I’m 36, once divorced, now remarried since last year. Bradley (my ex-) and I chose not to have children, and now that I’m a step-mom to Jason’s children I can see we were right. Being a parent is really hard work. His kids take him for granted and have a tremendous sense of entitlement. Jason always did well professionally and his family never wanted for material things. Bradley and I were – are – social workers, and never had a lot of material things.
Dating a middle-age man with children was everything I had heard – bad. They always tended to pull his attention away from me. Jason cancelled several dates we had arranged when one of his kids suddenly “didn’t feel well”. While we were dating they were generally cool and distant with me, but never outright impolite. I thought I understood them – me this new person who wanted to take some of their only parent’s attention from them. I loved him so much I wanted to make it work as a new family.