There really are some extreme responses here, unfortunately I don’t have the quote option but in amongst them are some lovely reasoned responses and I am going to stick with those.
fortunately I can pick whichever viewpoint suits my rob and I choose the realistic logical ones rather than the ones that would stone me as scarlet woman or burn me at the stake if they had half a chance.
I have seen couples with my age kids split , get married and have new babies in the time I’ve been divorced.
over a decade it doesn’t seem fast or inappropriate to me, life goes on.
whilst I’m not in any rush to remarry I don’t think I should stay single ‘until the children leave the nest’.
thats tantamount to saying only married parents should be in relationships.
how many unhappily married people do you know?
how many children are raised in families where the parents argue? Fight? Cheat? Where one spouse has an addiction? where they don’t fight but the tension is palpable and always there?
families where one parent consistently absents themselves for ‘work’ or their hobby?
how many wives do you know who stay with their husbands just because it’s easier, they have more money together, nobody wants to leave the family home? Turn a blind eye to affairs etc because they don’t want to lose face or be alone? Wives who cheat or can’t have sex with their husband because it makes their skin crawl?
why do they get to have a relationship and I have to stay alone wearing widows weeds for 18 years just because I didn’t want to stay in an unhappy relationship ?
are only married men ‘quality men’?
all these married men on the mumsnet threads who text other women , financially control their wives, watch loads of porn etc are the quality ones?
a man who starts a relationship with a single mum is not a quality person?
what about a single dad ? What if he was a widower and met someone new?
would people say he must stay single and never remarry or have a relationship because his wife died?
because him and his children should grieve forever and he should be forever alone?
my kids are pretty well rounded, I’m sure there is an element of them still sad about their parents not being together but to talk about them actively grieving is a huge reach.
when my children are adults and have adult relationships themselves, I am not going to expect them to stay alone forever should their own marriages implode.
I’m not going to set an example that suggests their grief over their parents divorce means that our life doesn’t evolve at all and we keep a man shaped gap at every feast for fear of unsettling them.
nowhere in my posts does it suggest I’ve rushed into a a relationship to retaliate against their fathers own relationship.
there is nothing reactionary happening here.
two people who were poorly matched had children and got divorced.
ten years later the mum is in a relationship and the dad has been in a few relationships during that time. I have not been jealous or trying to shove in some random guy to spite their dad. I thought long and hard about dating him.
I’ve always liked him as a friend, I know his family, his principles and morals, I know he’s a quality person because I know him and I knew him when he was married, before he was married, I know his ex girlfriends, I know his friends, we have multiple mutual friends and we started dating the old fashioned way.
i was not on any date sites and neither was he, both of us were happy single at the time and neither expected to end up in what feels like a potentially serious relationship.
this new man isn’t doing anything wrong, he is not infiltrating their ‘visits’ , they have met him as I’ve said ’in passing’ , initially because they’d left something behind when at their dads and come home unexpectedly and he was with me.
fortunately they already knew about him so it wasn’t too much of a shock but a five minute thing.
subsequently it has been similar occasions, he’s popped in to drop something off/ pick something up, been with mutual friends dropping in and having a cuppa, helped me with some heavy furniture and came to my recent birthday meal, popped in on their birthdays to drop off presents , this is over almost a year.
no sleeping over and no trampling on anything.
he is very clear on the boundaries between my time with my kids and my time with him and my time to be alone or with my friends etc.
as before, he has a lot of commitments etc too so nowhere are we forcing him into the kids’ lives.
I can see why it seems a jump to have him on Christmas but that’s because it’s such a loaded date for so many people.
the Christmas last year with their dad and his gf was unrelaxed because their dad and his girlfriend are much stricter than me, they had no choice but to eat roast and had to wait until a particular time to open their presents and were made to dress a certain way and compelled to sit like stepford kids.
our dynamic is different in my house and that’s the bit they look forward to, the freedom to open presents as soon as we get up, mooch around and because I cook alone they get a lot of time to themselves which they want after frantic school week and highly structured time with their dad.
They have demonstrated on many Occasions that they need this down time at mine which often means them decompressing in their rooms
the holidays are long, the kids have ample days to spend with me. Knowing my kids I know how that will go.
he has two days off during the nearly three week period, and I want to spend some of one of the days with him NOT sleeping over .
I have a chance of sharing some of the day with another adult. It’s my time too.
i spend most of their time at my house on my own downstairs.
i will love not to have to slave over Christmas dinner on my own and then present it to two teens who say it looks disgusting and make retching noises when I bring it out.
we will do crackers etc it feels disappointing to serve up pizza and pasta on Christmas Day to two kids who will wolf it down and then say they’re full and want to FaceTime their friends upstairs.
they say playing games is cringe. They argue over what to watch on the telly so we can never settle on a Christmas film, even if it’s one they both like and the eldest will always get up and leave before it finishes.
i will be literally forcing them out for a walk on the day . They’ve already refused to attend anything Christmassy with me this year, no carolling, no trips looking at Christmas lights , refusing to allow me to any embarrassing high school Christmas events , it’s not the same as when they were younger and we spent December doing lots of lovely events and build up to Christmas, they don’t even want a say in decorating the tree the last few years.
i would like to enjoy my delicious cooking with someone who will also enjoy it and help with the clearing up.
I will have some company and to share some of the day with another adult person who I know to be safe and kind and fun.
i want not be ignored or to feel like I’m forcing my kids to spend time with me just because it’s 25th December.
if I was taking them to visit relatives they’d hate it and would feel a lot less relaxed than spending probably less than an hour with a man they know in their home where they don’t have to be on best behaviour
i want them to feel relaxed in their home and that includes not forcing them to conform to a certain schedule just because of the date but at the same time I am not going to spend most of the day alone when I have a perfectly lovely boyfriend who wants to spend time with us .