25 with no kids . I look back sometimes and think what on earth did he see in someone 7 years older with baggage ! But it works and 17 years later we are still very happy

I met my DP online, they have no DC. Mine were 15 & 17 when we met. He doesn't want DC of his own but has been amazing with my DC over the last few years (does far more than EX H).

YANBU!

I have teen dc. I was a step mum. I will never ever date someone with dc again and when I finally do start dating again I will be looking for a childless man with no desire for dc.

Older teens maybe, but definitely not school age.
Maybe it’s age? I’m too old for more DCs , my own are almost grown up. I don’t want to go back to little DCs again when I’m starting to get my freedom back.

You can have any rules about who you date you want but ultimately you narrow the field quite a lot looking for someone who has no children and wants no more children but will take on yours. I think blended families are hard work but they can work if approached sensibly.

It’s tricky, I was a childless full time stepmum in my brief ( awful; but not because of stepson) first marriage. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it again.
However, 40 years on with 3 adult children of my own, with families of their own, I’m glad my husband also has adult children as I’m not sure a childless man in his 60’s would “ get” that once a mum you are always a mum, nanny etc and they still need you at times.

It's your right to choose who you want. If you plan on being with this person longterm or marrying, the only thing I would watch out for is a certain type of very independent person who might think that being with someone with kids is great because they're so busy trying to juggle everything. You don't place too many demands on their time because you have kids to attend to. That might work out fine whilst the kids are living with you, but once they've left the nest you might want to spend a lot of time direct time with that person that before they never felt obliged to provide. Just depends on your needs, expectations and personality type really.

It’s not unreasonable, no. Other people’s children and their hassle are generally unappealing. The problem is, you’re looking for somebody who doesn’t think that way and the pool of men who don’t have children, don’t want children, but are happy to be in a relationship with somebody who does have children would be quite small, I’d imagine. I’m childfree and wouldn’t date somebody with DC because I don’t want children in my life at all, which I’d imagine is pretty common among people who don’t have and don’t want them.

There's no other category where you'd be only expected to date people in the same category so why should it apply to single parents.

If you're a banker, you can date a dentist.
If you're British you can date an American.
If you're Sikh you can date a Christian
If you're child free you can date someone with kids
If you have kids you can date someone child free.

I met dh and i had dc. He didn't. If he had I would have walked away. Exh had dc and far faar too much drama!

Well it’s up to you of course. But I felt the opposite when I was doing OLD as a single parent. I wanted someone with DC because 1. I felt that only another parent would understand my life, i.e not able to go out at the drop of a hat, having to put the DC first, and 2. I wanted someone who liked kids, but didn’t want any more!

I did occasionally chat to people online without DC but I felt that, even though we may have had things in common, our lives were at completely different stages.

Then I met my now DH, and 7 years later we are a very chaotic but happy blended family. It works for us!

I always used to say I would rather date someone with kids because they would understand what it was like to be a parent. Then I met DP who doesn’t have DC, and he has been amazing with my DS. Now if we were to split, or if I could turn back time I would never date anyone with children.

I’ve seen too many situations where there were children involved where things just haven’t gone well to ever think that trying to blend families is a good idea.

And tBH it has to go both ways. I absolutely wouldn’t want a relationship with someone with kids, but neither would I expect a man to date me given I have kids, it would be perfectly acceptable for a man to not want to date me as much as it would for me to not want to date him if he had kids. Iyswim.

I think it's very easy to have all sorts of rules of like this until you meet someone you really like and it all goes out the window!

It's up to you who you date. The more people you discount the smaller the pool but no point in settling for someone you don't want.

Personally I only wanted to date people with children (preferably around the same age as mine) because I'd worry that someone who has never had children won't understand the role they play in my life. I have a family member who paired up with a man who never had kids of his own and it is obvious he is jealous of the attention she gives to them.

That said, the blended family issue can be tricky if the relationship becomes serious.

I dated someone with kids and he was a total Disney dad to them and tired to be strict etc with mine. Amongst other things so that was ended. I decided to stay single and casually date so the kids were unaffected by a man coming into our home.

3 years later I met my current partner, no kids - doesn’t want own (I’m too old now) and all very happy. Don’t want to live together - he has his own home as do I, I have 4 kids though so a houseful - older 2 are late teens early 20’s