15 months in, not met the dc, should I be glad or sad..

[Allypallya]

Dp and I have been seeing each other for 15 month's now.
We're both divorced . Me with older teens, him with 2 primary school age.
He has them 5050.
He doesn't want to marry or blend families as he's had a hard time with the divorce and feels too wounded.
We see each other a lot, pretty much his free 50 percent and stay over 3 to 4 nights a week.
He hasn't introduced me to the dc or told his exw about me and I'm starting to feel off about it.
He's met my dc twice casually and they text each other funny things

I don't know whether to continue to take it slow and see what happens or realise I will always be a secret.
Should I just count my blessings? Sometimes it feels like I have the best of both worlds as I can just go home to my kids and have a breather but be with him having cuddles, I love yous, cooking lovely food etc.
Should alarm bells be ringing?

How are you today? What’s the situation?

Do you think you need a ‘future’ conversation? Ie. What’s going to happen going forward? When (not if) are you going to meet his dc? Try to make some plans. Say you want to be included in all his life. His response will tell you what you want to know. Ie whether he wants you to be a total part of his life, or a companion.

Someone upthread suggested giving yourself a time limit, such as two years, to see how things pan out. Sounds like a good idea. Incidently, I met, dated and married my dh in two years, so not moving forward within this time frame is a red flag to me.

Doesn’t sound like he has moved on and you don’t fit into his life completely.

Communicate your feelings and see if he wants a future for you and how that is possible. If your not happy then consider ending the relationship.

I totally get not being introduced to the DCs and yes, that could be a blessing in some ways! But that’s different to his ex not knowing you exist.

Keeping you separate from his DCs to protect them from the change and to make sure they don’t feel left out when they’re not with him knowing he’s off doing interesting things without them etc, fine. But him not mentioning you to the ex does sound somewhat like he’s hedging his bets or is scared to upset her for whatever reason. Which is insulting to you and your relationship. I think the two parts should be separated.

I’m 9 years on and don’t spend much time with his DCs at all these days - birthdays and Xmas, maybe an odd dinner out etc but we have our separate homes and our paths don’t really cross often. He spends 3 nights a week here with me and mine (I have them 100% so no options to date without them being involved!) and it works well for us. We used to try and blend a bit more when the DCs were younger but it just caused arguments so I stepped back from the Step mum role, as I just ended up being the default childcare at weekends while he went and had a nap so I quickly got fed up with that!!

Enjoy the dating part, you’re getting the best of each other. But I’d insist that his ex knows you exist even if the kids don’t. FWIW after this amount of time the kids should probably know about and meet you too, even if they don’t spend time with you. But people are funny about introducing their kids, so I wouldn’t necessarily take that as a red flag. The ex thing though…?

I wouldn't worry about the messaging the ex on its own - 50/50 needs a lot of contact.

But I would worry about the not telling her/ not introducing to the kids. I know of some divorced co-parents that fall into this close co-parenting relationship. Their romantic relationship is over and they might still hate each other, but they almost act like they are still in an asexual marriage...like Kourtney and Scott on the Kardashians if you have ever seen it . They view their ex as family, and family comes first.

If you have a similar set-up with an ex and are just looking for company that might all work. But if you want to be more central in his life, it won't. Personally its not something I would ever put up with.

I wouldn’t be happy with this at all.

You don’t need to meet his children right now. But if some of his family know you exist, that seems very silly. It would be very easy for them to slip up and then his children know about you secondhand.

There’s no reason at all for you to be a secret from his ex wife, or from his children. You don’t have to ‘blend’ or even meet, but the secrecy after this long is not ok.

They're not dating you, why do you feel you should meet his kids? I don't get this preoccupation some people have with trying to involve children in things and people the children never chose to deal with.

In the nicest way, you have nothing whatsoever to do with his children's lives, they have their own family and they will already have more than enough going on with navigating between two separated parents/houses.

He's making it clear that he wants you to stay in a compartment, not be his whole life. I assume he only sees you when he doesn't have the children? You are filling a void for him when it suits him, just be aware of that. I can totally understand a parent not wanting to introduce a partner too early, but given that you haven't met his family properly at this stage is sending a big message.