By Rev. Dr. N. Rosechild-Sullivan

•                As a parent, when do you introduce new prospects and, when the time is right, how do you blend your existing family with a new partner?

•                As a new partner, how do you blend into an already existing family and its established dynamics? 

Be Careful Who You Introduce Into Your Children’s Lives

When we date, we should consider our current or future children.

Before we have children, we should take our (hypothetical) children into account as we partner.

Whether or not we plan children – since some of the best people still happen by accident –we should consider any potential co-parent’s emotional, mental, and genetic, health and legacy before having children with them.

Early in any romantic relationship (before we are committed to it), we should seek to discover our potential partner’s beliefs about parenting. Beliefs (or ideology) play a large role in how we conduct ourselves as parents (and partners).

We should also uncover the baggage they might bring to our relationship with them, and to any relationship they might have to children we have, or might bring into, the earth.

Early on, in a relaxed and conversational way, we should outright ask them about their experience of childhood, and whether or not they have thought through those experiences. Are they living an examined life? Have they thought about the kind of partner/parent they would like to be – or are they likely (on autopilot) to unthinkingly repeat (without improvement) the same kinds of parenting that was done to them.

We should consider. . . .

We can spare ourselves – and any current or future children – great heartache, by actually getting to know a romantic partner before we commit our hearts.

We should consider. . . .

But dating after we have children entails a level of responsibility for children who actually already exist – and whom we say we love – children dependent on us, both for the quality of their everyday lives, the stability of their emotional/intellectual beings, and even the example of relationships and self-respect that we model for them. (See also “Steps for Keeping Safe in an Online Dating World, The Foundations of Lasting Love, Pt.7” for further discussion of evaluating potentialpartners asfutureco-parents.)

Whatever we considered in advance, once we have children and find ourselves back in the dating (or new relationship) world, we date as parents.

Our dating can no longer be about ourselves alone.

Our choice of partner is no longer simply about our libido or our sense of mutual chemical attraction.

Instead, we date as representatives of our children, as guardians of their present and future wellbeing. As they are no longer simple hypotheses, we must, with as much foresight as possible, always be considering the impact our choices have and will continue to have on their lives.

This doesn’t mean that we can, or should, live celibate.

It also doesn’t mean that we can, or should, stay in an unhappy marriage – either with their other birth parent or a partner they have bonded with.

It does mean that we need to think about the fact that the choices we make both bring people into, and push people out of, their lives; and at the same time, set a powerful example for them of how they should conduct themselves in their (present or future) relationships.

Even if painful, divorce or breakup is not always the wrong example to set for a child.

From a psychological perspective, it can be a good thing to model the strength it takes to get out of a bad, unhappy, or abusive relationship or marriage.

If you would not want your child to stay with an abusive partner/co-parent, then you do not want to set an example of staying with an abuser.  (On the other hand, if you believe that no one should ever divorce, then staying with an abuser might be the very example you deem most responsible – even though you would be in contradiction to the psychological literature and few professionals today would agree with you.)

The couple is not more valuable or important than the individuals who make it up.

Children who watch a parent being abused (emotionally, mentally, verbally, physically, or sexually) are more likely to take – or give  – abuse in their own adult relationships, and to pass the cycle down the generations. Staying with an abuser may set your grandchildren up for lives of interpersonal (domestic) violence.

However you have come to be in the position of dating with children, as you bring a new partner into the already-existing family unit of you and your children – or as you date someone who has children – as you become involved and fall in love, there is a right way and a wrong way to proceed.

One of the first decisions we face, as a dating parent, is WHEN to introduce someone we are dating to our children.

In general, you don’t want to bring a string of temporary women or men through your child/children’s lives. You don’t want your children meeting everyone you date. This can set them up to form attachments, only to have them torn asunder, or put them at the mercy of people you haven’t finished screening (again, also see Pt.7 Steps for Keeping Safe in an Online Dating Worldfor a discussion of screening relationship prospects).

On the other hand, you can’t wait until an engagement to introduce your children to your fiancé, and your fiancé to your children, because frankly, how can you decide to marry (or even cohabit with) someone, when you haven’t seen him or her interact – over time – with your children? How can you take such a life-altering step (for you and for them) without gathering data by observing that interaction?

Is your new prospect appropriately (but not creepily) warm with them?

If your new prospect doesn’t like them, he or she does not pass their entrance exam. You need to let him or her go, because you already have the kids. They’re with you, hopefully, to stay. You have to keep your priorities straight. You bought these little people into the earth, and/or into your family. They come first. New prospects come second. Bad things happen when you put your new relationship above your children. At the very least, they’ll have need to tell the tale on a therapist’s couch someday.

Do your kids like your new prospect? And if not, why not?

Is it something that can, or should, be rectified?

Is it their intuition?

Is it some interaction of which you are unaware?

Is it loyalty to another parent?

Talk to them. Make sure you give them a safe space to share their fears, and their truths. Make sure you move slowly. Make sure the person/people you are bringing into their world is a person of integrity.

Allow their needs and concerns to influence your decisions on when – or whether – to proceed with a new relationship/living arrangement/marriage?

Not that your kids can mandate you to a celibate lonely present. You don’t owe them your love life. You don’t need to become a monk or a nun.

But you do owe your kids first, before your potential partner or partner.

You must take your children’s feelings into consideration.

You must listen to, and hear, their hearts.

Too, too many dating partners and/ or step-parents abuse their partner’s children – some by coming in and dominating the household as a physical or verbal/ emotional/ psychological abuser – and others, stealthily, as pedophiles who sexually abuse their partner’s children when babysitting, or when their partners are busy or, even, sleeping in the same house.

The annals of survivors of childhood sexual assault are replete with true, and horrific, stories of people a parent trusted and brought into their lives as the parent’s new romantic partner.

So you need to hear your children, and never, never dismiss their responses to your choice/s.

Your children may be going through changes. They may be angry about your separation or divorce from another parent. They may be jealous and possessive of you and your attention. They may perceive you as too old for (or beyond) dating and sexual relationships

They may even be being manipulated or persuaded by your ex into not liking ANYONE you bring home, and thus, helping to torment you.

Or they may be trying to tell you something you can’t see about your new prospective partner.

Either way, winning at parenting is about staying tuned into your children’s hearts and minds – so you can protect and steer them toward being their own best selves.

It is not your goal to be the “non-protective parent” of an abused child, or to someday find out (after it is already too late to prevent) that your romantic partner/s abused your child/ren. (Though, if you ever find out your child/ren have been abused, having a supportive, believing response toward them is very, very valuable in their healing process.)

It is, and should (in as much as is humanly possible) be, your goal to keep them safe from sexual (and all) abuse – and that requires sifting through the multiplicity of emotions that may affect their reactions to your partnering choices – without dismissing (or being dismissive of) their feelings or concerns.

And as an honorable and well-intentioned incoming stepparent (or parent’s partner), it is also important to think about winning the minds and hearts of your partner’s children.

When to Introduce Your New Partner to Your Children

So, you should introduce your new dating partner/s after you have had time to assess whether or not you believe he or shemight bea keeper – for you

That should be after a number of dates in which you have soberly assessed this new person’s potential as a viable prospect for inclusion in your family – dates in which you’ve led the conversation around to how they feel about children/teens (and what they believe about “discipline”) and to their experiences of being a child./teen

Even though it is far too early to be discussing marriage – or even hinting that you’ve ever pondered the topic (or even if you’re determined never to marry or marry again) – you have to view any potential partner in the light of the fact you are not a single entity, but the single head of a family unit (that may have another single head in another household that your child/children visit often to regularly).

If your partner would ever even visit your home, then you are not partner-shopping for yourself alone.

After all the questions of chemistry and attraction, after all the questions of character and emotional connection, each newbie still has to pass the family test.

So you may opt to move forward with this introduction after date five or six, or you may opt to do this introduction after month three or month six, which ever feels right to you.

Don’t be pushed into it before YOU are ready.

But don’t put it off forever either, because you have no right to fully let your heart go – and “fallhead over heels in love with” anyone – if this new person is not going to be good to – and good with – your kids.

You might (maybe) be able to be a dog or cat owner, and date someone who doesn’t really like your dog or cat.

You might (depending on your family dynamics) be able to date someone who doesn’t like your parents or siblings (though, if your family is normal to nice, this can be a strong indication of the control issues of an abuser, manifesting as the desire to isolate you from your social support network.

But you just can’t, shouldn’t, have no right to, be a parent and date – and continue to date – and move forward with, live with, or marry – ANYONE who doesn’t really like your child or children. (And you shouldn’t move forward, either, until you can [have exhausted every possibility to] make the new situation acceptable to your children.)

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Next issue: Step Parenting 101: How to Come in As a Stepparent

© 2013-2018 Nadine Rosechild-Sullivan, Ph.D.