Can this work out

cmtrujillo76

New member
Well, a little about my wife and I. My wife and I have been married for 16 years and we have 5 wonderful kids (yes, I said 5). In the beginning of our relationship my wife was never open to the idea of having a partner in our life, and this was something I was ok with. Well we started talking about having another man in our lives about 5 years ago, but it was 2 years ago that we actually acted on our thoughts. Well the first guy never worked out expecially when we found out he was dating another person behind our back and he later made it clear he wanted to take my wife away from me. We later found a divorced man who also has 2 kids and a year ago we entered into a relationship.

This relationship has had it's ups and downs expecially considering he is not willing to let his daughters know about us yet. He has made suggestions about moving in together but our concern is that is daughters will flip considering this has been going on a year. On the other hand our kids love this guy and refer to him as their second father. Heck we have even started talking about having another child which he would be the father.

My probelm is that he tends to spoil his daughters to the point of them running him ragid. It is not unusual for him to get off of work and have to run his kids everywhere, thus leaving no time for us. At first this was fine, but now it is to the point my wife and I feel left behind. We have tried to talk to him about this, but he indicates he is trying and he does love still love us. We do love him as well, but should we accept he has to much on his plate and move on with our life?:(
 
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So how old are the kids (his)?

What does he want out of the relationship?

What do you need to feel secure about the relationship? One date a week? Every other week? You may want to consider what you would like to see happen and propose it to him.

It sounds, just from listening, that the idea of living together was a bit of a pie in the sky musing on his part, a daydream. But I'm just guessing.

I remember, in our quad, hubby and I came to the point in which the household drama (roommates, extra kids in the house, etc.) took over the lives of our OSOs, and we felt "left behind." It took a very concrete conversation about what we wanted to make progress.
 
. . . we have even started talking about having another child which he would be the father.
Oh lordy, why? You've got five, he's got two. Isn't that enough, for goodness sakes! Why have more, really? Some kind of pride thing? Ugh.

My probelm is that he tends to spoil his daughters to the point of them running him ragid. It is not unusual for him to get off of work and have to run his kids everywhere, thus leaving no time for us. At first this was fine, but now it is to the point my wife and I feel left behind. We have tried to talk to him about this, but he indicates he is trying and he does love still love us. We do love him as well, but should we accept he has to much on his plate and move on with our life?:(
The first guy wasn't supposed to be seeing anyone but your wife, and now this guy is supposed to put his kids second for you. Don't you think it's rather selfish of you to ask that one of the rare divorced dads who actually spends lots of focused time with his kids drop that to be a part of your family instead? WTF?

Yeah, I'd say move on. You'd be doing him a favor.
 
So how old are the kids (his)? His kids are 14 and 16 (both girls)

What does he want out of the relationship? He wants a longterm relationship and a family. At least this is what we have been told.

What do you need to feel secure about the relationship? One date a week? Every other week? Our biggest thing is we want to see him more often, at least every other week. Between those dates more texting. We have also asked to get to know his daughters better, which he started to make an effort a few months ago but since then begin to slip.

It is hard because my wife and I have always been open in showing affection, so when he with holds it creates that seperation feeling.
 
Oh lordy, why? You've got five, he's got two. Isn't that enough, for goodness sakes! Why have more, really? Some kind of pride thing? Ugh.

The first guy wasn't supposed to be seeing anyone but your wife, and now this guy is supposed to put his kids second for you. Don't you think it's rather selfish of you to ask that one of the rare divorced dads who actually spends lots of focused time with his kids drop that to be a part of your family instead? WTF?

Yeah, I'd say move on. You'd be doing him a favor.

As for the child, he has indicated he would like to try for a boy (his two kids are girls) with us, and this is ok with all of us. Maybe it is a pride thing on his part, or maybe it's a way to show his affection.

You mentioned something about the first guy and not allowing him to date others. In our book a relationship is a commitment to eachother. We made this clear when we started dating him. I know if I were to have done this when dating my wofe I would not be married to her.

As for the guy we are with now. I never said anything about him dropping his kids and running to us. I do not call it selfish to want to spend some time with him at least everyother week, and spending time with him and his daughters as a family.
 
Well, it sounds like he is a devoted dad and just doesn't have the time to give you two what you want as it stands now. He suggested moving in, so maybe he sees that as a way to spend more time with you. It would behoove you all to sit down and voice your concerns, wants, needs, and expectations.

I would also suggest that you not think of this relationship as a Couple Plus One. You are all three individuals. He's not an appendage meant to make the two of you happy. If you all treat each other all with equal respect and consideration, you can't go wrong.

Edit: About his daughters, spoiling them (as you see it), and not telling them about his relationship with you two.... First, how he parents his children is his business, not yours. Keep in mind, also, that he may not want to tell his daughters or ex about his relationship with you two because he fears it may impact his custody/visitation with his girls. This is a very real concern for divorced parents. If his ex, or even ex-in-laws, disapprove of his arrangement, depending on where you all live and what grounds can be used, they can file a complaint and prevent him from seeing his children. More than a few people have lost custody or visitation when it was discovered they were in a polyamorous situation. It's an unfair reality.
 
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Some thoughts.

Asking a formerly solo person to be fidelitous with an established couple (also known as unicorn hunting), especially right off the bat is somewhat problematic to me. The established couple, especially if they're long-established, are going to have a deeper and a different sort of partnership than the new, third person. The established couple gets the stability of their set habits and comfort together, plus the excitement and uncertainty of new love. The new person only gets the latter and it will generally be a long time, if ever, before they are really integrated into the couple's partnership and are a full member and an equal in reality, not just in intention.

I mean, after all, isn't the whole idea of poly that you can have commitment without exclusivity?

Of course, that doesn't make the fact that your ex was lying to you ok... I just think it's worth considering that your expectations of new partners might be a little unreasonable.

As for your present situation, it's not fair to expect your bf to disrupt his relationship with his daughters for you guys. *However*, if he was ok with them getting to know you and with being out to them, you could see him much more often without forcing him to take time away from them. So, I see the fact that he's keeping them in the dark as the biggest problem here.

It's not fair to consider moving his girls in with you guys while they are still unaware of the nature of your relationship. As teenagers they're old enough to understand these things and certainly old enough to feel very betrayed if they're lied to.

If he's serious about this relationship, he needs to come clean to them, so that you all can spend more time together now and so that you can have a future together. Waiting a while was perfectly reasonable, but a year is long enough. After all he'll have to tell them if/when he has your child, right? If they're going to have to know eventually, why not save a lot of the angst and do it sooner rather than later? He doesn't have to tell them that it's been a whole year, I think it's okay to fudge a little on that part.
 
If he's serious about this relationship, he needs to come clean to them, so that you all can spend more time together now and so that you can have a future together. Waiting a while was perfectly reasonable, but a year is long enough. After all he'll have to tell them if/when he has your child, right? If they're going to have to know eventually, why not save a lot of the angst and do it sooner rather than later? He doesn't have to tell them that it's been a whole year, I think it's okay to fudge a little on that part.

I think that it's definitely up to him when to tell the kids. Just because it's been a year doesn't mean it's *time* to do it. It depends on a lot of elements-- how certain he is that things will last, how secure he feels in the relationship, his kids personalities and temperaments, the kids' mother and concerns about how she would react to this situation...

When I met my hubs and started dating it was about a year and a half until they even knew he existed, let alone met him. Even then it was probably almost 3 years until we hung out at all together. I needed to make sure this person was going to be in my life for a while before introducing them to my kids.

And frankly, I am not a big believer that kids need to be "in" on every aspect of their parents' life. In fact, there is a lot of damage that can be done in giving too much information too freely to your kids. There's a big problem lately with parents seeing their kids as "friends and confidents" instead of children. It puts the child in the position of handling information they are not mature enough to handle and ends up causing them issues in their future relationships. And I don't see anything wrong with keeping dating life separate from home/kid life until there is the decision to make things more permanent, and then you can integrate the two.

And, like NYCINDIE said, there are serious vital concerns that if the mom of the kids is unhappy with the situation he could end up losing custody of his kids over it. This isn't a concern to be brushed off lightly.

That said, having a talk about what's going on currently, where you all see yourself eventually, is not a bad idea. But why the rush? So often on here I see people rushing headlong into making relationships more serious and rushing to move in together instead of taking time and enjoying the moments now as they are.
 
I want to thank you all for the posts. It has given us a lot to think about. We actually have a date and we agreed to talk about things. We are wanting to discuss what we would like to see in the relationship and set some plans to to get to know his kids (as friends). One quote that really got to me was "Bring your own happiness to your relationships and everyone will thrive". Thank you again to each of you who posted.
 
It sounds to me like he has an idea of where he would like to go with his relationship to you two but you aren't listening or being respectful of his pace and knowledge about his own business. He know his girls, he knows his ex, he knows when the right time is to tell them about you, he knows what he wants to see happen and yet you are jumping ahead. Why? What's the rush? It isn't two against one here. Its three of you together supporting each other and alking through this together.

Personally, any man that puts his kids before me is a good man. Those kids are not at an age where they are able to go it alone. They need their Daddy to show them what kind of man is suitable and going to treat them right. He treats them right.

In my opinion kids are meant to be spoilt with a parents utmost attention and support regardless of what is going on in our lives. Okay, we as parents shouldn't give up our entire lives to our kids. They do learn boundaries from us, but when a kid needs its parent for emotional support and supports such as bringing to baseball practice or whatever we would be serving them best by being there. Putting the amount of date nights ahead of that is just not being a good parent I don't think. I think that there should be tons of flexibility, understanding and empathy there on your part.

I'm quite surprised that there is a complaint about how much time he spends with his kids when you have 5. I would think that this would be a no brainer really.

Having another kid? Ya, I don't get it. This kind of ownership and consumeristic way of having kids was never something within my realm of understanding. It sounds like you are years away from that anyway as far as I can see. There is a lot to do before then. It seems the order of business would be best as follows; get to know his girls as a friend (which it sounds like is on your agenda), get to know their mother, come out to girls and mother when a solid, respectful foundation is built, move him in, and then talk about a baby after the NRE of moving in has worn off. This could, and in my opinion should, take years. Pacing and letting things normalize is so important in complicated relationship dynamics.
 
Everyone's parenting style is unique, as are the needs of the children.
I hope you can find a way for this to work for all of you <3
 
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