Dating in my 40's - help!

[Harrytrotter85]

I'm a divorced single Mum. Kids with me 90% of the time.
I've recently started dating a lovely, kind guy. It seems to be going well so far but it's only been a few months.
He has kids who are with him 50%.

The thing is, I'm realising that dating in my 40's is very different. We are still trying to keep things quiet from our kids at this stage.
We can only see each other once a week, most of the time it's an evening out and often we stay overnight.
I think we are both hoping that it will turn into something more serious, but want to enjoy the dating, getting to know each other stage for a while before we decide if we want to involve kids.
I'm finding the once a week date thing a bit weird. The last time I dated I was in my 20's and we spent all our time together after about a month of meeting.
This feels very different and I'm not sure if it's possible to build a more serious relationship at this very slow pace.

How do others find dating when you both have kids?

Have dates with the kids. It's only the MN crew that find it so taboo.

It’s a massive juggle in all honesty. It’s different to relationships pre kids but it is possible. We snatch time where we can & message between seeing each other. I am current sat waiting for DP to come back from an activity drop & the other week I stood in the rain for an hour watching his DC do an activity just to get some time together.
I’ve done it with 2 different relationships now and only told the kids after about 9 months each time. Even after that most of the time it would be seeing each other without both sets of DC. The DC knowing does make it easier though eg my DP was there when DC were dropped off the other day rather than having to make sure he’d gone.
I have my kids less than you which will make it slightly easier.
What’s difficult is looking into the future as there’s no way for us to combine households without causing massive disruption to the DC which we aren’t prepared to do.
However, I like having time with just the kids, time with my friends & time with DP. So it works for me mostly.

This situation sounds exactly like my life!
It can definitely work; this has been working for me for five years now. We both have kids - his are older teens and mine are much younger 8 & 11. I’m 42 and he’s 48. No plans to live together any time soon.
I only stay at DP’s when my kids are at their dad’s, which is usually every other weekend. We’ll sometimes see each other once or twice in the week when the kids are at school but depends on our shifts as we both work to a roster and do nights etc. He doesn’t stay at mine when my kids are there. The whole blended family thing just doesn’t work for us.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way at the moment. We both have plenty of time to devote to our own interests, see friends and be good parents but also see enough of each other for it to work.

I think if you like each other enough it could be amazing! I saw my ex husband quite a lot in the beginning and was sick of him before we even got married lol

Depends how old your kids are. Mine are teenagers so I can leave the them at home and go out on a weekend afternoon and potentially a night away as I do for work (oldest is 17yrs). The only problem is later bedtimes so no sneaking anyone in the house.

When they were younger, my ex used to come over in the evening when they were in bed, occasionally they would come down but it was so much easier to manage, going out was harder though as I had to pay for babysitting.
I'm not really up for the whole having dates with kids or blended families thing, I would have to be with someone for a while to do that. I've been a step parent before and it was hard, I'm not in a rush to do it again.

Thanks all.
One of the problems is that our kids know each other. So telling them would open a whole new can of worms.
I don't rally want to be a step parent and I don't want somebody getting in the way of my relationship with my kids. So, keeping things quiet suits me. But I do worry about how things can progress like this.

It's hard! Like you say - a different universe to relationships when you are young with no children.

When I accidentally met my partner nearly 3 years ago I had care of my son 100%, he was 9 and has additional needs. Also my partner lives 3.5 hours away. A relationship felt impossible. However we have somehow continued. Started by seeing each other 1-2 nights maybe every 3 weeks. Patching together bits of childcare was hellish. I did have to introduce my partner to my son early on, initially as a friend, as I did not have the luxury of being able to keep them completely separate.

We did separate twice due to it feeling too much and too stressful. However the last year has been amazing. We have settled into a routine of him staying with me 4 nights every few weeks, and my childcare situation is slightly easier so I can stay with him for a couple of nights every 6 weeks or so. We have so much fun together and look forward to our time so much.

We are 49 and 53. We each value our own space, have busy lives and trust each other completely. We have no plans to change the situation until my son is grown up so at least another 6 years. It works for us. We are very happy.

Wishing you luck!

Thank you.
It's a different world to the one I was in pre-kids.
I quite like meeting once a week, we text most days and that's enough for me at the moment.
I'm a worrier though and I'm constantly thinking "where is this going?", rather than enjoying what we have at the moment.

This is exactly what I was like for the first year or more. It was so different to traditional relationships where it is assumed there will be a steady progression to increased time together, moving in etc. This cause a bit of tension and stress for both of us, who had come out of very long living together relationships. We have really come to accept and embrace what we have however. I read "Stepping off the relationship escalator " during that first year which was quite eye opening to me.