Reply #27: It's up to you in the end

[hyphenate]

The first and foremost consideration is whether you can find time in your life to have an "instant" family in your life. If you can accept that, the woman will want to make sure you and her child get along well. Most mothers will always keep the child in their minds when they consider dating someone. It's never going to be just "you and she" when plans are made--she's going to rely on her current squeeze to make sure that some of the activities include the child in a natural way. Of course, there will be times when she can have someone babysit for her, when you want to have a more intimate relationship, but don't count on a whole heckuva lot of intimacy on a spontaneous basis.

Once that obstacle has been taken care of one way or another, your next consideration is going to be to understand that she's likely to be more mature in a lot of ways than your ordinary date, because she has other human being to take into consideration regardless of other plans or preferences.

You're also going to have to realize you're not going to be #1 in her life--at least not for a long time. Her child is always going to be in that position. And another consideration is the father of the child, and whether he is a presence or not. Because even if he isn't, his parents probably haven't vacated the grandparent role, and will always have some impact on your relationship in one way or another.

The best thing is, though, chances of success are better because it's likely that since she's got a kid, she's not that anxious to rush into having more children right away. So it will be a more leisurely dating process for awhile.