In January 2018, I started dating, and you can read about how that came about in this post here, and it felt like an opportune time to give a little update.
Well, after going on the first date back in January, we had a second, a third, a fourth etc. It has generally snowballed into us having a really happy, stable relationship. Whilst 6 months seems a long time to be dating, in some respects it feels like early days still. This is because we aren’t seeing each other every day and spending every waking hour with each other.
The Children
The priority for both of us is our respective children, and nothing will change that. Kim has a now 2 year old boy and given that Heidi is also a single child, we are mindful of how well they interact with each other, with each of us together and each of us separately.
With Oscar being a bit younger, we felt that it was easier to get him involved into the changing dynamic to start with. As Heidi was 4 at the time, we took things much, much slower with her. (and still are). We are basically saying that Kim was just a few friend and it was good to hang out together at certain points. We have NOT mentioned that we are dating!
We try to make sure we don’t overdo the interactions as well, knowing that there is no rush to any of this. The last thing we want is to have children not wanting to see each other or see each of us.
All of this has meant that the children get on really well together and are seemingly best of friends. Oscar looks up to Heidi so much and gets really excited when her name is mentioned. Heidi looks after Oscar so much, whilst also enjoying playing with all his toys as well!!
The Dates
As both of us are clearly very involved with our children, most “dates” tend to involve either one or both of the children on a weekend. If you’re a regular reader of the blog on on Instagram/Twitter, chances are you’ve read about where we have been on a date with the children.
As the children enjoy each other’s company, it makes going out on trips a lot easier. However, they can get too giddy and get carried away a little!!! The fact that we don’t get child-free weekends too often doesn’t affect us (apart from early morning wake ups!) as we both knew the childcare arrangements before we even met.
However, if we do have a child free weekend, or even just a day, we try our best to make the most of it. We had our first (and only!) weekend away in April, to London, which was lovely. However, it was also extremely strange to spend child free time with someone else! We did have a brilliant time and we tried our best to see as much as possible, just as if we had the children.
There are times when dates have had to be cancelled at the last minute because of childcare arrangements. Even this week, Heidi wanted to stay at mine even though she was supposed to be with her mum, which meant a quick dash home from date night. It happens, but the pair of us knew all of this before we started. We both know that the children come first – that is the main thing to both of us.
The Future
Who knows what the future might hold going forward. The dating game is still in its early days, but it feels as though it is stable and has excellent foundations. We always said that the children come first and that is more true than ever. If truth be told, they are the ones who will decide how far the relationship goes. If either one is unhappy with it, then the relationship doesn’t go any further, and we are ok with that.
Fingers crossed it that is a bridge we never have to cross…
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Great to hear! I’m still holding out as I’m keeping myself way too busy with the Bean, work and side hustles, so I think any prospective date or future partner would quickly lose interest.
But, it’s good to know that it’s possible to find a strong relationship with someone who equally agrees – kids come first.
Congrats to you and Kim, I’ll keep an eye on the blog to see how the merging of the families continues – both ups and downs!
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