People ask me all the time, “How soon do you introduce your kids to your dates?”  I can say from experience, “Not for a long time.” Kids do not need to see boyfriends and girlfriends coming and going. And no matter how much you think you are always going to stay close to the person you are dating, you won’t. Trust me.  I have had amicable partings with many of the men I dated, but once we split, I never saw any of them again. Kids get attached easily and they get hurt if you end all ties with someone. It is like divorce all over again except without the visitation. This uncertainty in a child’s life only leads to insecurity. So unless you know you are in a relationship that is really serious, do not introduce the kids. Eventually you have to, of course, because you want to see how everyone gets along. Paul and I knew we wanted to get married very soon after we met, but we waited several months before we met each other’s kids and introduced them to each other. We took it slow to give them time to get used to the idea. We got engaged 9 months after we met and got married 9 months after that. It was, and still is, a big adjustment for everyone. Giving the kids time to get used to the idea  made things a lot easier.

On a side note, and this is just my own personal conviction, I would never have uprooted my children from their home, moved in with a man and blended our families unless we were getting married. In my mind, nothing says committment quite like the words, “Marry me.”  Paul and I wanted our children to have that security, to know that we were serious when we formed our new union: our family.