Un-Married…with Children: What I Learned Dating After My Divorce

A little over 4 years ago, I met someone. We dated, moved in together, planned a future, and then he liked it so much he put a ring on it. (I was also 5 months pregnant with my now 3 year old so…) Everything was pretty good. Until it wasn’t.

Too bad Beyoncé didn’t write a song to accompany what happens after he stops liking it, takes the ring off of it, and pawns your bling somewhere in Cocke County.

After I signed divorce papers, I re-met an old friend. We started dating. We have since parted ways, but I quickly realized dating with kids is WAY different than just regular ole dating. In fact, it’s some sort of hilarious nightmare that goes a little like this.

1. Are we eating dinner or is this a booty call?

When I started seeing someone, I didn’t immediately want my kids to start seeing that same someone. So, like any self-respecting, clueless mom, I started sneaking him into my house using the backdoor after the kids had gone to bed and I knew they were REALLY REALLY asleep.
“Hey you wanna come over? I made beef stew in the crock pot…”
“You know its 9:30, right?”
“Well…yeah…but I mean, the kids went to sleep an hour ago so I think we’re safe.”
“Is this like in high school, when you invite someone over to ‘watch a movie’?”
For about three months, we played the arrive late, leave early game. Which leads me to my next point:

2. “Mommy, whose car is out there?”

Did you ever sneak someone into your room when you were a teenager? I didn’t. But I have thrown a grown man OUT of my bedroom window like a lunatic because I heard Maddox trying to make cereal in the kitchen unassisted at 6am. I have also told the same sleepy (then) 3 year old that the SUV parked in the driveway wasn’t actually there. “NO, NO SON, I DON’T SEE ANYTHING AT ALL OVER THERE. JUST LOOK OUT THE OTHER WINDOW, MMK?”

3. Busy is a choice.

I know we have all probably read a version of the blog post that went viral a few years ago, detailing how busy isn’t cool or trendy; you make time for what you want to make time for or however it went. I have joint custody, with 50/50 decision-making capabilities, and am the primary residential parent. Loosely translated? The court’s fancy way of saying I can’t just up and take the kiddos to Bali and open a lemonade stand in the rainforest. Translated in the day to day? I am the one running to sports practices, friends’ birthday parties, PTA meetings, making cupcakes at 11:30pm, and doing all the other mommy things. Those little people who have the same double-helices as I do? I like them more than you. I like them more than all men. I like them nearly as much as I like corn dogs. I swear I am not a pretentious-idiot-jerk-man hater; I sincerely don’t have time to go out on a weeknight. And so…

4. What is happy hour?

Dating with kids means that 99% of the time I cannot do whatever it is that a potential mate wants to do unless we take the kids along, which is fine after we’ve all logged time together, but is a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET in the beginning stages when I am trying to keep my little men separated from my romantic man. Honestly? I’m tired. And I don’t want to drop $40 on a babysitter so I can go to a bar, movie, dinner, party, etc. on a Wednesday…you know, normal date night stuff that people do. And there are very few men who want to spend their nights at a tee ball field or an awards banquet or at my grandma’s house when a great band is playing or there’s a happy hour in a trendy bar downtown.

5. Save the drama for your baby mama…or daddy.

At some point your ex man has to meet your new man. This is a special torturous form of hell. I mean. It just is. Even in the best possible scenario, where everyone co-parents and gets along, your new man meeting the man who used to do the thing he’s trying to do, to the person with whom he’s trying to do it (aka take you to the boom boom room), is LITERALLY THE MOST AWKWARD THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF AWKWARD THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED. There is a lot of foot shuffling and staring at the ground and talking about the weather and not a whole lot of direct eye contact.

I am abut 80% sure that if our lawyers made us role play one of these meetings during the 90 day TN state mandated divorce waiting period, I’d probably have just called it all off and gone to marriage counseling or agreed to live in different houses across town to practice celibacy or something. SO. FREAKING. AWKWARD. Y’ALL I WANTED TO DIE 10 TIMES.

6. Tiny reminders.

To tag onto that: I HATE running into the ex girlfriend/ex wife/ex whatever of the person I’m seeing. Yuck. Imagine living with and playing with and eventually loving the past of your girlfriend and her ex whatever.

It takes a really strong man to love another man’s child, and to sacrifice for that child.

(But clearly my children are PERFECT and PRECIOUS and ANGEL CHERUB BABIES who are SO QUIET and WELL BEHAVED and DO NOT need attitude adjustments on the regular and everyone who meets them LOVES and ADORES and OBSESSES OVER them instantly so that didn’t apply to me at all. I have just heard this. You know, from other Single Pringles out there).

7. The sads.

If/when it doesn’t work out, there is a lot of heartbreak. When a “normal” relationship ends, you lick your wounds and eat ice cream and drink wine and confide in your girlfriends that he was never good enough for you (or if you’re Taylor Swift you write a chart topping single) and throw all his clothes away, and deal with it as best you can. Add onto your heartbreak two tiny hearts also breaking and that’s a break up with kids. My first relationship after my divorce lasted for a year. And then I found myself explaining to two little tear-streaked faces why he was at his parents’ house and why, even though we knew where his mommy and daddy lived, we couldn’t go get him and bring him home. Because he didn’t want to come home.

This is where it gets tricky. How can I love someone who has hurt me but who has also hurt my children? How can I answer phone calls and text messages and really honestly miss someone who has caused my babies pain too? If you’re looking for some huge philosophical takeaway here, skim on sister, because I still don’t have that for you.

All I know is that we healed and we soldiered on (and we went to the beach just the three of us and stayed up until midnight watching Pixar movies) and now things aren’t sad anymore. But seeing my boys hurt over someone I brought into their lives was awful, and I don’t wish it on anyone.

Dating with kids is hard. And if y’all are out there, fighting the good fight, trying to rock lacy Victoria’s Secret torture devices one minute and bake 15 cupcakes for a class party the next without missing a beat, you go girls. I can promise it gets (somewhat) easier to put yourself out there. I can also promise that good men are around, just waiting to be pushed out of your bedroom window wearing only boxers and a baseball cap.