Partners staying over

[StarClouds]

If you have your children full time and started dating again at what point did you feel comfortable having them over when your kids are in bed? Im thinking around 6 months?

@Surprisinglynice did you see this comment by the OP?

@5682Jhd I find this quite interesting, because you clearly took it very slowly at the start, introducing your boyfriend gradually, and delaying sleepovers until the second year. But then in the blink of an eye you moved him into your house!

I introduced my partner to my kids after about 2 months, and he stayed over once a week after about 9 months. But 10 years later I still don’t feel it would be fair for him to move in to our house, and change the structure of my kids’ lives.

I think this illustrates that there isn’t really a “one size fits all” in these situations. You have to look at the age and personalities of your kids, and the strength of your relationship.

We “do meet”

I wonder how many times actually met?!

You did the best AMA btw @Lexibletheflexible !!

Ah - and there's the nub of it. You will find there's a deeply held conviction on parts of Mumsnet that staying over is only permissible after all children have reached the age of 18 years old and you therefore are required to be celibate before then.

Rather partial to hyperbole aren’t you @MyrtlethePurpleTurtle 😆

Thanks.

I'm not sure how much that matters because situations can be so different. I had a couple friends who met army blokes back in the day and most of their early interaction was long distance after very few dates before they went on tour. I wouldn't have said they didnt know the guy when he returned. In some ways, they probably spoke about more of the important stuff at the right time because they couldn't shag and go out all the time.

So I think each situation is so individual that you can't really make blanket rules.

And when they came back from tour having had very little face to face interaction - did your friends invite them over to their homes with their kids asleep in their bedroom?

No, it's not. It's a world - which reflects the real world - where lots of women have had bad experiences with men, and seen thousands of other women post about their own bad experiences.

It also tends to be (for now) a world where women have made themselves aware of the psychological needs of children and the damage that can very easily be done to them.

And of the fact that children are very often not able to express that damage for themselves, until they are much older.

I hate this expression, but you need to educate yourself. Understand how children experience the world and the lasting damage that thoughtless, selfish parents can so easily do.

One of them got engaged while he was away! Nobody of significance had met him. None of them had kids at the time.

I did have another friend who met someone from the US when she was over there. She had kids already. They had a LD relationship where she went over twice, a week each time if I remeber rightly. Then after about 18 months, he came over and he stayed in the house with her and her kids openly. He'd interacted with them remotely before that.

He's here permanently and they have a child now. The kids have a whole new side of their family in a touristy part of America. They are very happy.

None of them had kids at the time.. So not comparable

and 18 months? With extensive and prolonged get together? So 3x the length of this “relationship”

Yes but most of it was talking online between meets. They only had one date when she was initially on holiday, then she went over there twice for a week each time. Then he came over here.

Staying together multiple nights consecutively - you do get to know someone quite well

in any event 6 months versus 18 months

and your other example involves friends who didn’t even have kids

Almost (but not quite) matches the censorious hyperbole of so many posters on this thread.

@OP - get thee to a nunnery!

Absolutely this. You shouldn’t be sneaking anyone in after your children are asleep before they’ve met him. It would be really frightening waking in the night and meeting a strange man on the way to the loo or something …. Plus it FEELS sneaky and secretive. I think you risk losing their trust.

I’m trying to understand the logic of someone staying over that you aren’t ready to introduce do your kids?? I understand it’s probably so you can have sex (sorry if that’s a bit crude) but believe that it will mess your kids up big time if they wake in the night and hear something like that when they’re not even aware that someone is staying over! Couldn’t he come round whilst the kid are asleep in the evening and go home in a taxi/uber at bedtime? Are you planning on sneaking him out in the morning with your current plan??

Having them stay over is waaay after meeting your children. Depending on age of children or on how long ago the split from their father was all has to be factored in. Children and primary and a couple of years on from the split then i would be waiting 6 months before they even knew he existed, a year for they got to meet and maybe another 6 months before he stayed over if my children liked him. At secondary to be honest he would never be staying over until all exams were finished.

Expected yes but ask with plenty of notice is normal. family and friends here just put up on what's app hey I have something on x Saturday night would you be free to babysit please?
that's how it works my dear.

Considering OP appears to have no babysitting options I can’t imagine where she’s managed to meet and date this man thus far.

Why is everything such an extreme with you? Or do you just enjoy winding people up by deliberately missing the point?

Once again, nobody’s saying you should never date or have sex ever again, but just that having a man you don’t know in your house when your kids are asleep isn’t the only way to do it.

Nobody is saying that you should look for new friends to use them for babysitting - that’s something you’ve completely twisted and said yourself. What people are saying is, normally, in the “real world” that you speak about so much, most people help their friends and family and it works both ways.

If you really have not one single friend or family member who’d be willing to sit with your kids for a few hours while you go on a date, that’s pretty sad.

I wouldn't even introduce them till a year minimum.
Sleeping over probably 2 years.

Well OP it kinda makes perfect sense that the kids meet your bf before he sleeps over , Is that not a given?

I wonder why the OP, who had said she doesn’t have any friends or family to babysit, and no father(s) helping with her children, won’t answer the very simple question of how many times she has actually met this man?

If you claim to have absolutely no support and your children haven’t met him, how much time have you actually spent with this “partner” to know him so well after six months?

i know you said you don’t want to find a babysitter that you don’t know to leave your kids with, but would anyone you know have a teen, or a teen that they use, who does babysitting?