Dating after a divorce and keeping the kids safe

So dating when your a single parent is not an easy task. In some cases it's just about impossible. If your lucky and your ex is not psycho and you can date without having to sneak around them then your ahead of the game.

Now the next step is important, are your ready?

• How long has it been since you separated?
• Are you completley divorced?
• Are your kids ready for you to see someone else?
• What's your mental state?
• Whats your plan to protect your children?

If your still married then you have a major complication. Even if you do start dating (and you can, many people do) you have to keep in mind that it's just that dating. You can't get remarried until you finalize the first one (it's called bigamy if you do, it's illegal) and a bigger problem looms, your kids. If you start dating while your still legally married and your kids are old enough to understand then it could really make them made (it probably will at first anyway).

Besides your kids will always think there's a chance for you and the ex to get back together if your still legally married and that's not fair to them to give them hope for something that will never happen. It's better to get the divorce finalized before you start doing any serious dating.

So the important question, how to keep your kids safe? This has several pieces to it. You have to physically protect them but you have to protect them emotionally as well. Some basic rules to keep your kids safe (and you) are:

• Always meet someone new in a public place. Don't give them your address or your home phone, just your cell.
• Don't show new people (that your dating) you don't really know pictures of your kids.This may seem ridiculous but there are perverts looking for single mom's with kids of a certain age and look. NOTE: There are women perverts as well just less of them so this rule applies to all sexes.
• Don't let anyone meet your kids unless you are very serious about this person and you've been dating a good long while. It's important to stick by this rule, kids are fragile and bringing new person after new person in and out of their lives is bad, it can actually cause long term psychological damage to them. Or really make them mad at you.
• OK this seems like an obvious one but believe it or not it does happen, don't have sex with anyone new at home if your kids are their.

So it may seem like I'm being overly cautious but you wouldn't believe the crap that parents subject their kids too without thinking about how it's going to affect them. As far as the "not letting anyone meet them until your serious" rule I have stuck by this one myself. It even caused me to lose relationship that I had started. I had been dating someone for about a month and they wanted to meet my kids. I said "no not yet" and she got really offended,in fact she broke it off with me, guess it wasn't meant to be. I did finally find some one that I felt was worthy to meet my kids and I even married that person. So all these years later my kids have told me that they really respect that I did that. It made them really understand how much they were (are) loved by me as I was willing to sacrifice for their well being.

Remember putting your kids first is always the right choice.

A note about the "still married but dating thing". I was separated but still married for several years because we didn't finish up the divorce in a timely manner. I wasn't ready to get remarried anytime soon and there always seemed to be more important things to deal with. This was actually a mistake. Some time later at a birthday for my daughter that my ex was attending (we managed to stay friends for awhile). Someone said when are you guys going to finish your divorce? My daughter immediately looked at me and her mom with big eye's "your still married?" she said. I could see the wheels turning in her head so did her mom. We had to have a big talk with her to explain the situation, and she was pretty upset with us. In her little mind if we were married then how come her mom had a boyfriend and how come we couldn't all live together again. Not good.

So the lesson is to be careful with your kids when you are ready to start dating, and protect yourself as well, both men and women.