I agree. I don't care what the situation is, if you have kids and do anything that involves a relationship you are going to be judged. It SUCKS!!
I am sure it is true for those w/o kids too, but I hate the stigma of being a bad parent for certain choices in dating/relationships. I understand where it comes from cause people are worried about a child's mental and physical well being.. but damn.
We all know train wrecks and worst case scenarios, but most people don't take this decision lightly.
Oh yeah. I didn't think you were rude. I'm more just confused as to why marriage is the only acceptable time to move in with kids. What if you never want to get married again? Why are we acting like marriage makes something permanent? There is ALWAYS the chance you could break up-married or not. The important thing, like you and several other posters said, is to be on the same page. Make sure you are committed to a future together before you move in with kids. I don't even see why marriage has to be a part of that future, personally.
I think I am becoming more cynical the older I get. Even this wedding I went to this weekend, I kept rolling my eyes at some of the vows. I just don't like people acting like marriage somehow makes a relationship legitimate, or something.
Funny you say that. I did not have a wedding the first time and I wanted one for this marriage. I was planning a bigger, backyard shindig with all of my friends and family.... and then I went to a friend's wedding. ::throws on brakes::
I totally changed my mind! I kept thinking "I don't want all these people staring at me. I don't want to do that, or this or that.. umm I guess I don't want what I thought I wanted!"
Now it is small and easy. Much, much more in my comfort zone.
But some of the comments in here are downright insulting:
"Stay living separate until you get married or he puts a ring on it.
You aren't playing house. It will be an OUR home. Not a his home with you and your kids crashing.
Slow the roll a little. No penalties for that."
"As a child of a single mother that was subjected to her ins and outs with various boyfriends, PLEASE don't do this until you are ready to set a date for a wedding and there are deposits paid, etc. I would also suggest that you involve a counselor in this process to help you all set some guidelines up and expectations, give you some tools, etc."
Like, not everyone even actually gets married. Marriage isn't a guarantee, people. Hence why this board exists.
Very nicely taken out of context.
If you would have bothered reading my entire post, you would have noticed it is in direct response to comments made by the OP. I wasn't making grand generalizations. But if you want me to, I think it is pretty shitty not quoting someone so they can respond.
It isn't about marriage, or not marriage or pretty shiny rings, it is about a strong informed commitment between 2 people before involving kids who don't have a choice or control over the situation.
But some of the comments in here are downright insulting:
"Stay living separate until you get married or he puts a ring on it.
You aren't playing house. It will be an OUR home. Not a his home with you and your kids crashing.
Slow the roll a little. No penalties for that."
"As a child of a single mother that was subjected to her ins and outs with various boyfriends, PLEASE don't do this until you are ready to set a date for a wedding and there are deposits paid, etc. I would also suggest that you involve a counselor in this process to help you all set some guidelines up and expectations, give you some tools, etc."
Like, not everyone even actually gets married. Marriage isn't a guarantee, people. Hence why this board exists.
Very nicely taken out of context.
If you would have bothered reading my entire post, you would have noticed it is in direct response to comments made by the OP. I wasn't making grand generalizations. But if you want me to, I think it is pretty shitty not quoting someone so they can respond.
It isn't about marriage, or not marriage or pretty shiny rings, it is about a strong informed commitment between 2 people before involving kids who don't have a choice or control over the situation.
Sorry. I may be PMSing.
LOL. Okay. You can have informed commitment without a ring. You specifically told her to stay living separate until she gets a ring or is married. Please tell me how I took that out of context? If you think it is fine to move in without marriage or a ring, then don't tell someone to specifically wait until marriage or a ring. Try saying wait until you have strong informed commitment. Although, I don't know what you mean by that If you think OP doesn't have it. They have been together a year, discussed marriage, and are ready to take the steps towards one day being married.
Please don't blame shit on PMS. That annoys the fuck out of me.
If you would have bothered reading my entire post, you would have noticed it is in direct response to comments made by the OP. I wasn't making grand generalizations. But if you want me to, I think it is pretty shitty not quoting someone so they can respond.
It isn't about marriage, or not marriage or pretty shiny rings, it is about a strong informed commitment between 2 people before involving kids who don't have a choice or control over the situation.
Sorry. I may be PMSing.
LOL. Okay. You can have informed commitment without a ring. You specifically told her to stay living separate until she gets a ring or is married. Please tell me how I took that out of context? If you think it is fine to move in without marriage or a ring, then don't tell someone to specifically wait until marriage or a ring. Try saying wait until you have strong informed commitment. Although, I don't know what you mean by that If you think OP doesn't have it. They have been together a year, discussed marriage, and are ready to take the steps towards one day being married.
Please don't blame shit on PMS. That annoys the fuck out of me.
I told her to have a talk with her BF. That until she had those talks, she needed to slow her roll.
OP said she was planning on getting married. I am not forcing the idea on someone who has absolutely no plans on getting married ever again. If I was talking to you, I may have chosen different words, but I am not replying to your thread.
LOL. Okay. You can have informed commitment without a ring. You specifically told her to stay living separate until she gets a ring or is married. Please tell me how I took that out of context? If you think it is fine to move in without marriage or a ring, then don't tell someone to specifically wait until marriage or a ring. Try saying wait until you have strong informed commitment. Although, I don't know what you mean by that If you think OP doesn't have it. They have been together a year, discussed marriage, and are ready to take the steps towards one day being married.
Please don't blame shit on PMS. That annoys the fuck out of me.
I told her to have a talk with her BF. That until she had those talks, she needed to slow her roll.
OP said she was planning on getting married. I am not forcing the idea on someone who has absolutely no plans on getting married ever again. If I was talking to you, I may have chosen different words, but I am not replying to your thread.
So because she IS planning on getting married, you think she should wait until she has a ring to move in? Whereas if she had no plans to marry, it would be fine? I'm confused.
I told her to have a talk with her BF. That until she had those talks, she needed to slow her roll.
OP said she was planning on getting married. I am not forcing the idea on someone who has absolutely no plans on getting married ever again. If I was talking to you, I may have chosen different words, but I am not replying to your thread.
So because she IS planning on getting married, you think she should wait until she has a ring to move in? Whereas if she had no plans to marry, it would be fine? I'm confused.
You are confused because you are only reading half of my post before hitting reply.
So because she IS planning on getting married, you think she should wait until she has a ring to move in? Whereas if she had no plans to marry, it would be fine? I'm confused.
You are confused because you are only reading half of my post before hitting reply.
No, I read the whole thing. You specifically told the OP to wait for a ring, correct? Then stated you just meant she needed to be committed. You stated you specifically told her to wait for the ring because she does plan to get married. My question is-if she planned to never marry, would moving in now be okay or not? Why must she wait for a ring because she plans to marry. Your actual specific words stated: "Stay living separate until you get married or he puts a ring on it." Those are your exact words. If you honestly feel one only needs to truly be committed to move in together, why did you specifically in plain English tell her to wait for a ring?
I read your whole post, I saw the beginning portion about needing to fully discuss the relationship before moving in, which I agree with. The portion I do not agree with was what I quoted. Care to clarify?
You are confused because you are only reading half of my post before hitting reply.
No, I read the whole thing. You specifically told the OP to wait for a ring, correct? Then stated you just meant she needed to be committed. You stated you specifically told her to wait for the ring because she does plan to get married. My question is-if she planned to never marry, would moving in now be okay or not? Why must she wait for a ring because she plans to marry. Your actual specific words stated: "Stay living separate until you get married or he puts a ring on it." Those are your exact words. If you honestly feel one only needs to truly be committed to move in together, why did you specifically in plain English tell her to wait for a ring?
I read your whole post, I saw the beginning portion about needing to fully discuss the relationship before moving in, which I agree with. The portion I do not agree with was what I quoted. Care to clarify?
And when you put the 2 parts together you get....
Have a significant discussion about the future and what it looks like or stay living separate until you are ready to.
Funny how reading things in their entirety and putting things into context can completely change the meaning.
No, I read the whole thing. You specifically told the OP to wait for a ring, correct? Then stated you just meant she needed to be committed. You stated you specifically told her to wait for the ring because she does plan to get married. My question is-if she planned to never marry, would moving in now be okay or not? Why must she wait for a ring because she plans to marry. Your actual specific words stated: "Stay living separate until you get married or he puts a ring on it." Those are your exact words. If you honestly feel one only needs to truly be committed to move in together, why did you specifically in plain English tell her to wait for a ring?
I read your whole post, I saw the beginning portion about needing to fully discuss the relationship before moving in, which I agree with. The portion I do not agree with was what I quoted. Care to clarify?
And when you put the 2 parts together you get....
Have a significant discussion about the future and what it looks like or stay living separate until you are ready to.
Funny how reading things in their entirety and putting things into context can completely change the meaning.
Jesus on a cracker.
Okay, so that direct quote where you told her to stay living apart until she had a ring or was married meant "talk about the future." Oh, okay. So, you agree with my statement that she doesn't have to be engaged or married to move in? Maybe say what you mean next time. Saying "Hey, you all need to talk" followed by "Stay living separate until you get married or he puts a ring on it." Doesn't change the meaning of that sentence. The meaning of that sentence is-do not move in together until you have a ring.
W and I moved in together before we were engaged. We had been dating for almost 2 years when we moved in. DDs were 3 and 5. We were in the "wait to get married" camp. We waited to move in together until I was done with school. Then decided that marriage would be on the table if/when we decided to buy a house or have a baby. We were committed to each other and had no intentions of this being a "trial run" or anything like that. When we decided that we wanted to buy a house and have a baby, we got engaged. Had we not decided to do those things, we probably still wouldn't be engaged, because it wasn't high on either of our priority lists. So no flames from me on that part. If you guys are on the same page (you see this relationship as a more permanent thing and moving in together is the next step), I don't see an issue.
As far as how parenting goes, W does a lot of it, honestly. Before we decided to move in together, he didn't spend much time with the kids. Maybe 1-2 weekends a month. When we started talking about our future, moving in together, getting married, etc. we decided we needed to start slowly integrating him more into our family life. So we upped the amount of time he spent with them and the type of things we did together (hanging out at the house when we were all here with no planned activities vs. going out to eat or to the park or something). He started staying the night here occasionally when the kids were home eventually. It was a really long, but smooth transition. By the time he moved in, the kids would ask before bed if W was going to be there for their bedtime routine.
When we first moved in together, there was some transition. I was used to parenting alone full-time and he wasn't used to parenting at all. As he spent more time with the kids, he did get more hands-on, but it's different when you live with them full-time or are left alone with them for periods of time. They have a great relationship and the kids sometimes call him dad (We don't encourage either way, per my therapist's suggestion. He just responds whether they call him W or dad and doesn't make a thing out of it.) He does a ton of the day-to-day parenting stuff - daycare drop-offs/pick-ups, helping with homework, reading bedtime stories, telling them to brush their teeth, helping them brush their hair, etc. Ultimately, if we disagreed on how something should be handled, it would fall on me to make the final call. But we pretty equally share parenting duties now. The kids know they have to listen to him and he does occasionally give out time-outs. We are very much on the same page about what appropriate consequences look like for different behaviors and if he doesn't know how to respond to something, he'll ask me.
I think the biggest thing is communication. You can't over-communicate about this stuff. You shouldn't have to make assumptions about what you should expect from him. Talk about what kind of role you'd like him to have and what kind of role he feels comfortable having. I honestly think it would be awful to have someone living with me who had to defer to me for every little thing with the kids. For some people, that seems to work. Maybe you'll talk and realize you have two totally different ideas that you can't make meet in the middle and if that's the case, maybe moving in right now isn't the best choice.
I posted a similar question on this board about a year ago and got some similar responses about how I should be engaged with a date set before bf and I moved in together. BF and I have been together 2.5 years and he is very involved in my ds's life, we talk about marriage and we both want to get married. We haven't moved in together yet nor are we engaged yet. But I definitely understand your concerns. BF and I have a lot of conversations about expectations so I think communication is really important. I feel like his role as an (eventual) step father is to support me and he is good about that. If I say no to ds about something, bf will say, your mother said no, just kind of backing me up and reiterating what I say. I know thats not super helpful because we haven't moved in together yet I have no experience yet but i wanted you to know your not alone with your concerns!
I also agree with Jojo that a ring or even marriage doesn't mean things are permanent either. I though exH and I were always going to be together and that obviously wasn't the case. It took awhile for me to introduce bf to ds, but I don't think bf is going anywhere, as long as you both are committed and see a future I don't see why you need to be engaged to move in.
Post by lyssbobiss, Command, B613 on Sept 16, 2014 11:34:51 GMT -5
It is possible to be in love with someone and utterly committed to them without needing the security of marriage. I promise, if my SO were going to cheat on me, or if things were going to go south, they would happen regardless of whether or not we decided to get married. Most of us are here because we know marriages fail. I'm not sure why I see so many people treating engagement as the surest sign of commitment.
"This prick is asking for someone here to bring him to task Somebody give me some dirt on this vacuous mass so we can at last unmask him I'll pull the trigger on it, someone load the gun and cock it While we were all watching, he got Washington in his pocket."