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The final potential impact of post-divorce dating on our kids doesn’t come from dating too soon or introducing your date to your children or even their unease with the whole idea.  From my experience it comes instead from the normal win and loose of the  normal dating scene.  You are each no doubt painfully aware that a natural function of dating is that sometimes you win and sometimes you loose and quite frequently what seemed like a pretty decent relationship to begin with turns out to have some fatal errors;  in short couples break-up.  That is fine for you and I – kinda sucks at the time but we understand that when dating such things tend to happen and are all a part of the process. 

Kids don’t quite have the same perspective and can find the whole thing a bit perplexing and a little disturbing.  Remember; the reality of their world is that the most important adult relationship in their world fell apart (the divorce of their mother and father).  That event is going to skew their perceptions and beliefs about relationships for a long time to come (maybe the rest of their lives).  So I guess I’m suggesting that it might be good to tread carefully when it comes to talking with your children about your dating life.  I’m not a big advocate of keeping secrets but maybe it’s not really necessary to talk a lot about each new woman you meet and go out with.  For me, I’ve found that it just works better to keep those things to myself and only after it looks like the relationship might go longer than two or three dates do I bring her up to the children.  I’ve also been very careful to down play things a bit by just saying that she is a nice lady, that we enjoy each other’s company and we might go out to dinner once in awhile.  Kids seem to grasp that fairly easily and then if things don’t work out it doesn’t seem, to the children, like yet another proof that adult relationships never last.  Of course at this point my kids are pretty much grown and understand the realities of dating; but during their growing up years I found that tactic to be the best approach to the whole problem.

Maybe one of you has found an approach that works well for you, if so I’d love to hear about it!

Thanks for reading this series, I hope you found something of interest somewhere in these lines.

Be well

Bill

Hey dudesndivorce.com dudes!

We have been thinking much about our posts and realized it was time to address the issue of avoiding divorce in the first place. Now, obviously I am NOT a marriage counselor nor do I pretend to be one in any fashion. But I can relate to you my experiences and, hopefully, what little I have learned from them. 

Marriage and divorce are huge subjects, so I won’t try to cover all of my/our issues in one post (just the thought of the finger cramps alone makes me cringe in pain!). One subject (or maybe two) per post will suffice, I think.

Here we go!!!

With my power of 20/20 hindsight:  I would have been LESS patient. I can hear the WHAT THE?’s now! Let me explain myself. During most of my marriage many times when I felt there was a problem my personal response was to tell myself “Oh, Russ, you just need to be more patient. Things will work out.” or “I need to be more patient, we’re both so young, she or I will grow out of this.” After all, I told myself, patience is a virtue, right?

But I would keep doing this and biting my tongue and not saying anything when I should have! It was years later before I learn the skill of being forceful and direct about my feelings and needs without necessarily being harmful or aggressive. But in the meantime years and years of frustration built up in me. Frustration that I didn’t deal with or address properly or effectively. This was my fault. Not my then wife’s fault. Not my children’s fault. Not my job or boss’s fault. Not my parent’s fault. Mine and mine alone. 

This leads me to 20/20 hindsight #2: I should have realized I needed help and gotten it much sooner. Yes, I know, this IS so much easier to say now. So I will. For the purpose of hopefully opening somebody else’s eyes to the same revelation.

You need help. There are those out there willing to help you. Go get it! 

I wish I had just asked. Even if it meant opening up more to my father-in-law, my friends, a trusted boss or co-worker, or a spiritual leader or counselor, or a doctor or any other counselor or counseling service available. Reach out. Ask. I really wish I had sought the guidance I needed. I confess, many times I simply did not know what to do with my then wife or for our marriage. Even just a point in the right direction would have been much appreciated. Just give me a clue! You know what I mean?

I don’t know if any of this is positive or just the ramblings of a whacked out divorced dude. I guess that’s for you to decide.

See ya later, 

Russ