But you have at least 4 nights out of the week for yourself, 2 of which you spent in the company of this woman already. I think the rest of us are saying that spending time with your son, whom you are deprived of seeing 4 to 5 nights out of the week, should have taken priority over spending a third night in the same week with this woman. Everyone needs a life outside of being a parent; you just need to figure out how to conduct that relationship given the confines of your custodial arrangement.
Wow, I can’t disagree with this more. Lesson learned? How does the fact that she played him have ANYTHING to do with him breaking plans with his child? 
More importantly, anybody in the OP’s position HAS to put that love interest (supposing it’s serious and committed) BEFORE the child. There’s an article that ran (in Redbook, I think), called “The Special Stresses of Second Marriages.” It concluded that the main reason second marriages are LESS successful than first marriages is that people REFUSE to put the new spouse “ahead of” the child.
The marriage suffers otherwise. For one thing, kids will split the parents, pitting the biological parent against the step to get what they want. My brother was in a yours-mine-ours marriage and I’ve heard plenty of horror stories. He’d tell “her” son that he wasn’t allowed to do something, he’d run to mommy and play the “Don’t you love me?” card, she’d undermine her husband, and you can imagine how it went from there.
For another, kids do grow up and move away and the parent will still be alone. There was a woman I knew in a divorce group who had a couple kids under 10 years old. She wanted to meet with some people for a movie or whatever and they started whining. She said, “I’ll stay home, if you don’t want to share me. But next time you want your friends over, maybe I’ll say, ‘No, I love you and I don’t want to share you…’” They got the message and gave her their blessing.
Corollary to that, the happier the parent is, the more he/she has to give her child emotionally. There was an excellent scene on “Knott’s Landing” or one of those night time soaps where Michelle Lee’s character was starting dating again. Her kids thought she was disrespecting their father’s memory. She finally broke down and said, “I loved your father very much, but he’s gone and I can’t bring him back. He made me feel so wonderful and I just want to feel that way again.” There you have it: people don’t exist solely as definitions of their relationships. She was a woman who had needs (redundant) and once they saw that, they couldn’t deny her pursuit of happiness…who would want a loved one to be unfulfilled?
People carry this to a pathological level. I think the genesis of it is, “I’m a single parent…who will protect my child if I don’t? What trauma has this divorce inflicted on my child?” Etc. I understand that but as the OP posts, dad needs a life too. What, is he supposed to be the bird in the cage that is there for the child 24/7 and his happiness is not an issue? The parent who feels that’s ok needs to look at the codependency issues in that parent-child relationship IMO.
I don’t know red_awning’s status (married/divorced/kids/etc.), but I hope that people who feel as red_awning would be clear. If you feel that your child will always come first, state that up front. It’s your life but people like me will thank you and move on.
I’m with you on this.
Once in a while, a change of plans is hardly going to wreck the kid’s life. And as the kid gets older, he may change the weekend plans too.
So SHAKES can’t ever have a date on a Friday or Saturday night? Does that really seem reasonable to you?
Death was there? That can be intimidating. Does his voice really sound like Norm MacDonald?
It was a total setup. She had her friends along because she never intended it to go farther than the bar. I mean, from your description they were all together when you arrived, so it wasn’t a chance meeting.
And no, they weren’t there just to pronounce you “ok” for going on a date. After all, she already had no intentions of leaving. She had to be there so that when the ex- came in, he’d see her with you and that would make her more desirable to him. You were just a catalyst in their reaction.
“A bunch of friends” = insurance in case you’re the sort who would tell her off or make a scene about it.
Sucks I know, but you got off cheap. Imagine dating her for awhile and THEN finding out this guy is still on the radar, for example.
One of these days he’ll break a “date” with you for a date with a girl he likes. You won’t fault him for it. It all works out in the long-term.
Dude, you’ve got a square peg?!? No wonder she didn’t want you putting it in her round hole.
Oh, the cat’s in the cradle with a silver spoon…
Some of you are being ridiculous, he has every right to go out on dates without feeling the least bit guilty.
So she was trying to make herself feel better with some opposite-sex attention during a breakup.
Dude, it happens. You’ve never done it?
Count yourself lucky for dodging a bullet and cut her a little slack.
No, but what the father should do is what every parent does - have his son for the week-end and tell him that for one evening he will have a babysitter, but the father will still spend the rest of the week-end with the son, as planned. If you only have your son for two days out of the week in the first place, you don’t cancel those days to go out on a date.
Um, wow. First, I don’t know SHAKES, and maybe I missed some previous threads where it becomes clear he’s an awful father, but insinuating that he feels that he’s done his part by “planting his seed” and the rest of his life gets to be all about him is pretty fucking rude.
Doesn’t calling to say you can’t spend time this weekend qualify as “working around your kid,” unless you are never allowed to make weekend plans? I’ll concede that assuming this call happened on Thursday that it’s kind of short notice and if I were the kid I might be a little miffed, and yet unless this sort of thing happens all the time, it’s the nature of being in a relationship with someone that occasionally plans change.
I’m not saying that it couldn’t have been done differently, but I’m not getting the “see, goes to show you need to put your kid first” sentiment. If dad’s blowing me off every weekend then that’s a problem. If dad calls with a “hey champ, I’m really sorry but I met this awesome girl and we’re going to get together this Friday so I can’t come pick you up like we usually do. Want to do something extra fun next weekend?” then I can’t find too much fault.
Though as I typed that out I began wondering how old your son is SHAKES. I think that what I wrote above is how I feel if the son is a teenager. A younger kid and I start to feel uncomfortable about canceling plans.
Though I also can’t imagine how hard it is to be a parent with part-time visitation and balance seeing my kid and making sure he felt loved by me when I only get to see him 2 days a week (or whatever one’s specific situation may be) with the other needs in my life. Not an easy task, and I hesitate to take someone to task too much for a one-off event.
OK, enough is enough! I made this point way back when. How about you guys read the whole thread before posting?
OOPS. Replied to wrong post! I meant to chasten flurb, post #27.
My shame is vast.
Pit, right?
Okay, fuck this Doctor Laura bullshit about how his kid is his life. That leads to helicoptering and suing the school for giving C grades. That attitude will fuck up the kid way worse than Dad getting the occasional piece.
Yeesh.
That’s not a date. That is a first semester freshman college failed hook-up. That happens but it certainly isn’t an official adult type date. The maturity level on both sides is infinitely low which would not be a big problem if the expectations were not otherwise.
The only point of view that matters to me is the son’s. The only rudeness I’ve seen was visited on him. The rest of the crap you’ve brought up, I don’t even care about.
The son gets only weekends. The time will fly by before anyone realizes it. He’ll be grown and gone, and all these opportunities will be in the past. All the decisions to be made were made by adults, not by the son. He can’t be held responsible for any of it, and he can’t be dismissed from the picture as though the father is entitled to exclude him when it is convenient.
It’s a have cake and eat it too question. All along the way, the cake was eaten. The father decided to create this person. That shouldn’t have been done without a commitment to him and his mother. As more decisions were made by both parents — whether they would stay together, how they would conduct their private affairs afterward, and oh yes, what to do about the boy — the son was pushed further and further back until he became a weekend obligation that from time to time might interfere with his father’s social pursuits.
If he wants to date, then he can do it by incorporating his son. Make his son at least feel important by letting him meet the women in his father’s life. He can be a good father by soliciting and valuing the opinions of his son. The OP bothered to open a thread, meaning we get to express our opinions. It they hurt his feelings, tough shit. When daddy tells you he won’t pick you up this weekend, there’s hurt feelings there too. They’re the feelings that matter most in my opinion.
There won’t ever be a woman in his fathers life if he can’t go out on dates. Unless you mean good daddys take their sons to meet the bar floozys they met two days ago.
You never, ever, EVER introduce your kids to potential partners until the relationship is well established, certainly not on a first date. Liberal, if I misunderstand your point, forgive me. I didn’t even go on my first date for a year and a half after my divorce was final. The first guy I dated for any length of time I dated for six months, and my kids only met him once, and that’s because their dad changed HIS plans and picked them up late.
Again, if I misunderstood your point, I apologize, and please clarify.
Why, the OP (and everyone else who has kids but is taking time to read this thread) is missing opportunities right this very second! Go! Go now! Your child’s innocence is being taken by the unrelenting molester known as Time Itself!