I’m a ridiculously selfish woman.
This isn’t something I’ve recently learned about myself. It’s not some sort of epiphany I had in the shower. It’s just factual information I’m giving you about myself, so the context is relayed early in this column.
I have a rule about dating guys with kids. I don’t do it. Not because I don’t like kids, although, truthfully, some of them are just awful. It’s because at the end of the day I’m investing my money, my time, and myself into a kid I have no say so over, and a relationship that has odds worse than Vegas.
I mean, think about it. You know he’s got at least one serious relationship broken off under his belt. And I don’t even have kids with him, so what reason does he have to stay and work it out with me?
Anytime I’ve ever dated a man with children, I’ve found I come in last, reach for my wallet first, and spend time and funds I ultimately don’t have to spend on a child I’m never going to see again.
Worse than that, one of the key benefits of being in a couple, financial stability, is off of the table when you date a man with kids. You watch him cut a check to his ex every single month, but God forbid you need help paying your phone bill. You better start sending up smoke signals, sis, because that phone will be off by Tuesday next week if you’re waiting for him to help you pay AT&T.
Of course, that doesn’t stop him from expecting you to lose twenty working hours every other weekend so you can feed and entertain his kid. Or assuming you’ll babysit at the drop of a hat or take his kids home on Sunday because he has a ‘real’ job he has to be up early for, while all you do is craft stories that can be told lackadaisically.
The investment has never panned out for me. It’s bankrupted me any time I’ve undertaken dating a man with kids, and it’s one of the only rules I firmly abide by when dating.
It isn’t I don’t like your kids. Sure. They’re great. Do I like them enough to watch you fund a complete household as I roll change to put gas in my car? Absolutely not.
It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve heard, ‘oh, my child has two parents already’, or ‘I only see them once a month, no big deal’, it always ends up with me rearranging every single detail of my life to full detriment of myself.
I didn’t need to rent a three-bedroom house; you did. However, here I am paying a light bill three times higher than my old one because you and your child don’t understand that lights and TV’s have off switches.
Nor do I watch television. Ever. It’s fine, let me pay this cable bill so your kid can be entertained twenty-four hours a damned day instead of doing something like, I don’t know, going outside.
A year into it, after every spare dime I had went into groceries, and Christmas gifts, and birthdays, I’m broke, but not the comfortable, there’s a paycheck in two days broke. I’m behind on my own bills, but watching you pay yours and your ex-wifes and I understand why I said I would never do this again.
I have run the cost-benefit analysis and the numbers don’t lie. There is no way dating a man with children could ever help my circumstances. In fact, it has only left me with unpaid debt for a kid who probably doesn’t even remember my name.
That reminds me. I need to pay this credit card I charged Christmas to. Interest compounded on two kids’ gifts is enough to put you in the poor house.
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Previously Published on Medium
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