[BasketCaseCutie]

My boyfriend and I have been dating long distance for about 8 months. He’s been divorced 2 1/2 years and has a 5 1/2 year old daughter who lives full-time with her mother. We’ve managed to make the long distance relationship work by seeing each other no more than every 3 weeks (it’s a 1 hour plane ride or 9 hour drive). I met his daughter 2 months ago and have since spent some time with her a handful of times during my visits to his place. We get along OK — we’re still getting to know each other and she understands that I live far away and am not around very often. The next step in our relationship would be for me to move to his town. Obviously, with his daughter being so young he is not willing to move to my town. The question is: how do we approach these bigger steps with his daughter? My boyfriend don’t kiss or even hold hands when she is around. This is very difficult to do since we are normally very affectionate with each other when his daughter is not around!! When she spends the night and I happen to be in town, I sleep in the guest room. So, we have yet to reach a point where we think she will be able to understand and accept me sharing a bed with him– let alone moving in with him or, eventually, getting married! How do we navigate these waters???? We are desperately in love and want to take our relationship to the next level, but are unsure of how to ease his daughter into this idea. How do we go from being “friends” to being partners in her mind??

[April Masini]

Good question!

My advice is to not spend much time with his daughter right now. Your boyfriend is right not to hold hands, be affectionate with you or have you spend the night in his bedroom when she is around. You’ve only been dating every 3 weeks for 8 months. That’s not very much face time. A dozen dates? [i]Way[/i] too soon to be involving his daughter. She’s not a pet. She’s a human being who’s been through her own trauma with her parents’ divorce less than 3 years ago. She was probably used to having her dad around all the time, and now she only sees him at most half the week, and more likely, every other weekend. You’re going to be a take-away in her eyes because you’re taking away time she would normally be just with her dad. So don’t compete with the five year old. Besides, if you did, even inadvertently, the last thing you want is for your boyfriend to feel guilty that his daughter is pressuring him to be alone with her, without you. So, when she does get to know you, little by little, and over time, let it be her idea to want to spend more time with you. Let her be the one to ask her dad if you can go to the zoo with them. If you follow her lead, and if you’ve given her plenty of time to see you around and not as a threat, then you’ll be helping create a step-family and not just insinuating yourself into her world with her father and taking him away from her.

So, that’s her, but I’m actually concerned about you, too! If you’re going to move 9 hours away for this guy, make sure you’re prepared with a Plan B in case things don’t work out for you. I know you’re excited, but you don’t know him that well, and he’s got some baggage in his ex-wife and daughter that are going to weigh in on your relationship. So, after you do move and get to town, spend another year dating him to make [i]sure[/i] he’s the one. It’s not just the two of you that will be in jeopardy if things don’t work out. The little girl will be hurt, too. And on the other hand, if things do work out, you may end up being a step-mother! No small responsibility, that.

So don’t get clouded by your emotions. Keep your head straight. Remember, dating every 3 weeks for 8 months is really different than being in the same town and seeing each other several times a week and dealing with his day to day (as well as yours!) with work, custody schedules, his ex-wife’s reaction to you having a relationship with her ex-husband her daughter, and his parents, family and friends. So slow it down big time, and get to know this guy a lot better.

[BasketCaseCutie]

Thank you, this is so helpful! I will follow his daughter’s lead and talk with my boyfriend about how we can tread lightly together. I guess I am just anxious to move faster because I believe I have finally found “the one” and am even dreaming about having children with him — and at 35 years old, time is not a friend right now.

Also, I did leave some detail out for the sake of simplicity– because it really is complicated. I went to college with my boyfriend and his ex-wife, who was my old roommate and friend. The two of them often kept to themselves, but our circle of close friends from college are the same and still remain intact. It was her decision to divorce (she was having an affair), but I wasn’t close to either of them while they were married. I couldn’t make it to their wedding, but I had spent some time with them at our 10-year college reunion when they had been married for 5 years and that was the only contact I had had with them for their entire marriage. So I ran into him after they had been divorced for about a year and a half and we confessed that we had crushes on each other while in college– needless to say, we hit it off right away. All of our friends, even the ones who are closer to his ex-wife, think it’s fantastic. He told me that he had told his ex about me a couple of months into our relationship and she was fine with it. I think she didn’t feel she had a voice in this matter since the divorce (and affair) was her decision. After 5 months it was time to meet his daughter because by now she knows about me since he was honest with her about “visiting a friend in another city” to explain his occasional absences. I knew this would likely mean seeing his ex for the first time so I sent her a short email letting her know I was looking forward to seeing her again and that I hoped it wouldn’t be awkward. She was really appreciative of the note and said she was looking forward to seeing me also. Our meeting was just fine (a thousand times easier than meeting his daughter). So, even though my boyfriend and I have only seen each other about 15 times for long weekends (and a couple of almost-one-week visits), including a vacation with two other couples from college and their children, and countless hours on the phone, we are much more confident in our relationship with each other than most would in the same dating scenario.

So, in addition to having to work around his daughter’s emotional needs, I am having a hard time spending so much time away from him. I go through a roller coaster of emotions when we see each other. I go from being incredibly anxious and desperate to see him, to being in absolute heaven and elated when we’re finally together, and then lower than low and completely depressed about being alone again. And then it repeats—– over and over with no end in sight. When will it end?? Even though I know it is going somewhere, or at least am about 95% sure that it’s going somewhere, I need to have the feeling that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Else I just feel like I’m in the dark. It’s almost like being on Space Mountain in Disneyland. It’s an exhausting roller coaster ride in the dark that I just have to do something about! And I know that the reason we haven’t discussed moving yet is because we are both still stumbling through the process of “working around” his daughter. I’m not at all resentful about this. I accept it, but it doesn’t make it any easier on me.

[April Masini]

Thank you for clarifying that your boyfriend is actually a decades old friend and college buddy, and that you knew his ex-wife, also. 🙂 That helps me understand part of why you’re so anxious to move forward — he’s not someone you just met. He’s someone you’ve been reunited with. In fact, he’s almost like long lost family. I can understand why you think he’s the one.

But….I’m still seeing flashing yellow lights in your situation, and I hope you’ll heed them. I sincerely understand your anxiety that you’re single at 35. In fact, it comes through as desperation, not so much excitement about getting married, and that’s what I was picking up in your last post. A desperation to be married and have children. (So, take a breath. You don’t want to make a mistake at 35. This is when you want to play the dating game really well.)

I think you should pay close attention to the fact that your boyfriend has not discussed your moving to his city. In reality, he’s talking about the fairy tale of you being together, without talking about the nuts and bolts of day to day living with a custody arrangement and a 5 year old. [i]Danger! Danger! [/i] 😕

Pay attention to your boyfriend’s [b]behavior[/b]! Not just his words. In fact, pay attention [i]mostly[/i] to his behavior. He is being clear that he is wanting to wait and see how things go with his daughter who seems reluctant to share her dad with you. This is a more complicated and delicate situation than I think you realize. Just because you knew your boyfriend and his ex-wife back in college 20 years ago, doesn’t mean things will go as smoothly now. And just because his ex-wife had an affair that ended their marriage doesn’t mean she doesn’t have rights to her child, and may seek and win more custody of the child if things get bumpy with you and her daughter along the road. This will create a lot of stress (understatement) between you and your boyfriend.

Also understand that sometimes someone you’ve know for decades, and that you suddenly reunite with, or who suddenly becomes potential boyfriend material because one of you is suddenly single, can slip under the [b]dating game radar[/b]. It’s easy not to use the same filters you would use on men you just met to decide if he’s right for you or not, because you [i]think[/i] you know this guy so well. (And the same goes for him.) The reality is you knew him as a friend a long time ago. Being a boyfriend — or a husband — is different. You may both be cutting each other too much slack as potential husband and wife because you have this past history as friends.

I know you want what you want, but please remember my rules about getting a man you want. You have to give him something to chase. You have to keep the dynamic going where he wants you and he will do anything to get the big prize he’s chasing — you. It sounds to me like you’re allowing your desperation to push you over that line and you’re close to chasing him now. [i]Don’t push![/i] If you think he’s the one, then it’s worth the extra time to make sure. He comes with valuable baggage in a 5 year old daughter and an ex-wife. You have to make sure all the pieces will work [i]well enough[/i] (it doesn’t have to be perfect). There is no downside to spending that extra time figuring that out. There [i]is[/i] a downside to not spending that time doing that work.

[confusegirl]

hi,

i can relate your situation to my situation too..and im glad at least i got an idea here…well..maybe i have to follow some of the ideas got from your experience..good luck!

confusegirl

[April Masini]

Let me know how things are going for you? 😉

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