Post-Divorce Balance

Welcome to the "On Balance" guest blog. Every Tuesday, "On Balance" features the views of a guest writer. It could be your neighbor, your boss, your most loved or hated poster from the blog, or you! Send me your original, unpublished entry (300 words or fewer) for consideration. Writers need to use their full names. Obviously, the topic should be something related to balancing your life.

By Page Evans

Driving from the airport to his family's lake house, the panic set in. Racing heart, sweaty palms, shortness of breath.

"I don't think you understand," I told the man I'd been dating for a year. "I'm afraid of your children. You're gonna have to take me back to the airport."

Obviously, I'm not the first person to date someone with kids. We're both divorced with children from our previous marriages, so meeting and spending time with each other's families is a logical step in the relationship. I'm 41 with two daughters, aged ten and under. He's 54 with three older kids; his youngest is 13 and the only child still at home. But we hadn't done the total full-family blending thing yet, mainly because, with five children and two ex-spouses, there were multiple schedules in play and it was rare to find everyone in the same vicinity.

That's why it was important for me to spend a weekend with his entire family. My first time alone with them. His parents would be there, too. No pressure or anything.

"Should we pick up some wine?" I asked, still in the car. "I need to give your parents a present. What kind do they like, white or red?"

He fidgeted nervously. "Um...Actually, they don't drink."

This was going to be worse than I thought.

Then it hit me. I shouldn't have been going to the family lake house for a weekend with his kids. I mean, I should have, because I was dating their father. But being there was unnatural--for all of us. And once I realized it was okay to feel unnatural and awkward, the weekend started feeling more normal. Why had I thought it would be comfortable? My boyfriend's children and parents had memories to go with their weekend house that didn't include me. His kids certainly didn't need another mother-figure; they've got a great mom. As for my role, I had no desire to act like a mother toward any children other than my own.

That's when I decided to go with the flow--however unnatural it may have felt. I tried to be my natural self in an unnatural situation. All of us probably felt a little abnormal. And that's normal.

In the absence of a manual for dating after divorce, I'll take what I can get. Besides, when I returned home, exhausted after waterskiing, tennis, tubing, roasting marshmallows and yes, having fun (turns out my boyfriend had been joking about his parents not drinking), I had my own children to worry about. The first thing my 10-year-old told me when I picked her up from her father's was:

"Mommy, it's fine if you want to date him, but you know I don't want you to marry anyone with children."

That's my story of how I'm trying to find love -- and balance -- after divorce. What's yours?

Page Evans lives in Washington, D.C. Her work has been published in The Washington Post and Washingtonian Magazine. You can read her essay, "Shark and Jets," in Mommy Wars.

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  January 29, 2008; 7:00 AM ET  | Category:  Guest Blogs
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