Dear Nikol,
I’m dating this woman with kids and everything is great so far. We get along, I like her kids, and there aren’t any looming ex issues. They all act like adults and cooperate. The sex is perfect. We have a good time no matter what we’re doing. I have feelings for this woman in a huge way. Then last week I was joking about what our kid would look like and she very quickly told me she doesn’t want any more kids. And also she said she doesn’t ever want to get married again. Well, that just doesn’t work for me. I want a child of my own and I want to get married. Still, I feel like we have something good going on here and I don’t want to walk away.
– Committed and Conflicted
Dear C&C,
I guess you just need to figure out how important getting married and having a child is to you. If that’s something you absolutely have to have in your life, there is no future for you and this woman.
I mean, you could tell her right now that you want a kid and you want to get married, but the thing about women with children and ex-husbands is that they’re generally not dicking around when they tell you what they do or don’t want. They’ve had enough time and experience with the lifestyle you want that they’re no longer given to the little girl daydreams of what that life is like.
You may think, “Oh, but with me, it would be different! I wouldn’t complain about weekly trips to Bed, Bath & Beyond. We’d laugh and have fun. I would be her partner.” You’d be right that with you it would be different. It’s different with everyone. But there are a lot of things that would be just the same. It sounds like, if she gets along with her ex-husband, it wasn’t a matter of a traumatic marriage that has scared her off of marriages. If her kids are cool, and she is happy, she’s not afraid to have more kids because it’d be difficult. She just knows that she has the amount of children she wants to have and she’s seen marriage and isn’t impressed.
If you do figure out that you value the whole baby and a marriage thing so highly that you must have it, you need to then figure out what that means for your relationship with her. You’ve become enough of a part of her life that you’ve met the kids, and that creates its own stickiness in break ups. You can either resolve to remain friends, as would be ideal since you two like each other, or part ways entirely. The other possibility is that you just relax. Have a talk with her about the things you want and make the choice that for right now you are content together, so you’re fine just letting things happen the way they happen.
Too often people look at a relationship in which both partners don’t head toward the same goal as a waste of time. They break things off because they don’t want to become too involved. In doing this, they aren’t allowing for the possibility of getting to know someone and even love them deeply simply because they think love is only worth it if love is happily ever after.
So, it’s really up to you if you want to stick around and enjoy your time with this single mother or if you’d rather start dating again and seeking the person with similar long term goals. Whatever it is that you do, I wouldn’t count this relationship as a loss. Sounds like you got a good look at the type of woman well suited for you.
– Nikol
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