WHEN MY PARTNER Nick and I moved in together 18 months ago, I was on tenterhooks for weeks. I was sure that he and I would have no difficulty sharing a home; we’d had an intimate relationship for more than two years and were obviously compatible. No, my anxiety was caused by not knowing how he would respond to living with my younger son, Nick, then 17.
My partner, also called Nick, has no children of his own, nor had he ever before had his style cramped by anyone else’s. And as we know, a teenager can do some serious style-cramping. How would my quiet, privacy-loving partner cope with the garage music that thumps out of my son’s bedroom, or the visiting mates departing late at night on their motorbikes? And a man used to living on his own might not like to find that his last beer has vanished from the fridge, while a pile of dirty dishes has just as mysteriously appeared in the sink. Typical teenage misdemeanours that I, of course, was used to, but which I feared might so shock Nick that he would pack his bags and do a midnight flit.
In the event, things have worked out. There hasn’t been a single “scene” since we set up house together, a harmonious state of affairs due in great part to Nick’s innate sense of knowing exactly what his delicate role requires. He has, to my relief and delight, turned out to possess ideal qualities for any man wishing to be a divorced mum’s second spouse/partner. He knows when, and to what extent, to become involved, and when to step back. He doesn’t try to be all things to my children, understanding that it is better to play a less central part more sincerely. And when they annoy him he’ll grumble to me instead of them, which is far better.
I can appreciate this all the more because of past experiences of a very different kind, some of which still make me wince. I was a single mum for seven years after my divorce and I had a few relationships, of the ill-fated variety. The most disastrous happened when my sons were nine and 14. I got involved with a hard-drinking, rough-cut disc jockey. I’ll call him Dave. He was ten years older than me, divorced and with two adult sons. I think that in his simplistic way he thought he could re-enact his own past paternal role with my two boys. Within five minutes of installation, he had proclaimed himself the new man of the house, and was laying down the law. The 14-year-old kept out of his way, but my younger son didn’t have that option. If he reached across the dining table to help himself to some food, Dave would grab his wrist and bark: “Ask first!” I did my best to encourage him to calm down and let me do the disciplining, but he regarded me as a hard-done-by softie. “Don’t you dare speak to your mother like that” became a common refrain. There were tears and tantrums. My son got pretty upset, too.
Then one day, after consuming a copious amount of whisky, he lifted my little boy up by the lapels and pushed him against the wall for some minor infraction. I ordered Dave out of the house, and that was the end of that episode.
Though none of the other men I went out with matched Dave’s crudeness in their dealings with my children, they were ill-equipped to win their approval. Not that all even tried. To many men, a girlfriend’s children are about as desirable to have around as her ex-husband.
My older son, Adam, with his raging hormones, was too wrapped up in his own doings to take much notice of any man in my life. But junior kept a close eye on me and always made his feelings clear. He disliked one man for trying too hard to ingratiate himself. This hapless suitor did card tricks for him, told not-very-funny jokes and engaged in forced conversations to “show interest”. My relationship with him came to a truly explosive end when he drove me home one evening and we were saying goodnight in his car, parked under my son’s bedroom window. The intimate moment was shattered by a blast of fireworks on the street before us. My son had decided to use his bonfire night bangers to break up our little scene.
I tried to make light of it. “He’s just having fun,” I said. “You know what boys are like.” But he didn’t know, and no longer cared. I never heard from him again.
A single mother doesn’t choose a partner purely because he gets on well with her offspring, but it’s important to the success of her relationship. The same applies, of course, to single fathers and their partners. To be a good consort to a single parent you need diplomatic skills, according to Oliver James, a psychologist who specialises in family relationships. “You need to know when to keep your gob shut; it’s a bad idea to weigh into altercations between mother and child,” he says. “But to do the job well you must also recognise the occasions on which you should make your views felt; otherwise the children will mess you about.”
He advises against “falseness” in all its guises, because children are quick to spot it. “Never praise them falsely, or give them expensive presents as a short-cut to their approval. And don’t pretend to be part of the family until you genuinely are. You might still be treated as an interloper after three years, but you can’t hurry things along. Children often come with damage caused by previous parental relationships, which can take a long time to resolve.
Keep working at it and you’ll get there.”
James has sympathy for the childless person who acquires an “instant” family. Without the gradual acclimatisation of nine months of pregnancy to prepare you for parenthood, he says, it’s like getting the bends.
But he claims that it is easier to be part of a reconstructed family when you don’t have children of your own, because blending two broken families together is more complex still. “And someone without children will have a higher quotient of parenting attention available for their partner’s children.”
The new partner's view
BY THE TIME my partner and I admitted we liked each other, I had known him for 15 months and I understood the importance of his two daughters. “We come as a package,” he told me, which struck me as confirmation that I was taking on a decent man. I had no doubts about him, although, as someone whose only experience of children was as an aunt, I felt nervous about how his daughters would react to my presence at weekends and holidays.
They were 11 and seven, their parents were long divorced and, without force-feeding them about the nature of our relationship, we answered their questions as they arose. For the first year or so, I deferred all decisions and disciplining to their father. I recall one incident when, left in charge, I had to intervene: I did what I thought their father would have done.
Now, after nine years, I am happy to give my views about issues that concern them should they ask. I love being with them, and I have never criticised their mother or stepfather. Neither has their father. The eldest is now at university and I miss her. The children have enriched my life.
ALICE RAWSON
