When Should You Introduce Your Date to the Kids?

Starting to date after a divorce is a difficult transition, especially for the children.  How do you explain to young children that Mommy or Daddy is starting to go out on dates with someone beside their mommy or daddy?  Of course you are going to want to explain what is appropriate for the age of the child, but details about the person you are going on a date with probably don’t need to be shared.

First Date

It’s hard not to be excited about your first date.  You may feel giddy and excited.  Your step has a particular bounce as you ready for the date.  But your young children see something beyond that if they know you are going on a date.  They may see a rival, or fear someone will replace their other parent.

Protect Your Children

Your instinct is to protect your children and alleviate their fears.  Introducing them to your date is not how you do that, especially if this is only your first date.  Really, how may “friends” do you want Mommy/Daddy to have?  Introducing the children to a new person every week or so will result in nothing positive for the children.

It’s fine to tell your children you are going out with a friend.  You are not really lying to them unless you’re on a blind date.  If you’ve known this person, or have communicated with them online, you could probably consider him/her a friend as you may consider an acquaintance a friend.

Once you’ve been out with the same person a few times and have had consistent communication with him/her and you find the relationship may be getting serious, it may be time to introduce him/her to the children.  The problem?  If you introduce your kids too early in the relationship, they may become attached.  If the relationship ends up not going anywhere, you’ve just caused your children another traumatic split.

When is the right time?  While there will never be a guarantee, wait until you both agree that the relationship has the potential to be long-term.

Deception is a tricky business. When you tell your girlfriend that her hair looks fantastic, even though the stylist obviously butchered it, well that’s a deception.  The common response to that is the standard, “I said that because the truth would be too painful”.  This is most often said by people that have never been caught in a simple white lie.  The deception of the white lie, once divulged, is far worse than the truth that was being hidden.  That is because the lie that is told to cover the truth is an absolute betrayal in the trust that your significant other has put in you to always tell the truth.

The white lie is at the core of nearly every problem that can be found in a relationship.  Yes, that is a bold statement, and yes, not everyone lives a black and white life, but that does not diminish the core significance of the statement; tell a lie once and get away with it and you are given free reign to lie again.  The white lie is equal to a gateway drug in the world of deception.

To tell a white lie is a judgment about a person’s feelings, thoughts and entire way of life.  If you tell your wife that her posterior is not large, when it is, then you must feel that her fragile, weak, womanly brain couldn’t possibly handle the fact that she has put on weight.  If it isn’t that cut and dry, then perhaps it is because you fear her outburst, fear the consequence of telling the actual truth.  Almost sounds like a Catch-22 right?

If you find this line of thought confusing or completely ridiculous, then you are probably not alone.  As it was mentioned earlier, not everyone sees things in a matter of white and black, in fact, most people are quite content living in a grey area.  Are you OK with living in that grey area or do you want to be better, strive for excellence?  Your answer is your answer, the thing that you live with forever.  In everything that we do, the choices that we make, the white lies that we tell, we pave the short path that we walk in life.  Some are looking for a greater truth and the only way to find the greater truth is to live in the simple truth.

Why should the white lie be avoided? The white lie leads to a pattern of hiding the truth from the person that you love.  If you feel that in love we find truth and truth we find love, then it is simple to grasp.  Do you love a lie?  The lie changes lives in negative ways always.  The truth is the option that leads us to greater understanding.  The greatest philosophers have always sought the truth and do you know what has made their jobs so difficult?

Lies clutter, lies block and lies corrupt.  The truth is open, the truth is free and the truth leads to the answers that we seek in life.  The best way to know the comfort level of the one you love, when it comes to the white lie, is to ask, “do you want me to tell you the complete truth or the nice truth”?  9 out of 10 times the response will be for the complete truth.  9 out of 10 times, people get upset on hearing the complete truth.  Truth doesn’t have to be harsh or cruel, it can be of course, but when it comes to a white lie, telling the truth can be done tactfully while being complete.  If your girlfriend has a piece of food in her teeth, you should probably tell her.  Not telling her is a deception and a pretty damn cowardly one at that.  The reason you want to tell her that she has food in her teeth is because, if her boss tells her or her enemy tells her, then what does that say about the person that supposedly loves her?  This type of deception eats away at love and when it is done, there is nothing left.

How many types of truth are there? The answer is one.  Let’s make this easy on my hands and quote the wonderful Wikipedia entry on deception located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deception :

Deception includes several types of communications or omissions that serve to distort or omit the complete truth. Deception itself is intentionally managing verbal and/or nonverbal messages so that the message receiver will believe in a way that the message sender knows is false. Intent is critical with regard to deception. Intent differentiates between deception and an honest mistake. The Interpersonal Deception Theory explores the interrelation between communicative context and sender and receiver cognitions and behaviors in deceptive exchanges.

The five primary forms of deception are:

1. lies: making up information or giving information that is the opposite or very different from the truth.
2. equivocations: making an indirect, ambiguous, or contradictory statement.
3. concealments: omitting information that is important or relevant to the given context, or engaging in behavior that helps hide relevant information.
4. understatement: minimization or downplaying aspects of the truth.[1]
5. exaggeration: overstatement or stretching the truth to a degree.

5 to 1 on deception vs. truth makes it almost seemingly impossible to never tell a lie.  Intent, that’s the rub.  The honest mistake can be made and an honest mistake can be forgiven, but the intent to deceive is a betrayal and it can hurt.  The intent to deceive is the sugary sauce that a lie puts on love as it slowly devours it.

This is too hard… that’s what she said. Complete and total truth always is not something that can be demanded, it can only be asked for, and it can only be hoped for.  If it is given freely, then you have found a treasure.  You don’t have to be hard on yourself, lying is easier than telling the truth.  From our earliest moments in life, we are taught to lie.  Truth is childlike, truth is naïve and that purity is taken from us the first time we are told to not tell our aunt that she smells bad or maybe not blurt out in mixed company that daddy calls the neighbor an asshole.  Lying is Santa Claus and the religious figures that you don’t like.  Lying is not saying that you don’t like your green beans and damn it, if you don’t learn to lie, life is hard isn’t it?

It’s understandable, most people don’t want to hear the truth, but that doesn’t have to stop you from telling it once you are an adult.  Lying is a childhood exercise in the development of manners, not a guideline to deceive your entire life.  If you don’t want to lie then you don’t have to.  If you want to tell your boyfriend that he dresses like a moron would, that’s fine.  That might spark an interest in men’s fashion, who knows?  Well, you won’t know each time you tell him that his oversized shirts and baggy jeans are sexy, if you don’t mean it.

At the end of part one, the reader should consider the white lie and how it affects their life.  Decide whether or not to continue its practice and the effects that take place in your pursuit of love.  If you can decide to leave behind the white lie, then you may start to see some changes in how you and your partner communicate.  Openness, complete and total openness is a lovely thought, completely achievable, but no one said it was going to be easy.