[also posted on la vida crafty]

does anyone have kids and date OR date someone with kids? do you spend the night together in front of the kids? how old is the kid? did you talk to him/her about it?

OR did anyone grow up with a single parent? did they have overnight guests? what did your parent say? what did you think?

my boyfriend has an almost 14-year-old boy (F). we don't shack up when he is in town to visit his dad. but we are talking about doing it when he comes for his long summer visit. i am wondering what would be the appropriate thing to say. or if we would just be making F uncomfortable?

a bit of background info: i spend a lot of time with F when he is in town and we have a good relationship. we usually spend a day or 2 together just the two of us and go to the movies or a museum (while his dad is at work). he always hugs me goodbye before he leaves town and even told me he was gonna miss me once! and my man and i are pretty serious.

What are *your* reservations and concerns? You seem to have gone over everything but that. You must have some or else you wouldn't be posting here, no?

thanks for asking.

i have 2 concerns:

1) i have a good relationship with F and i don't want to do anything to jeopardize that. i don't want to make him uncomfortable or anything.

2) i think F's mom thinks i'm OK and i want it to stay like that. i would hate for him to go back and tell his mom something that would make her not want her son to spend time with me and therefore affect his visitation with his dad.

and the more i think about it, it's not so much that i want to be able to have sex with my man when F is here (i sort of enjoy the way the tension builds...) or even snuggles.

what i really want is to just have some alone time with my man and to engage in an adult conversation. i miss my man terribly when F is in town because we never have time for just the two of us. and the conversations the 3 of have never seem to go deeper than the latest episode of king of the hill.

i'm wondering if there are other ways we could work that out. like if we got a tv for F's bedroom, maybe he would spend some time in there by himself and my man and i could have an adult conversation in the living room. when F is here, we literally never have a second alone.

this would be funny if it weren't frustrating. when i leave at night, my man says to F, "i'm gonna walk anniebeegoode out to her car" in an attempt to squeeze in a brief chat and a little kiss. and every time F follows us out!

I don't have any experience in this area, but what I can suggest is to think of it this way: what if F was YOUR child? What would you feel comfortable with? What would you be ok with him being "exposed" to? Would it bother you if his dad's girlfriend stayed over when he visited?, etc. Granted, that is hard to imagine, especially if you don't have kids or if yours aren't that age, but it can give you some perspective.
Just from the 2 things you said, it sounds like you think/feel you should stay away(ie not stay over) & give the boys their time.
I don't know if that helped or not, but food for thought maybe?