divorce help, meeting daddy's girlfriend

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i am divorced and my ex is currently working in another province, but he has a girlfriend here and they have had a bit of a unstable realtionship, when he returns likely sometime this summer they will be moving in together and she is kind of wanting to get to know the kids. my ex and i both agree that they have to be stable for a bit before we introduce a new person into the kids lives and that it will be very slowly at first, at least three months or so after they move in together. they have lived together before but not at his house it's a little complicated, but i guess she feels like because they've been together for a while, and the kids are a part of his life she should at least meet them and have some contact with them. i get different stories from him sometimes as to their status, but he has lots of issues and i get the story that he's not really sure about her but just doesn't want to be on his own. i really don't want her to get involved in my kids lives and then dissappear.
any advice on how to work within this. anyone with experience either yourself or your parents or people you know, let me know what worked and didn't it would be good. i am trying to plan well in advance because i think it will make it easier for me when the time comes to have concrete boundaries set up and good reasons for them.
my kids will probably be 4 1/2(DX AS) and 3 when this happens.
thanks

It will be two years this summer since my ex moved out to live with his girlfriend. It all happened within about a week here so it was a very hard on my son at the time.

I don't know what advice to give you...could use some myself.

My ex's girlfriend seems very nice, just not the sharpest tool in the shed somedays. My son says she ignores him quite a bit as of late (he asks alot of questions, he's 8...so she could just be getting burnt out after awhile). She has two girls...we had problems with the older one at the beginning (hitting, teasing, etc)...now we are having problems with the other one who is the same age as him.

He loves his father, but he's starting to protest about going over to his place to see him...I can't talk to his father, as he refuses to see any problem. My ex and I don't communicate very well at all so it's made it very tough.

my brother has been married 4 times. no kids, thankfully. but each marriage, and dissolution of marriage has effected my children. during the 1st marriage,we had no idea that things had gone bad until the end....my brother ended up moving in with us for 6 months. my AS son was 3 at the time, and quite confused and upset about why he could no longer see his aunt ( my brother ended up with a restraining order against her....there was also concern that she'd try to take my son)......when my brother married his 2nd wife, we really felt that this would last. she had a son from a previous marriage who's the same age as my NT son. she would babysit for our kids. ....when that marriage dissolved, it was terribly upsetting for us & the kids~after all, we really liked her. my brother was the one that was being the idiot. we actually continued using her as a babysitter, and still are good friends to this day. my kids stay at her house once a month overnight, and they call her mom Nana ( grandma).......marriage #3 , which took place when the boys were 7 & 9, and my daughter was 4 hit the hardest for all of the kids.....the kids liked the wife, we didn't....at any rate, my brother ended up taking her on his honeymoon & met wife #4 while they were there ..................now, my kids just act like my brother is a joke.

well thankfully she doesn't have any kids. part of my worry is that with their relationship being the way it has been that it will be okay for a while but then one of them will leave it. and i worry that it will be after my kids have started to get attached. thankfully my ex and i communicate well for now just hoping no new issues come up.

any advice on what to or not to do would be appreciated.

It's a mess...and there's really no way you can prevent the kids from getting somewhat attached. You just hope the relationship between them works out or it doesn't...and if it doesn't that it least ends before the kids are caught up emotionally in the mess.

My ex is a wandering dog...and he'll most likely wander until he either gets too old or someone ends up neutering him.

I would just introduce her as "daddys friend" and then make sure they don't hug/kiss/cuddle etc in front of the kids

You're instincts are good. If it's not court mandated, I wouldn't let the new GF near your kids until they are older. Dad is something different, but visitation rights don't mean they have to go to his house.

I wish I could be more up-beat, but....well....they're your kids.

Hope that helps.

btdt

thanks for the advice.

triangular trees- that's the route i'm planning on going and it will be taken very slowly with guidelines that we will all sit down and discuss.

beentheredonethat-not sure how it actuallly works if i have any rights in that area yes they are my kids but we have joint custody, although i have final decision making so it's like 60/40 in my favor.

beenthere-yes it is a mess and what makes it harder is that she's the one he left us for, but has never been sure of his decision just that he couldn't keep me on the fence as to wether or not it was what he wanted. my thing is that she will be the one to leave becaue she wants the marraige and kids thing and he's been ther and done that already and doesn't want it. he loves his kids but doesn't want the restricitve lifestyle that they create. or that he will finally figure out that after 2 years of being with her and he's still not sure maybe she's not the one.

I think I'm probably unsympathetic to the whole "other woman" thing. I've been married now for 20 years, and we have our ups and downs, and outright fights, but it always comes down to both of us cooling off. I wish I knew what to say to you. Our kid knows he's stuck with us (he'll be 19 next week....and so maybe we're stuck with him), but at least I think he stopped worrying about us splitting up about 17 years ago.

Know this. And I'm speaking from observation. Most of the men I know are miserable with wife number 2. Sorry guys. Just an observation.

btdt

well yes i have the freedom and i got a good smile out of your post the emotional mess left by that has been abit more of a process to deal with, but i am finally beginning to feel like i may be ready to move on and walk further away from the fence.
but like you siad i'm a mom he has to be cute and good with kids. LOL