When I met Tim, life was good. I was happy. I had a fulfilling life of my own. I had friends I spent time with regularly. I had hobbies and activities that I participated in. I had a spiritual community I attended regularly. I had a pretty good balance.

A year and a half later, life is still good. But recently, I “woke up” and realized that many of these things that had enriched my life back then had gone by the wayside. They had been replaced with a relationship with the most wonderful guy I’ve ever been with and his two darling daughters. I’ve begun life coach training, I’m working on starting a coaching business, writing this blog, going to the gym on occasion, working 40 hours per week and trying to have some time to just relax. I’m busy and it’s hard to find the time to do anything more and I’m feeling out of balance.

All of the dating and relationship advice for women (0r men) dating or married to someone with children says the same thing: have a life of your own, do things with friends, spend time alone, pursue your own interests and do things outside of your relationship. I definitely do things for myself, spend time with friends, work on creative projects but not as often as I would like. I’m still figuring out how to create this balance while maintaining my relationship with all three of them. I’ve been staying at their house a lot more when the kids are there lately so it’s a whole different situation that when I could just escape to my apartment. I thought once I realized I needed to do some different things, it would be easy to fill in the blanks but it’s not as easy as I thought. I’m not single anymore and I don’t have as much free time as I used to.

I recently heard someone say that attaining balance in life is not like a scale that is achieved by measuring exactly the right amount on both sides. It is instead like surfing where you lean to one side or the other as you feel like you might tip over. Finding balance in this way is a fluid motion. There is no one perfect formula for achieving this balance. It’s a life long process not something you ever perfect. My surf board may have come close to tipping over and that is okay. Right now I’m figuring out how to lean the other way.

Get a Life is a post from: Dating a Dad

I have been experiencing a lot of fear lately. Tim and I have been talking about the future and I’ve been freaking out. We decided that I would move closer to his neighborhood so that I wouldn’t have to travel back and forth between houses so much. And so we could generally be together more. I live 12 miles away and it can take up to 40 minutes to travel one direction. I’m the one who ends up doing most of the traveling and I don’t enjoy going back and forth.

It feels like a huge step for me. I’m relocating myself, moving to a whole new neighborhood  so that I can be near them. In my mind, it’s almost as if I’m moving in with them and my fears are right in my face. I’ve been making all kinds of demands for Tim to make decisions about how he wants to organize the house when I move in, how he’s going to handle certain situations with the girls, what our timeline is, etc. I was not happy with some of the answers I had gotten from him and was letting my fear create distance between us.

Then last Monday afternoon, I got a call from a friend who told me that a mutual friend of ours had committed suicide. It was a total shock. I hadn’t seen her in a few years and had been in touch with her on Facebook last fall but hadn’t gotten around to getting back to her. Without a warning or a decision, my world has been thrown upside down and I’m grieving the loss of my sweet friend.

It sucks. I keep thinking about her kids and how could this possibly have happened. But at the same time, this tragic news has broken my heart wide open. I see very clearly that there is nothing in life that is more important than loving the ones who are still here with me. I need to tell the people I care about that I love them because you never know what will happen. I don’t want to let people slip away and wait until tomorrow to keep in touch.

That day when I got the terrible news, all of my drama with Tim melted away almost instantly. My fear and anger subsided. I’m seeing people differently, with compassion and gratitude. I want to stop and talk to people I see everyday in the halls at work and tell them they are important and that I care. I want everyone in the world to know that they must never underestimate their significance and their power to touch another person’s life. I see now that we are all so much more powerful and valuable than we realize.

I’m sure these intense emotions will fade as my grief does but I hope that I can carry some of this new found perspective with me into my life. Love is all there is. Nothing else matters.

Nothing Else Matters is a post from: Dating a Dad

I spent time with my boyfriend’s ex wife last weekend for the first time. I had met her a number of times when she was picking up the kids at Tim’s house or we were dropping off the kids at her house (or vice versa). Other than that I’ve avoided contact with her. But Tim’s four-year old daughter performed in a gymnastics show and she wanted me to be there. So I didn’t really think twice about whether or not I would go.

Even though I had no problem showing up for my little friend, it was a huge step for me to agree to go knowing that the ex would be there. I’ve always been uncomfortable around her. Tim has told me how confrontational she is and I admit I was intimidated by her. We’ve always been polite yet distant toward each other. She has an air of hostility that I cannot help but notice through her fake smile and flat tone of voice. Being the people pleaser that I am, I feel extremely uncomfortable with her disapproval. So I avoided her.

A consequence of my avoidance is that fear has taken over. Martha Beck, in her book Steering by Starlight, talks about the fearful mind as the “inner lizard,” alluding to the reptilian brain whose reaction to danger, perceived or real, is fight or flight. My inner lizard had built Tim’s ex up into a fire breathing dragon who was going to eat me alive.

We greeted each other with a polite but awkward hello in a crowded gymnasium. The girls were excited to see her (it was Tim’s weekend with the kids) which caused me to feel uncomfortable and out of place for a moment. We were quickly occupied with finding a place to sit down and we found two chairs that we shared amongst ourselves. She and the girls disappeared for a while and I was relived to be left chatting with Tim’s mom. After a while, I found myself standing alone with her and her older daughter. She turned to me and said, “I really appreciate how well you treat the girls. They love you and it’s obvious.”

I was shocked. I was amazed. That was not what I had been expecting AT ALL. I thanked her and said that it was mutual and I was crazy about them too. And that I knew they had a great mom (this is true, despite everything she’s a good mom). There was an awkward pause and I went on to tell her that I love kids and I used to be a teacher which launched us into a bit of small talk that ended quickly as the show started.

What I learned is that she is not a fire breathing dragon. She’s a woman who loves her children. She’s grateful to me for being good to them when she’s not around because she knows (I assume) it could be different. She feels uncomfortable around me (I’m guessing) just like I do around her. But she doesn’t hate me. She doesn’t want to eat me alive or bite my head off. She not a dragon at all but a lizard just like me. Some times I let my fear get the best of me, but it usually ends up turning out completely differently than I imagined. When I face my fear, more often than not, good things come of it.

Dragon Lady is a post from: Dating a Dad

We all enter relationships with expectations. Dating a single dad is no exception. What I have learned from some of the research I have done is that many of the problems that people end up having in blended families develop because the people involved have unrealistic expectations. These expectations don’t magically appear when people say “I do”. My hope is that examining these expectations will help us have a better relationship in the long run.

Recently, I came face to face with one of these expectations. I was helping Tim organize his kitchen. In the process of helping him clear out some of the old stuff and organize things, I came across a little book his ex had given him in 2001. (Why he still had a book from over 10 years ago in his kitchen is a story for another time!) It was a miniature book titled I Love You and she signed her name inside and wrote, “I love you”.

It upset me. Just a little. I handed the book to him and went upstairs and took a break.  No one wants to find that sort of thing just laying around in their significant other’s kitchen. My reactions are not out of line and it may not even be obvious to you that I had an unrealistic expectation at work. But as I began to freak out, I remembered something I read recently in a book called Stepfamilies by James Bray. It is a fabulous book about the findings of a long term study done in the eighties on stepfamilies. I learned so much from the book and I highly recommend it. One of the things that the study found was that everyone, even the most realistic and clear minded couples who had formed blended families, had unrealistic expectations.

One of the expectations that was outlined in the book is called the “Just Us” expectation. According to Dr. Bray, we women have evolved to keep our man close and to insist on his undivided love and financial support in order to ensure the survival of our children. Even though in modern times this instinct is no longer necessary, any indication that he was with another woman, even in the past, can bring up our territoriality and be really upsetting.

It’s hard to argue with nature and instinct no matter how conscious and rational I think I am. I get upset even though I know all the facts: Yes, she exists and they were married once upon a time. But he’s with me now and not her. It didn’t work out with her and that is why they got divorced. Things with he and I are going great. So as I sat upstairs in his bedroom and remembered the “Just Us” phenomenon, I ran through these facts in my head knowing that the little book no longer means anything to him. He’s happy with me. And I calmed down and let it go.

This could become a problem down the road if I were to hold on to these events and develop resentments about their communications or their financial arrangements. I’m sure that’s not the last time something like this will happen, but it helps me knowing that I am hard wired to get upset about it. These reactions are normal and natural. If I remember that she is in his life and is not going away but that their relationship is over, when these things come up, hopefully I can get upset and then let it go.

Just Us is a post from: Dating a Dad

I watched Dr. Phil the other day and it disturbed me. It was the first time I had ever watched the show.

There was a 23-year old daughter who was addicted to heroin and the parents, the dad, the mom and step-mom, were doing everything wrong in enabling her addiction. The dad supported her financially by paying her bills and  buying her a new car when she totaled her old one. The mom was a doormat and would do whatever he daughter wanted or needed. The step mom was angry and closed off to her step daughter.

The daughter was extremely angry at her father and step mother for things that had happened when they had first gotten together when she was twelve. Her dad just told her one day, this is your new step mother, without really even introducing them first and she was really hurt by that. The step mom and step daughter never had a good relationship. The step mother was jealous of the relationship between the dad and the daughter. The dad had to lie to his wife when he saw his daughter because of the conflict it caused. The family was a mess.

The fact that the daughter ended up a heroin addict is an issue all it’s own and I’m not going to go there. The thing that really disturbed me is these people did not take the daughter into consideration when they got married. Creating a blended family is no small thing and some thought should be put into it. This family on Dr. Phil was just one example of this. Over the past year, I’ve been researching step families. I’ve been reading books  and I’ve talked to lots of people about their experiences. I’m not an expert by any means, but one thing I have noticed is that many people get together and the kids are an after thought. And it disturbs me every time.

The lesson I learn is this: If I am going to be in a relationship with a single father, I know that I am dating the entire family. I am dating my boyfriend first and foremost of course, but he comes as a package and I must take them all into consideration. Step family creation begins as soon as I consider a future with this single father. I must take the time to develop a relationship with his kids. I have to be patient. I can’t move as quickly into the relationship like I can with other men who have no kids. And as I get to know the kids, I know it may not always be easy. I may be jealous and feel like an outsider. But I must support the kids and their relationship with their father and their mother. My jealousy would only make it worse.

I am changing the focus of this blog. It’s still all about dating a single daddy but up until now I was afraid to approach the topic from the viewpoint of step family creation. I realize now that my purpose all along has been to be proactive and to take everything I’ve learned from the books and the interviews and create a resource that will help us get the most out of the possible future with a dad and his kids.

You can watch the episode of Dr. Phil here: http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/1720

What Disturbs Me is a post from: Dating a Dad

Happy New Year! I hope this post finds you well. I am in Hawaii with my dad, step-mom, brother and, of course, Tim. He didn’t have the kids for Christmas this year and my dad decided to take us all to Kona with masses of frequent flyer miles they’d saved up. Lucky me…

This time of year, I get reflective. Starting at the beginning of the month of December, I start thinking about what I have accomplished this year, what I want to have completed and what I want for the upcoming year. But I don’t usually do resolutions. I gave up on New Year’s Resolutions many years ago. Resolutions for me have always been about trying to force myself to do something that I really didn’t want to do. If I wanted to do it, I would have already done it. I decided that since I never achieved what I said I was going to and usually ended up feeling bad about myself when I didn’t, I would just abandon the tradition altogether. Instead, I set intentions for the year to come.

What’s the difference? Resolutions are things that I want or things that I think I should do. Intentions are based on a dream or a positive vision for the future. It’s about who I want to be and how I want to live.

My dreams and intentions for 2012 include:

• Moving closer to Tim and the girls
• To start making a living doing what I love
• To be grateful
• To go boogie boarding

An intention is about inviting in the positive that I want in my life rather than willfully forcing change. When I set a positive intention, I can envision myself there and begin the journey toward a more positive version of myself.

If you have an intention that you’d like to share, I’d love to hear it.

Blessings for a Safe and Happy New Year!

Setting an Intention is a post from: Dating a Dad

If you are like me, you can get focused on the little things that are going “wrong” in the situation with the single father I am dating. For you, it may be that your boyfriend had to cancel plans with you at the last minute because of a sick kid, or he got a call from his ex when he was spending time with you or he left the towel on the bathroom floor when he spent the night at your house (by the way, if you haven’t experienced any of these examples, insert your own situation in place of mine).

Where ever you are, I’m right there with you. All of those things happened to me too. The specifics aren’t as important as the feelings they ignite inside of us. I can get up on my soap box about why he shouldn’t do what he’s doing if I’m not careful. But what I have learned is that it’s not what he’s doing that upsets me so much as it is the meaning I make about those things. I tell myself I’m not important when he talks to his ex or changes our plans. I tell myself he doesn’t respect me when he leaves his towel on the floor. What do you tell yourself about the things that drive you crazy?

According to Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, in their book How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, I lose connection with him when he changes plans or takes the call from his ex in my presence. I tell myself that he doesn’t love me or some variation of it and it hurts. As much as I would like to, the solution is not for me to go and tell him how I feel and what he is doing wrong. In fact, talking to him about it is likely to make it worse. Instead, the solution is to reconnect.

In the book, they go into why criticism and negative complaining are really bad for relationships. This is not to say that I should ignore my feelings when I get home and find the towel on the bathroom floor.  I should most definitely acknowledge them, honor them and feel them myself. But I need to consider what is more important, maintaining my connection with Tim or the towel on the bathroom floor. As  counter intuitive as it may seem at times, I would rather reconnect with him.

I first stumbled upon this book when I was feeling distant and disconnected from him last spring. I tried some of the suggestions in the book and it really worked! If Tim is physically present, I can connect physically with a hug or some kind of touch. Love and Stosny recommend six hugs per day for at least six seconds. If I am not going to see him that day, I text him hearts and kisses. Several times per day when I can remember to, I think of him in my mind and feel my connection to him in my heart. I spend time just being with him on a regular basis as well. The book has lots of helpful tips on how to reconnect and those were the ones that worked out the best for me. We went from disconnected to happy with each other in a matter of days.

Try it and let me know how it goes!

Source: How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Patricia Love, EdD and Steven Stosny, PhD

Staying Connected is a post from: Dating a Dad

One of the trickiest things about being in a relationship with a single father is feeling left out. There are two ways this occurs. First, I am not a part of the family. I am very close to them, but I don’t live with them and I am not related to them in any way. So I am “on the outside”. And sometimes I am literally excluded. This is a very important topic and I will address it in another post. The second way that leads to me feeling left out is a little more subtle. Up until recently, I was actually protecting myself from getting too close to them and felt disconnected from them as a result.

The truth is that as dating a single father goes, I think I have it pretty easy. I’ve worked through a lot of difficult stuff over the past year but now things are going really well. I have a great relationship with my boyfriend, his two daughters adore me and I adore them. A couple of months ago, I realized that the three of them had been inviting me to be more a part of their lives and I wasn’t accepting the invitation. The girls had been asking me, begging even, to spend the night. Tim has said that he wants me there “pretty much all the time”. They’d invite me to join them at birthday parties and other various activities but I would decline.

I think one of the most important things about having a successful relationship with a single dad is to keep my own life and not give all of my time and energy to him and his kids. I need to take care of myself and stay connected outside of the relationship. At the same time, I would justify my distance because I didn’t want to get too close to the girls because I didn’t want to hurt them if things didn’t work out. I was gently reminded by a friend that it was not my responsibility to protect them from getting hurt. If Tim was okay with risking it, then I should be too. I admitted that it was actually myself that I was protecting. I continued to keep my distance. I would spend time with them on the weekends but I always went home at the end of the day. I felt separate from them and it made me sad. But I was too scared to do it any differently.

Recently, as things have begun to move forward bit by bit, I have started to spend the night. I was so afraid to stay over because I didn’t want to get attached and I wasn’t ready. Now that I am doing it, I love it! On the weekends when Tim has the kids, I usually spend Saturday night and all day Sunday with them. My favorite part is Sunday morning. They get up early, as kids do, and I get up at about 8:00. Tim sleeps in until about 10:00 and we have two hours together. We do art projects and play games and read stories. It is really sweet time and I feel so much closer to them as a result. So much for not getting attached.

The moral of this story is that we all have ways of keeping our distance and protecting ourselves. That can serve a purpose and there may come a time when you realize that it is not really necessary. I was protecting myself and perpetuating the feeling of being left out. I eventually realized that it was me who was keeping myself on the outside and I needed to take a risk. And I’m so glad that I did.

This is not always the case because, as I said above, I am literally on the outside and that can be extremely painful. Even if I move in with them and become a part of the family, I anticipate that there will be this insider-outsider gap that I will face. This is a vital topic to the success of a relationship with a single dad and his family. Being aware of it is the most important thing because then I can take action to do something about it! More on this soon…

On the Outside is a post from: Dating a Dad

Jealousy (and anger, resentment and competition) often characterize the relationship between the new girlfriend and the ex. They certainly did for me in the beginning. Dating a single father is a very unique situation because I have no choice but to interact with my boyfriend’s ex-wife on a somewhat regular basis. There is nothing wrong with these feelings and they are perfectly natural, in fact women may have evolved to be jealous of the other woman to protect the children. While there is nothing wrong with these reactions, I am here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way forever.

When we first started dating, I was extremely threatened by the presence of my boyfriend’s ex-wife in his life. Maybe you can relate. They regular contact via email and during pickup and drop off times. He told me there was nothing between them. It was over long before they ever split up. He assured me she was still angry with him and wanted nothing to do with him. He was always telling me that he had no interest in her. “I’m here with you now,” he would say. Try as he might, nothing he could say helped me feel any better about it. I was hyper aware of any contact they had and even though I knew he communicated with her, any mention of her threw me off balance and upset me.

Now, I’m normally quite balanced and emotionally together. I’m sensitive, but I have learned how to work with my emotions. All of these jealous feelings were upsetting for me and I couldn’t shake them off. I was upset that he had this ex in his life and I was judging myself for being upset. I just wanted to be okay with everything. I knew I was “supposed to” be cool with his ex. All of the dating advice I had read about dating a single father said so. But I wasn’t.

Jealousy evolved to keep us faithful to our intimate partners, according to an article in Psychology Today. Natural or not, it hurts and it may have outlasted its purpose in modern times. Today in my situation, the article says, my jealousy is actually saying more about me and my relationship to myself than it does about him and his relationship with her.  I trust him and I have set boundaries with him and with her and don’t think that he is going to get back together with her or anything like that. But when I would imagine these interactions, the general beliefs that got triggered are I am not enough, I am unlovable and I don’t measure up. My general lack of love for myself that was driving my feelings.

When I finally met her one Saturday afternoon last February when she was dropping the kids off at his house, it had two opposite effects on me. First, I was completely relieved. I been filling in the blanks with my imagination about how things were between the two of them. When I met her, I could feel the tension in the air. There was this air of hostility that she harbored toward him and I could tell that they were closed off from each other. On one level, I realized that there was nothing to be threatened by.

On the other hand, I started comparing myself ruthlessly to her and not in my favor. I spent about a day and half criticizing myself. After our brief meeting, I was telling myself that I didn’t measure up to her and that I was not good enough. I finally talked to my boyfriend about it and asked him why he would want to be with me when he married someone who was so different. He set me straight and reassured me that he wanted to be with me because I was different and that nothing I was telling myself was true.

Over time, I have been able to let go of the jealousy for the most part. I still get triggered at times and I start telling myself that I am unlovable and I don’t measure up. Sometimes I look at jealousy as a message about something that I want that the other person has. And I can take action to make changes in my life to work towards it. I also try to accept these feelings instead of resisting them. I have worked through most of my resentment toward her (read about it here) and I actually have compassion for her.  We are both polite to each other when we see each other but we are still very uncomfortable. She is closed to me and tense in my presence. My work now is to be able to relax in the face of  disapproval or at least learn to accept my discomfort.

If this doesn’t work for you and you are thinking that it’s all very nice for me, but your boyfriend’s ex really is crazy or she really is crossing a line, maybe you need to set a boundary. While it is true that fears and limiting beliefs will still come up and you have to be able love yourself through whatever happens, there are times when it’s not just you and your insecurities. There are times when you are not okay with things that are happening. I can completely relate to that feeling. For me, in dealing with my boyfriend’s ex, it does really come down to loving myself and taking excellent care of myself. Part of taking care of myself is continuing to set boundaries with him and with her.  I don’t have to sit back and just accept whatever they want to do. Yes, jealousy and competition may come up again and again throughout the course of this relationship, and depending on what stage of the relationship I have been in, different boundaries have needed to be set. But that is a story for another time.

Stay tuned for my upcoming post on boundaries next month…

Source: Hara Estroff Marano.”Jealousy: Love’s Destroyer”. Psychology Today. July 1, 2009.

Jealousy and the Ex is a post from: Dating a Dad

I have struggled most of my life to believe that I am worthy. I don’t always feel like I am enough or that I measure up. Most people can relate. We are not taught to believe in our own worth. But the good news is there is another way!

What I have learned is that I am amazing and beautiful and nothing can change that fact. Whether I believe it or not, it is true because I was born. And it is true for you.

This man I am dating, as much as I love him and would be so sad if it didn’t work out between us, is not the source of love in my life. I am lovable and amazing with or without him. I am amazing just by being myself. I have always been amazing, I just had to believe it was true. The same is true for you.

I don’t need to do anything, I just need to be myself.

You don’t need to do anything, you just need to be yourself.

When I temporarily forget the truth, I try to remember to breathe in deeply and connect with the part of me that knows I am amazing and beautiful and magnificent and fabulous. I have to connect with my value and feel it. I get out of my head and into my heart. I deserve the best because I am worth it. I deserve all the love and respect and adoration that I can handle. I have to love and respect and adore myself before anyone else is going to.

Feel it. You owe it to yourself to love and respect and adore yourself and know that you are amazing and beautiful. You deserve it!

Amazing and Beautiful is a post from: Dating a Dad