Well, there’s that, too. 
When I was single, I would never date a guy with kids for just these kinds of reasons - I knew that wasn’t a situation I wanted to get involved with, so I didn’t. Who wants to be with a guy who trumps every argument with, “It’s about MY SON!”?
The thing I’ve gotten about this is every time she mentions her BF’s son, she calls him “the kid”. Now, I don’t think she needs to call him “The precious child” or anything like that, but “the kid” sounds cold and dismissive of the boy. It seems to me she hasn’t gotten to know the child, and share him with his dad. If she feels coldly toward him, or sees him as some sort of object (less valuable than his job, friends and cats), she won’t ever understand the relationship between the BF and his son. And without acknowledging that relationship, she can’t really have anything more than a superficial relationship with the BF.
StG
I once got asked out by a guy I knew had a daughter; when I told him I didn’t date men w/ kids, he responded, “I only have 5 more child support payments on her, then I’m free!”. Then I had to explain I don’t date assholes who think of their kids as furniture that’s on layaway.
Every guy who countered my argument always said some variant of, 'I have nothing to do w/ the mom, etc", but they all had to admit that hating and avoiding the mom took just as much of their energy as getting along did.
Won’t date men with kids, won’t date women with kids … Yet some huge percentage of people in this country are dating and marrying people with kids from a prior relationship … how are all these people getting together?
I’m stating what was right for ME when I was dating; I knew I would not be satisfied w/ third place, I need a lot of time together w/ my partner and quality time at that. There are obviously just as many people who have different needs that mesh well w/ dating a parent and so long as both parties know that going in to the relationship that’s wonderful. It’s when one person thinks, “It won’t happen to me, I’ll love them so well they’ll change their mind, etc.” that brings the pain.
But it’s usually **after **you date someone w/ kids that you know what it’s truly like to date someone w/ kids.
The internet?
From what I see here, people with kids from past relationships date other people with kids from past relationships.
I dated someone with two kids. It was really no big deal. They were great kids! And I never felt like I was second to anyone.
Since we’re swapping anecdotes, I dated a guy w/ one kid whose daughter’s mother made my daily life difficult w/ ever-growing demands on the time I spent w/ him. We eventually broke up; it had nothing to do w/ the greatness of the kid. Did you marry the subject of your anecdote?
FWIW, It was really not very well thought out of him to blurt out that he might be packing up and leaving for England and then expect you to not discuss it with him, especially if you two are both supposedly in a committed relationship.
I say supposedly because no matter what he told you about being committed to you and the relationship, the only thing he is committed to is having a knee jerk reaction to whatever it is his ex does or tells him. It was cruel of him, but in a way it was a good thing for you. He showed his true colors. When it comes to what really matters, you get the short straw.
Dating guys with kids is a balancing act. You have to have a guy who is not averse to building a life of his own that includes his child, but yet he has to be strong enough to not be physically and emotionally blown about like a leaf in the wind by every remark made by his ex. He and his ex are supposed to be working in unison to do what is best for their child, and if the best thing for their child is building happy lives apart from each other and making sure that their kid has a top spot in their balanced lives, that’s great, but it sometimes doesn’t work that way.
He doesn’t have his act together yet, and there is no way you can have a good relationship with someone who doesn’t.
If you are in a committed relationship with him, he should be thinking of how the two of you will cope and act as a pair, not what he plans to do in reaction to whatever his ex does. He’s a parent, but you would be too as a stepmother. He’s just x’d you out of the equasion. Being a family isn’t about him, the kid and his ex. It’s about ALL of you.
Both of you acted shitty.
However I do feel in agreement with those who believe he was more shitty than you.
This is definitely coloured by my ex-relationship, but “Just drop it” does not mean to me “I need more time think about it, then we’ll discuss it”. It’s a blanket condemnation that implies “If I can get you to shut up about this, maybe it’ll just get swept under the rug and I can carry on doing what I’m doing”
I can’t speak for the OP, but I can see my snapping back in the same way because in the past “Just drop it” has led to things not getting resolved.
Had he said something like “Look, this is huge and I’m sorting out my feelings about it. Can we talk about it more in a few days?” - basically given the OP a push to say he didn’t want to talk about it now, but that he WOULD be okay with talking about it once his head was in order - and she’d replied in the same way, then yeah she’d be an absolute jerk, no two ways about it.
It’s not wrong that he wants to follow to be with his son, and it’s not wrong to feel blindsided by the fact that he’s considering just up and shipping off at a moment’s notice if that’s what his ex wants to do.
But I think you have your answer there - the relationship is already dead, you just need to take it off life support so you can both move on.
The thing that puzzles me the most about this thread is that it’s just assumed that the (apparently broke) mother can just walk out of the country with the kid. A good friend of mine who lives in the US had a kid with a European guy; the father divorced her and moved back to Europe. By her accounts, a single parent with a child needs to have a paperwork in place (eg, a letter from the other parent giving permission) just to get a passport or take the child out of the country on vacation. Obviously, they must have a custody agreement of some kind; I doubt it says that the mother can just move to Poland or the UK on a whim without the father. It seems to me that what made Mississippienne mad is not that he’s choosing her son over her, but that he’s folding like wet tissue to the unreasonable demands of his ex. A case can be made that if he loves his son, he should fight to keep him here, with his one employed parent in the place he’s accustomed to. How would it benefit the child to be taken away with the less responsible one to a strange place?
Anyway, Mississippienne, (if you haven’t abandoned this) as a single father and cautious dater I sympathise with how pissed you were, dating someone with kids is apparently very frustrating in many ways.
Yes! I mean, what was Mississippienne supposed to say? How was she supposed to react? ‘Thanks for letting you me know that you may or not move to England this summer. Speaking of England, did you know that guy from ‘House’ is English? What a convincing American accent!’
I’m not saying Mississippienne gets a gold star for good behaviour but her boyfriend lobbed a hand grenade at her via text and then refused to acknowledge the explosion. It was a dick move.
She called him the kid in her post, not in her texts.
I don’t really see that as any worse than her line about the sexless marriage. If someone said that to me, I’d be pretty disgusted with them.
You don’t see a difference between (a) speculating that if you got back together with your ex-wife you would have a sexless marriage, and (b) “just drop it,” “you’re insane,” “you disgust me,” “you’re irrational,” “you’re an asshole,” etc.? Because I see a huge difference.
Well, I don’t think “Just drop it” is a horrible thing to say. “You’re an asshole,” and “You disgust me” is cruel but it wasn’t unprovoked. It was in response to what she said. I’m just not sure why “You disgust me” suddenly crosses the line. Besides, I don’t really see that she was just speculating–she was saying it to be a jerk as well.
Repeated because this is exactly what I thought.
There is a ginormous difference between “I am disgusted with your behavior” and “You disgust me.”
Ginormous.
Have you ever wondered why second marriages break up at an even higher rate than first ones? Now you know a lot of the reason why.
Most people don’t learn to have the kind of automatic self-sacrifice on behalf of a kid in a few months that a parent does.
And for the record, when addressed to a girlfriend of seven months, “drop it” does not mean “please text me why you think I am wrong a half dozen times in a row”. Especially when you are trying to convince him to allow his ex to shut off contact with his only child.
This is an argument you can’t possibly win.
Good luck finding someone with less baggage.
Regards,
Shodan