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Blended Families
Blending and babies!
I recently started seeing a man who has four children from a previous marriage. His wife passed away last year. I have an 8 year old son from a previous marriage/divorce and just recently found out I am pregnant. As of now, since its the start of a new relationship we haven't met each others children. He is very happy about the pregnancy, as where I am a little nervous about the whole situation. Having one child will mean gaining four more, if in the event we decided to move in together which of course meaning a new house considering there will be 6 children, two adults, and 5 dogs. I've never been part of a blended family, and even though there's no talk of marriage, I'm worried about the children resenting me for taking their mothers place, also my son for gaining four new siblings along with an infant, considering he's been an only child for 8 years. Any advice would be helpful!
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Re: Blending and babies!
Oh holy hell. I am so sorry. I mean it's not the death of a relative and I promise you'll survive but man, oh man is that a lot to take on at once. I'm just going to tell you what I would do if I magically woke up in your shoes and you can take it or leave it.
Don't move in with this man, okay? You really have to try hard here to balance being pregnant with the newness of the relationship. Please do not let your uterus force you into circumstances you wouldn't ordinarily choose if it were empty.
I do think it's time to have the kids all meet. They're going to be sharing a sibling really soon here so it's better you start working on these relationships now. That being said, you don't need to tell them you are pregnant just yet. If I'm you, I'm waiting until at least 12 weeks if not 16 (provided it doesn't become obvious sooner/his kids are old enough to notice.) They need to get used to the idea of you two being in a relationship before you drop the bomb on them that they are getting a sibling.
I think maybe you start thinking about having dinner together twice a week, starting up a family tradition one day a week of idk, all watching a movie together at your house or whatever.
As for you and mr man, I think it's time to be pragmatic. Start thinking of a workable visitation/custody/child support arrangement. I hope he doesn't get butthurt over the prospect but the reality is this relationship is new. So you can't behave as if you're going to be together forever just because his little swimmers coordinated nicely with the timing of your egg. It would be wise to set up protections now and have them be not needed later should the relationship progress to marriage and more, than to hope for marriage and end up ending the romantic relationship before you get to the delivery room.
How old are his kids?
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Seriously excellent advice especially the first part. The relationship is new and moving in together at this point is too soon. Good luck.
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Eh. Maybe, maybe not. My DH has 3 children from a previous marriage and their mom passed. They're 11, 10, and 8. We have good days and bad days like everyone else, but sometimes I think it would be easier if they were younger. It's a delicate balancing act.
OP, there's some great advice for you up there. Tread carefully.
Of course it won't make things easy peasy lemon squeezy. But the logistics of dealing with preschoolers is more complicated physically than dealing with older kids. Older kids are in school the majority of the day, for starters so you aren't adding more day care costs on top of existing day care costs. They also get themselves in and out of their own carseats and wipe their own azzes. With older kids it's mostly emotions. With younger kids you get the emotions, the inability to express them, the flailing out over the wrong cereal, and a million and one well child visits.
Either way, it's going to be difficult but at least they should be able to bath themselves and do dishes.
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You need to be extremely sympathetic to these kids having just lost their mother. This is really just a bad situation IMO. Coming from someone who has nephews and a niece that lost their father 6 months ago (ages 20, 16, 9, 3, and 1) and seeing what I have with them, your SO starting a relationship and having another child this soon could be disasterous. The older kids particularly might have a harder time with this. My 20 yo nephew made this post on FB a month ago and while some of it isn't relevant this is "Im sick of being the only one who misses my dad everyone pretends like everythings ok."
To him, no one else misses him because he doesn't see them cry and they go to work, they pay their bills, they are moving forward. My brother's FI thought she was ready to date about 2 months after his death, but she wasn't and she figured out that she was just lonely and used to having him around all the time. While your SO, may be ready to move on, his kids may not be ready for him to and so you need to remember that they are going to most likely feel hurt over it and you need to be extra careful with them. These aren't going to be typical kids who are watching their dad start a new relationship after a divorce, their mother died and they are going to feel like she's being replaced. Once you meet them and start moving forward and break the pregnancy news to them, you need to ensure them that it's okay to talk about their mom and just be sensitive to the fact that they might not be so accepting of you for a while.