I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Bachelor Richie Strahan has finally declared his love for single mum, Alex Nation. He declared it to her and to the world. While it went to air last night, the event actually took place back in May, yet according to Alex, since that time, Richie is still to meet her son, Elijah.
Say what?!
It’s raised a few questions. What does this mean? When will they meet? When is the right time to introduce your new partner to your kids?
When I separated and began dating again, it wasn’t a question I considered initially.
When would my children meet my suitors? Well, never. As a single mum, my singular focus was making the best life I possibly could for the three of us. Keeping my home life and fairly limited romantic life separate was fine by me.
Until it wasn’t. Until I met someone who I wanted to see all the time. I wanted him in all areas of my life – I thought he was amazing and felt he could bring a lot of positivity into my kids’ lives, too. Plus, somehow it didn’t seem right that the most important little people in my life didn’t know about a new, very important person on the scene.
But when?
After some consideration, I figured that three months after we first started going out was a respectable time frame.
But, the best-laid plans were discarded around the seven-week mark when little more than instinct told me we didn’t need to wait any longer.
My kids were four and seven at the time. We kept it simple. I’d told them we were meeting my ‘friend’ for pizza and a couple of little things about him. My son was excited he had the same kind of car as us. It wasn’t a long dinner and there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the evening. The kids didn’t really get that this man was anything more than my ‘friend’ but it got the ball rolling.
But of course, the first meeting was only the beginning.
Much like everything parenting-related, there are no textbook, step-by-step instructions on how to establish this love triangle. No answers but plenty of questions to consider. Do the kids feel safe? Do they feel secure? Do they feel a sense of conflicted loyalty with regards to their other parent?
Down the track, there are many, more rocky seas to navigate – house rules, together time, conflicting values, disciplinary rights and on it goes.
And hey, even when you manage to approach the situation with care and sensitivity, kids can ark up. They never asked for any of it and are under no contractual obligation to be reasonable and accepting of change. Also, kids can be real jerks sometimes for no other reason except that they’re kids. That can mess with your mind too – Am I doing something to cause permanent psychological damage or are they just being little punks?
It can be a real headf**k.
But of course, whether you wait seven weeks, three months or twelve months, there are no guarantees the relationship will last anyway. As single parents, we know this better than most.
Life is tricky and messy and fighting change is futile. As parents, the best we can do is muddle through and evaluate how to handle that change as it occurs. Sometimes we nail it and sometimes we screw it, and if there’s anyone out there who can actually say they have blended any family flawlessly and without incident, I would like them captured, studied by scientists and placed in a museum in the Liar Liar Pants on Fire exhibit.
In the nearly five years since that introduction over pizza, my children and I have moved in with my now-fiancé and his two girls. At times, we still find ourselves learning and adjusting. Sometimes the journey is deceptively easy and sometimes it’s deceptively discouraging and at one time or another every single person in our arrangement has thought, “I wish things could go back to the way they were …”
But that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been worth it. The more people, the more love. It’s totally worth it when it works.
If I could offer some obnoxiously, unsolicited and potentially unneeded advice to Alex and anyone else contemplating when and how to introduce a new partner to your children, it would be to go back to two of the most fundamental parenting lessons.
1. Trust your instincts
You may be in unchartered territory, but you are the closest thing to your child and would never knowingly steer them wrong. Even when you don’t know what to do, you’ll figure out what to do.
2. In this life, putting your child first doesn’t mean putting yourself last
So by all means, fix their breakfast first but when it comes to you, please don’t settle for burnt toast and cold tea or nothing at all.
