living together
Find a Conversation
living together
| Tue, 11-02-2004 - 12:57pm |
How do you think would be the best way to introduce/and or tell my children(both teenagers) that I would like for my boyfriend to move in with us? Is there anyone out there with experience doing this? My children are very fond of this man. We have been dating for a year and he is at my house until the children go to bed every night. He has never spent the night while they are here. They know we are very serious about one another and are planning a future together. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas about this. Thanks.

http://messageboards.ivillage.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=iv-rlsolomother&msg=7276.1&ctx=128
I am not trying to discourage further comments but I do remember that thread was particularly good.
Personally I am against living together and even more so if there are children involved.
Good luck to you and welcome to our board - keep us updated!!
While I am obviously not against living together - I do think you and your boyfriend need to have very clear cut plans about your future together (are you getting married? when? are you both in agreement on this? is either of you pushing the other for marriage?) Why do you want to live together now? Do you view living together as a committment? How involved would he be with raising/disciplining/reprimanding the children? Have you considered step-parenting classes? Have you considered pre-marital counseling?
When kids are involved - I don't think "we love each other and want to live together" is a good enough reason to live together. It's fine when you are 20 and foot loose and fancy free. Kids change everything.
Welcome to the board!
Mindy
http://cosmosandcranium.blogspot.com/
My son loves Shane. They are so adorable with each other and he was not bothered by living with Shane. He thought it would be fun to live with mommy's cool friend, Shane.
My advice is to give the kids a head's up of what you are thinking about. Let them know you love each other and what they plans are for the future. They deserve to know. Get them to open up truthfully about how they feel. I think it could work out. But you have to communicate.
Mel
<a href="http://www.TickerFactory.com/weight-loss/wtCMCc4/">
<img border="0" src="http://tickers.Ticker
I currently live with my SO, his two boys and my daughter. We moved in together in February. We made sure the kids knew what the plan was the whole time and included them on the house hunting and encouraged them to discuss how they felt about living together. We have a wonderful cohesive family unit now. On the contrary, the boys' mom (who only sees them every other weekend) decided to move her boyfriend in to her apartment and eventually get married without ever consulting the kids about it. The older boy had some real issues with that. So, I think we did the right thing. :)
I won't give you my opinions on living together because I don't think that's what you were asking for. I do think you definitely have to include the kids, especially at their age, in the decision. Now, are they boys or girls and what has their relationship been with your bf? Do they like him? Do they spend any one on one time with him? Because the dynamic is automatically going to change once he moves in with you and everyone has to be prepared for that. He is still a guest in your home right now. If he moves in, it'll be his home too and things that you never even thought might be an issue may creep up on you. Especially with teenagers in the house.
You definitely need to be on the same page as far as discipline, division of household chores and all that. He has to feel like a real part of the family and not just "mom's boyfriend" for this to work. That means you give up some of your responsibility and share authority with him. That's not always easy.
I definitely think you can do this successfully if you're smart about it. One thought I had when starting this post was how hard it must be to move in to someone else's home with their family and really feel like it's your home too. I moved into my boyfriend's place with my kids and that was hard enough. You are going to have to have lots of patience and so is he. But if you really want it to work, you can make it work.
Hugs
Tara