Dating

I am amazed at the number of men who ask, as their first question, "What about dating?". My answer is usually, "What about it?" And I am almost always thinking, "I was hoping you could tell me." What these men are really asking is, "Don't the kids get in the way?" or "Is having custody of your children a liability? Does it turn woman off?"

I would have to answer, candidly, "Yes." Most women who might be interested in me are immediately turned off by the fact that my three children live with me. This can be discouraging at times because there are so few who are interested in the first place! But, it also saves me lots of time and heartache.

So, I decided, early on, to lead with it. A woman who isn't interested in a man who is raising his kids, is still not interested, whether she has known him three minutes or three weeks, when she finds out. I prefer to just weed them out immediately.

I referred, earlier, to a divorce class the state required me to attend before they would finalize the divorce. I discussed, at length, the main lesson I took from that class. I also said that there were two things I learned. It is now time for that second lesson.

The instructor said, "Eventually, you will want to date again. Please put your children's needs ahead of your own desires. It is best if you don't introduce your children to anyone you have not been dating exclusively for, at least, six months. She went on to talk about how unhealthy it is for them to see their parent in a "revolving door"  of relationships. It creates too much instability in their lives. And children of recently divorced parents have enough instability in their lives, don't they?

Since I've only had one serious, long-term relationship in the nearly ten years that I've been separated/divorced, I've actually done OK in this area.

There were challenges in the other direction, as well. My oldest would get "unsettled" when he guessed or found out for sure that I was dating someone. My daughter would, occasionally, purposely annoy anyone she thought might be interested in me or that I might find interesting. It was sometimes entertaining who she thought some of these woman were! And my youngest was so desperate for the mothering I was incapable of supplying that any woman who came around he would, unwittingly, monopolize their time.

These are all things I understood. Sometimes I could overlook them and other times I couldn't. Such is life.

As far as dating is concerned, this is about all I have to offer. In the time since my separation/divorce, I've only dated five women. I guess you'd say that the actuarial's "law of large numbers" is not on my side.

I have a very good life anyway.

That's my view from here.