Daughters & Dating
Q: I've been divorced for several years and, now that my daughter is a little older, age 16, I'm just starting to feel comfortable dating -- at least I thought I was.
Because I feel I'm a role model for my daughter, I can't help but think my love life is under a microscope. The problem is that this is new territory for me, and I'm bound to make some mistakes. How do I go through this and still maintain some credibility with my daughter?
A: This is an excellent question. Dating with a daughter in the house can be a healthy and rewarding growth experience, or battle straight out of Dante's Inferno. A child can literally make or break a budding relationship. In this case, you are not only dealing with your own emotional questions and issues, but you have an impressionable and observant teenager who is paying close attention. Teenagers present an delicate set of circumstances, and daughters even more so.
There are several questions I have to ask. Is your daughter your only child? Does she live with you full-time? How is her relationship with her father -- is he close and involved or distant, either physically, emotionally or both? Is she dating, too? What kind of relationship do you currently share with her -- do you talk about everything or is she pulling away? Is she actively involved in your life, or does she do her own thing?
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Always a Mom First
Thanks for this article. When my husband and I divorced, I thought I'd never date. Then, when my daughters hit their teens, they were both always scheming to get me to go out on dates. Looking back, I suspect they thought that if I were out in the dating scene, I would get some perspective on their dating lives and lighten up a bit on curfews, stop insisting on meeting the boys they were dating, etc. At the very least, they'd get me out of the house. Although I did date a couple of men in those days, I'm proud to say that I didn't get so wrapped up in my own dating life that I stopped paying attention to my daughters' dating lives.
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