Relationship with a guy having kid and crazy soon to be ex

[Christina]

Hi guys, I really need your help here please as I am going desparated now I met this guy 4 months ago when I was traveling to LA for my vacation. Quickly we clicked and bond together. We really enjoyed our every single moment there so we decided to keep contact and talk everyday when I came back to FL. We’re really open and transparent about our private life. I’ve never married or had a kid so everything is pretty simple from my side. He is actually still married, he and his wife submitted the divorce file and waiting for court hearing. They have 8 year old son and he’s mainly custody of the kid as his wife is flight attendant and unable to take care of the kid full time. So weeks ago he decided to bring his son with him to visit me. When his wife found out, she went crazy, they had fight, yelled to each other and she did everything to ruin his trip, acted like a bitch (as he said). Previously she was the one to control everything in their married life and he and his son have to do whatever she wants. Now since he’s with me, she may think that things are out of her control and therefore extremely upset about that. She tried everything to catch thie attention, including putting herself in trouble (like sleeping pill overdose) and my boyfriend had to be there take care of her. Eventually my boyfriend still visited me 2 days ago and they are staying with me for 2 weeks. His son is pretty a good boy but his head is packed with all the bad things from his mother about me so he’s cold to me and dislike me. And my boyfriend is too soft to his every single request, with no rule for kids and I have feeling that he’s spoiling the kid a little too much. Whatever his son asks, he follows and I haven’t seen him say no to his son during 3 days here. He came here to visit me but we hardly hold hand, hug because his son sticks around him all the time and barely talk to me though I’ve been trying to be nice. He slept with his son as well and only came to my bed at 2 or 3am and then back to his son at 6am before he woke up. I feel like I am the person who is left out in my own house, everytime his son openly talk to me, his mom called and later on, he dislike me again. I don’t really have experience with kid or dating a guy with kid so I am pretty lost here. I even feel a bit insecured because of my boyfriend’s enabling characteristic and the fact that his wife is having trouble with her boyfriend. I don’t know if it’s just my feeling or it’s common to all others who date a guy with kid. How could I do to get rid of this kind of feeling or what should I do to make this situation better, to make his son like me a bit more? Or will I have to run around and deal with his crazy wife if I still want to be with him in the future? I really appreciate your advices please

[Kate]

My parents got divorced when I was little and they both remarried pretty quickly after that.

My mother's (then) boyfriend had to deal with the fact his girlfriend (my mother) already had two kids.

I was one of those kids.

I imagine his concerns were similar to yours. He loved my mother. He worried about his place in her life.

Do you know what he did?

He resolved to regard us as his own.

He treated me like his daughter, played with me, nursed me when I got sick, picked me up from school, helped me with my homework.

I have this vivid memory of being sick in bed with bronchitis, coughing my heart out. I must have been around 7.

He dragged an ironing board by my bed, and two pieces of red flannel cloth.

He ran the iron over the flannel cloth to heat it. He then placed the hot cloth gently on my chest over my pajamas.

Through the night he alternated the two hot cloths over my chest to soothe my cough.

The way to deal with everything you describe in your question is with love. You love your man. He loves you. He loves his kid.

Love his kid as if he were yours. When the two of you have another you will all be a family.

[Richard]

Okay….. that is one for the records… I will be in that position in a little while I hope. So I will give you me very personal opinion on this matter. Take it for what it is worth.
My son is my everything. He is my own flesh and blood. I love my girlfriend deeply, and I would not want to go a day without her. But I have to go days without my boy. My boy has been sleeping with me ever since I moved out of my ex’s house on a regular bases. He was scared in he new room at first, and in the weekends, he could just always sleep with me, because it was quality time. When me girlfriend moves in, I will not break that habit. It is a dad-son thing and the boy gradually will become used to the fact that there is an “intruder” in the family. They get along well, and I have been talking about her sleeping in my bed too, but he is very strict about that already: when i sleep in your bed, she sleeps in my bed or on the sofa dad. And I reassure him that that is how it will be until he is comfortable enough to have it other wise.
Luckily, my girlfriend agrees, she does not want to come between me and my boy, literally and figuratively. I think you should take the same position. Maybe just ask him some time “would it be okay if I sleep with you and your dad some time?” And how does the kids father feel about it ?

[Christina]

Thanks guy. Sadly when I eventually get along well with the kid, the father decided to go back to his ex. It’s not worth it anyway, I learned my lesson.