Hi. So I am dating somebody with a teenager and two younger kids, one is a baby. I’m still quite young myself and he’s about 9-10 years older than me but I love him and we hit it off and click very well with each other.
Right now we are in two different cities across the country from each other but I anticipate moving closer to where he is because a lot of my family lives there too.
I walked into this knowing that he has kids, and I decided I was okay with that but he’s been talking about more serious steps moving towards the future between the two of us and I’m very much still okay with that but I’ve been thinking about being a stepmom and there are some things I would have to change about myself for the kids and im also okay with this.
I just, I don’t know the line between too much and not enough. Im in my early mid twenties and still kind of young at heart and I’ve never really been around small kids or even hung out with younger teenagers since I was that age and it makes me very nervous and I’m scared they’re not going to like me. I haven’t met them yet and they don’t know he is dating me and I’m worried that he’s going to rush into all of this serious stuff too soon without giving the kids time to process it.
I’m sorry this is all over the place I’m just having a lot of thoughts and worries. I very much so want this relationship to work out and last and have a future with him and I would like to get to know his kids and have a good relationship with them once we do meet down the line I just don’t know how to approach it and how *i* as a human being should act being “dads girlfriend” I guess. I watched my own parents do it but they did it the wrong way and I resented my step parents for a very long time in my childhood. I know I can’t avoid that necessarily, I just don’t want them to think I’m taking their dad away from them and I want to be able to have a good relationship with his kids too once they eventually become a part of my life.