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Help re taking on young Step children when my own are grown up

jagman's picture

Submitted by jagman on Sun, 05/01/2011 - 10:07pm

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Step/Bio Father's Den

Hi all,

I'm new here. Here's the deal.

I'm 43 this year, I have two grown up daughters aged 24 and 18 both of whom are independent and working/ driving etc.

I have met and completely fallen in love with someone who is currently getting divorced and who is 32 this year (11 years my junior) she has two daughters aged 5 and 18 months. The 5 year old lives with her Bio Father and stays at mums every other weekend. The 18 month old lives with her mother and stays with her father every other weekend.

For many months I purposely stayed out of sight as we both thought it wise until we knew we at least had a future together. We each have our own property and so I stay over at hers occasionally. Over the past couple of months I have had more contact with the Children. I love my two girls dearly and I miss them being young so I thought it would be no problem forging a relationship with my girlfriends two daughters.

This is where the problem lies. When I stay at her house I'm sort of overwhelmed by the whole thing. I guess I'm used to having older children who are more like friends than daughters. Now all of a sudden there are high chairs and sticky fingers and crying and mess and disorder. My life I suppose is calm, clean, and ordered. I can go on vacation when I please, I drive a nice new car with cream leather that people don't eat chocolate in. I have expensive furniture that wasn't bought with young children in mind. I'm in shock I think!

I've given this a lot of thought and I have come up with the following. I think my main concerns are that 1) I will be 60 by the time my Girlfriends youngest daughter is 18. And 2) I'm going to struggle being restricted by having young children again.

I love this girl dearly. I suppose because we purposely didn't interact with the Children initially I have grown to love her as a single girl.

Any thoughts?

dodgegal05's picture

Submitted by dodgegal05 on Mon, 05/02/2011 - 12:14am

Age is just a number imho. If you feel like you cant have a happy, full life being restricted consider that you can still do a lot of the things, but planning will just be involved. Also if the stepkids will be respectful then that relationship can be very rewarding (which you already know from raising two girls already).is there weekends both girls are gone? if so then you can still have the carefree life some of the time. The only thing ive learned from here is to find out the relationship the girlfriend has with the bio dads, if they coparent well and he doesnt cause drama (like some bms) then the relationship should be smooth sailing.

jagman's picture

Submitted by jagman on Mon, 05/02/2011 - 6:10am

Thank you both for your response and views.

To clarify some of the points you asked about, The bio dad is very good with them, he is now in a relationship with a girl who also has two young children and so my girlfriends eldest daughter seems to prefer to be with him during the week as she has peers to play with. Every other weekend both girls are with their Bio Dad.

Its just a culture shock I guess, Just to explain a little further, I used to own businesses that I sold a few years ago so other than a little consultancy I am partly retired. At the moment I can go out for dinner whenever I choose, I don't need ugly baby gates and corner protectors around the house. I don't have an imposed bed time to fall in with a baby waking at 6am and so on. I'm worried that the relationship will fail if I can't adjust to this or if I regret it when I reach 60 and think "I have spent the past 17 years bringing up children again when I had the resources and youth to travel and do other things"

I have discussed this with my Girlfriend. She understands my concerns and she is very understanding, I suppose it's make or break. Am I doing the right thing if I get involved because of my strength of feeling for this girl or should I end it for both our sakes now?

Quyjye's picture

Submitted by Quyjye on Thu, 05/05/2011 - 12:36am

HaHaHa Jagman you say your girlfriend understands your concerns and she is very understanding. Just wait when the kids are yelling a screaming and running around the house and your girlfriend is busy doing something and you are in your chair where it's nice and comfy reading the paper or watching the news just unwinding. She won't be too understanding any more. Then both of you won't be happy any more. You will have to put up with it for quite a few more years now. Didn't you already go through that once before with your own? These two are not yours. It will be different.