Dear Lindsey:

Good Monday Morning to you! I very much like what you wrote regarding the counseling session tomorrow: focusing on the children’s needs. What they need is to feel safe and comfortable with their mom and with their dad.

I am glad to read that your almost 5 months relationship with Jason is going very well. Regarding the issue for which you need guidance: last Saturday, you were eating dinner and he told you that his prior girlfriend of 6 months (who didn’t have children and who was planning to move out of state), brought up  “moving forward“, that is, “being introduced to his children, etc.“, and he told her that “he liked where things were at and did not want to take the next steps“.

Your worry is, as I understand it, that at any time, he will know that he doesn’t want the relationship with you to move forward but he will not let you know about his position, you will then bring up moving forward (like the prior girlfriend did), and he will give you the same answer as he gave her., You are okay with things as they are, right now, but you are worried that if the relationship will not move forward at some point (meeting each other’s kids, etc.), it will become stagnant and end.

I think that things between you and Jason are fine as they are, that the relationship is moving forward when it comes emotional and physical intimacy. Meeting each other’s children is far from necessarily meaning that a relationship is moving forward- it can mean (and it happens) bringing a relationship to an end because of the added stress involved in meeting each other’s children.

Your children don’t need to meet Jason, they need to feel safe and comfortable with the adults they already have in their lives. Plus, as far as I know, you and Jason do not plan to bring more children into the world, and you are not in a rush to live with him…so everything is fine as it is, the relationship is not stagnant, it is going very well, meaning it is moving forward as it is.

anita