If you are used to relationships where you are always number one, realizing you are number two might be a little difficult. When dating a parent, you need to respect the fact that there is a child in the mix who has needs, and those needs are going to come before yours. If the child is sick, you may have to cancel a date or spend it flattening ginger ale and opening crackers. This can be a tough adjustment to make. Plans may get canceled because of the child; plans also may change because the other biological parent has a conflict and needs to cancel visitation or send the child home earlier than expected. Unfortunately, if you are not prepared for such changes, you may resent the child for disrupting your dating life.

Preparing Yourself

To prepare yourself to be number two, envision yourself as a parent. If you had a child with the person you are now dating, how would you want her to treat that child? If your child were sick, would you want her to ignore the child and go out to dinner with you? If there was an emergency, would you want her to groan with annoyance? Of course you wouldn't. This is how you should look at your current situation. If your new girlfriend is putting you before her child, that is a warning flag. What is going on with her that she is not responding to this child, instead making you her first priority?

There will be times when you may feel you are getting blown off and the child is being used as the reason, when in fact it is not the child's fault. The other biological parent may try to disrupt plans or make dating difficult for your new girlfriend out of jealousy. If you see this occurring, recognize that this is not the child's fault, but an issue between the parents. You can certainly explain to your girlfriend that you feel as though the relationship is getting difficult because her ex is constantly refusing to take the child at the last minute and disrupting your plans, but be sure to point out that you do not hold the child responsible. Although the father in this situation is using the child as a pawn to ruin your girlfriend's attempts to move on, it is not an issue of your girlfriend having a child, but an issue of your girlfriend having an ex who is not ready for her to be dating.

This is a tough issue, and it can lead to the demise of your relationship if the adults in the situation are not able to come to some sort of agreement. If you find it is getting to that point, you may want to try scheduling your dates when the child is in the care of a babysitter who is a neutral party in the relationship between your girlfriend and the child's father. If you find that your girlfriend is still letting the child's father manipulate situations, it may be that your girlfriend in fact is not ready to move on from her child's father and needs some time to figure out what she wants.

If you can approach all situations with the child's best interest in mind, you will have better success in your relationship. You will also learn to be relatively selfless, and you may be surprised at how good this feels. When you do spend time with your girlfriend that is solely your time, you will appreciate it more and know that the two of you found this time while still considering her child's feelings and well-being.