My New Dating Rule

Greetings all,

I came up with this dating rule last year but I thought I'd share with others one of my new rules. The new rule is basically I will not even consider dating a man that has children. I've dated 2 of them and both seem to complicate things unnecessarily. I read an article in the Spectator this morning about how a man left his wife and kids to be in a new relationship and the children are not very nice to the girlfriend.

I can relate to this as my last boyfriend's son was very cold towards me and would rarely say anything. It made me feel like I was the bad guy and I wasn't. I tried to talk to him but it was like talking to a wall, much like what it was like to be around aimee, in fact I would say it was worse. It's bad enough that my ex made me look like the bad guy in front of our friends but now I have to feel like that when the son was around? It was a little too much for me.

I can understand why kids act that way towards a new love interest. It ruins their fantasy that mommy and daddy are not together and may never be. I don't know what it's like to come from a broken home because my parents are still married and maybe if I were him, I would be resentful. I have some understanding towards this type of situation, but this is where the parent is to step in and teach the child that it's not appropriate to treat someone like that, especially if they have never done anything wrong. But obviously my ex sides with his son and believed that I was the mean one and that I didn't like the son. I don't know how my ex would feel if the tables were turned. Would he like it if I had a daughter who basically said nothing to him and was rude when he tried to make conversation towards her? After experiencing that a few times, wouldn't he just not talk as much and be polite so as not to experience the cruelty of the silence and unspoken rejection?

Maybe the mother was making me look like the bad guy, I don't know but why would I, a grown woman, have anything against a pre-teen? Let's just say my ex was not a very rational and logical man so he tends to react to things emotionally so I can see where he is irrationally coming from.

When I dated a divorced man with 2 children 10 years ago, his children really liked me, although they probably thought I was weird. And I probably was considering most adults didn't act silly like I do. They still seemed to like me as my weirdness is endearing to most people.

I think these men with children are better off sticking with 'their own kind'. My ex with the 2 kids ended up remarrying and remarried a woman that had kids so they probably understand each other and he probably wanted a mother figure for his children since his ex wife was not a good role model, considering she never worked and probably suffered from depression. I've seen what his wife looks like (the new one of probably 5 years) and she looks very working class (What do you expect from Hamilton anyways?) i.e. she was ugly as a boot.

When I told my friend this a few years ago, she pointed out how he probably was looking for a mother and I never really thought about this. This was probably why he stopped loving me when I went away to Yellowknife to work for 4 months.

The sad thing I learned about this ex is that his son, now 18 or 19 already had a child at the age of either 17 or 18. My theory is that the son never felt loved and cared for by his mother and so was probably desperate for female affection. I know most kids have sex at that age but usually they are responsible. It's sad because in a way he may struggle for years trying to find a good job to provide. You change so much from 18-25 and I doubt that relationship will last, although he does seem happy and in love but I chalk that up to youthful naivety.

On some level it bothers me, because I want to have children and be married but the older I get, I wonder if it will happen. I am in school too and I might not feel ready to have a child until I finish school and by that time I may be 39 and that's old!

I don't know what my ex's son's relation to his mother is like but I think he may be on the same path if he is not adequately receiving love from a woman caretaker. My ex painted his ex as a demon but that's his perception. Maybe she is nice and a good mother. I don't know and it's not my business.

I know our society talks about girls who don't have positive father figures in their lives and how they act out this deficiency by seeking love by being promiscuous and confusing sex with love. We don't seem to make the connection that boys that grow up with out receiving adequate love from a mother figure end up acting the same way and I think my ex's son is a perfect example.

The other reason why I am no longer even going to consider dating a man with kids is that the men don't seem to realize the sacrifice you make as the single person with no 'baggage' (are kids really baggage? in some sense they are). I didn't get to spend as much time with my last boyfriend because he required time to be with his son. My other ex with the 2 kids was primarily a full time dad and I didn't get to spend too much time alone with him because the kids always came first.

I clearly can handle being on my own but not my ex. When I had to temporarily live out of town with my parents, he couldn't handle his alone time and started pursuing a relationship with another woman. I could have been an asshole while we were dating and spent time with other men while he was in daddy mode but I never did. I am an honorable woman and being disloyal is not in my nature.

He never said a kind word about my sacrifice. I could have pursued any man I wanted to and probably should have pursued a man that had a more simpler life.

The other issue I had was that he seemed to think somehow being a dad made him more special than everyone else. One example was I would visit him using my parent's car while I was temporarily living with them. This was the period when we were trying to get back together after the 'titles' issue. I parked on the street and he kept saying I wouldn't get a ticket as I stayed until 12.45am and the law states you cannot park on the street after midnight without a permit. I ended up getting a ticket and he said he would pay for it. He never did. I broke up with him a few days later because he lied to me that night about how he went to Hamilton with friends. He told me a week before he was planning to clean his house (which seems to be a common excuse) and then after that weekend passed said he went to Hamilton and that the day trip was planned for the weekend a week ahead. We all know, I can't handle liars. Normally a white lie may not have phased me but we were trying to get back together and I was getting suspicious of how he was defending aimee (his current girlfriend, the Mighty Leader of the Introverts!). I don't know but I can't handle someone lying but I can't handle someone whom I am starting to mistrust because I could tell something strange was going on between him and another woman.

My parent's car is obviously in their name and I couldn't pay the ticket because I was in school and not working. I told my mom about the ticket and how he said he would pay but never did. She emailed him (and I am guessing he thought it was me but it wasn't) but the asshole ignored her. She even said she would accept half the cost of the ticket. Sadly she ended up paying for it since I didn't have the money (I was on welfare at the time too. I was literally poor). I just don't get people that don't take responsibility for their actions. If you said you were going to pay for it, man up and pay for it. Just because I broke up with him for being an asshole and lying about going to Hamilton, doesn't make it right to shirk responsibility.

My parents are important to me and are just as important to me as his son is to him but he didn't seem to care and the fact that he never paid the bill was ridiculous. My mom was disappointed by his behaviour as well. My parents are my only family at this time in my life and I really respected their car and how they allowed me to use it. I used to use their past cars when I was a teenager and I was not the best of drivers and so I have caused some damage to their car and it made me feel bad. Now that I am an adult, I try to take care of their things and my ex at the time wasn't being helpful and supportive when I wanted to move my car so that it wouldn't get ticketed.

My ex was a very selfish, yet charming 'man'. I do realize I need to pick better men and at least I realized eventually that he would not make a good life long partner due to his selfishness. I have decided to have dating rules and not dating dads is one of them. As mentioned in previous posts, I have done lots of reading about relationships and basically I am looking for a man that meets the following criteria (based on the dating coach Evan Marc Katz): kindness, consistency, compromise, communication and values.