Can I ask what you think you'd be protecting them from?  You = adult; Ex = adult; Ex's GF = adult.  18 is considered adult age in the US, anyway.  Were the plans that neither of you ever date or move on?  You mentioned a verbal agreement with your ex- to wait at least 6 months before bringing gf/bfs around the kids, and he broke it, for whatever reason.  So, your beef should be only with him on that issue.  Not sure how that translates into "getting back at him" via decreasing his parenting time (which would cause angst for the children as well) or increasing his child support.

That is what happens after a divorce.  People move on.  There are no laws in the US protecting men or women from dating some other when they are even married, much less after they are divorced.   

No, it is not "legal pedophilia."  The woman is 18, possibly 19.  This is adult age in the US.  No difference between her being 18 and 38 or even 58.  And, an unbiased judge should look at it that way as well.

How old are your kids?  That might make a difference in the kind of response people will provide.

Unfortunately, a verbal agreement is not going to hold a lot of weight... anything you wanted done should have been in the separation agreement. 

Now, here is the tough part.  Unless this woman poses a danger to your kids... it may be tough to get a lot of traction unless there was some stipulation in the CO to wait before introducing ..or no overnight visitors ever.. etc..   Besides things like that are so difficult to prove anyway.. When is the start date on dating etc?

It sounds like you just really don't like the fact that she is young and your kids see their father basically acting a fool with a young girl.  that isn't illegal.  He could be acting just as foolishly with an older woman..lol.  So, will the kids have irreperable damage from seeing him date? honestly.. probably not.

They are only likely going to need therapy if you try to tell them that what their father is doing is wrong.. and that would be a PAS move.  So, unless this woman is actually causing harm to your kids.. (dating him isn't) then this is one of the things that divorced people sometimes have to stomach.. the ex dates someone they would rather not be around the kids... once you divorce the ability to control goes waaaay down.

I was also thinking this Idvilen. The whole situation is very weird i agree but theres nothing illegal there. He is trying to show off and she is probably a needy person who cant relate to her own age group. 

IAMWOMAN - What do you mean by 'legal pedophilia'? Legal definition of paedophile is a person who is sexually attracted to PRE pubescent children i. e those pre puberty, this is an adult he is dating not a child. Or are there states where age of consent is 21? Still doesn't make it paedophilia though. 

Still think it's highly inappropriate and thoughtless of him. 

Welcome to post-divorce adulting, where the challenge is to stay classy and detached as exes do stupid stuff.

Congratulations!  Your exe's love life is now none of your business, nor is how he chooses to interact with his adult daughter. Your primary responsibility is teaching your minor children coping skills and instilling a life philosophy that will enable them to recognize that they can love their father despite not agreeing with his choices. These lessons will carry them successfully through life, and come in handy when you decide to start dating again.

What would you tell them IF dad was dating a woman much older than him?

The courts will not involve themselves with two adults moving past an old marriage or relationship anymore than they will involve themselves in your affairs.  Sure you can try to churn this and churn this. Dont waste your money.

You dont have to talk to the kids other than,,,,IS she nice to you? I bet she is fun?

Miss you may want to be careful about what YOU say around the kids about your x new lady friend. Try to smile and be gracious. No they wont need therapy. But you may want to think about going for a few sessions so YOU can process  his new post divorce life.

He’s an adult and his girlfriend is an adult, so you have no say in what they do with their lives.

If you withheld visitation or tried to demand more child support, the courts will not be pleased with you, because if your ex is not breaking the law or your CO, his personal life is of no interest to the courts. The courts don’t want to deal with the interpersonal drama between divorced parents.

One thing about being a divorced parent - you don’t have control over everything your kids see and do anymore. The other parent has just as much right to decide what your kids see and do. He’s not abusing them and as you seem recently divorced, it's unlikely that the kids will love anyone he brings around, even if that woman was Mary Poppins. Did your SD love you when you first showed up? Don’t triangulate with her against her dad. She's an adult, too, and likely wouldn't want anyone telling her who not to date, so she also needs to learn to accept her father's choice and keep it moving. I would just tell your kids that their dad is an adult and he’s allowed to make his own decisions and stay out of it. You’ll only create more confusion for them if you try to intervene.

If I were you, I wouldn’t even talk to the kids about their dad’s personal life. It’s impossible to move on from a relationship if you are still keeping tabs on the person you broke up with.

”Other Daughter” and told the kids that I was a new older sibling that their pervert daddy brought in.  I was 21 at the time I met SO, and while I was young (and yes, very much still just a GIRL), my intentions were strictly to have a decent relationship, but comments like this from BM - your title on the thread reminded me of that - those comments were incredibly detrimental to any sort of positive bond I could have hoped to form with the skids, since the oldest was already 16, not much younger than me. This made for a very awkward and uncomfortable experience for everyone, until the kids had to grow accustomed to it and for lack of better words... “get over it.”  I don’t know that I have much wisdom to give you on this, even though I speak from the opposite side of the fence, but all I can really say is, in my experience, the less you worry about the ex’s new spouse, the closer you keep your kids to YOU. So many divorcee parents are RUINING their children with their petty competitions and jealousy, and then the kids get lost and confused and end up destroying themselves and their parents in the end anyway... Please don’t go down this same path of destruction - you will always regret it.

I've been marreied to DH for 12yrs. OSD is 8 yrs younger than I am. Trust me further down the road, this gap seems a LOT smaller,  and had OSS not passed before we got together, he'd be only 5yrs younger than me! OSD caused turmoil every chance she got......until a few months ago...til "Daaaddee" put her in her place.   My point is, you never know what will happen. The rest of the skids are glad I'm here for their dad and that he's happy. But, an 18 or 19 probably doesn't have the maturity your Ex is expecting and most likely end it. Quit stressing on it, just sit back and watch, let the chips fall whwere they may.

Weren't you around 19-20 yrs old when you started with your now ex-husband?  Your SD around 5-ish? 

I read one of your post from a few years ago that said SD was 14 and you had raised her for eight years, but that then the last two years (at that post time) she had not been living with you.  So she stopped at about age 12. 

Did you have these concerns when it was you with this mn at such a young age with a small child present as you now seem to have when the young lady isn't you?

"I threatened I would decrease his parenting time and increase child support if he exposes them to her."

Sorry, but I just can't get past this.  What gives you the right to threaten his court-ordered time with his children because you don't like his choice in a new partner?

Unless you have definitive proof (which would fly in a court of law) that there is some sort of abuse going on, YOU have done the absolute WORST thing a parent can do to a child - which is to interfere and take away their time together with the other parent.  

Even prison systems know that incarcerated parents should still be able to spend time with their children because it's so important for the kids to have that relationship.  What did your ex do that was so much worse, that you are now THREATENING him by taking his time away??

I strongly suggest you get some counseling because you are clearly alienating your children from their father.  If they wind up a mess later on, you won't have to worry about sending them to therapy because you will only have to go as far as your own mirror to find out why.    

I'm sorry you feel attacked because I think people are trying to give you good advice.  Unfortunately you did come on here a bit like a GUBM with your calling your exes new girlfriend a "child".  It brings up all the frustrations of the stepmother that had to deal with attitude from the kids and the ex because mom didn't approve of our ________ fill in the blank...age...job....haircolor..friends..etc.basically because we existed.  See....she shouldn't be the focus. It should be your kids.  There are things I don't think are good here...not a favor of kids not having a proper bed/bedroom (shared with other kids is fine in a room).  The 3 yo sleeping with her dad...unless she is sleeping in your bed...i think that's not great.  Now if you wouldn't blink at your daughter sleeping in bed with let's say a babysitter...the young woman is not the issue...unless something sexual was going on. Please don't give your kids the i.pressiin that your exes relationship is wrong...because that will do more harm than him dating a younger woman...even if she is much younger

Lol you're not crazy. That is crazy and skeevy. Also really nothing you can do about it. If you try to take it to court there are people that will try to make it out that you're jealous (as you can see here lol). I think your best bet is to kind of laugh it off and act as above it as you can and encourage your daughter to do the same.

The woman came here looking for "advice" and hurled insults.  It is not our job to gently guide anyone so judgmental and out for control.  I always find it amazing too how, if a husband cheats, he's a !@#$ cad.  If a wife cheats, she only did it because her husband wasn't treating her right.  But, enough on that. 

We all know PAS is difficult to prove, and we also all know it usually works.  We also all pretty much know that BM or ex- is in a position to screw whomever she wants via the court system and her own children.  And, I don't think any professional should be encouraging or downplaying this.

Having said that, sure, if my ex- was dating a much younger woman, close to my daughter's age, I'd be pissed too.  But, that is not the point the OP came here trying to make at all.  She didn't say, "Can you give me advice on how to cope with my DH dating a much younger woman?"  She said, "Ex is now dating a child," and "I threatened I would decrease his parenting time and increase child support if he exposes them to her."  

Telling us/SMs that "We do need to gently guide her toward the correct approach to this situation, which includes hiring an attorney who can navigate with logic and reason while OP is beside herself with her own tormented emotions of a protective mama bear," is nothing more than the same old, same old: BM can do no wrong and SMs need to suck it up.  But, yes, I'm sure the court system and society will side with "Mama Bear."  They usually do.

What I'd like to suggest is that rather than expecting SMs to "gently guide her toward the correct approach to this situation," that the court systems and society as a whole drop their biased belief that Mama Bears can do no wrong and instead look at the situation for what it is, yet another divorce situation where mom, dad, children, in-laws, future SPs, will all wind up getting screwed because one or more of the initial parents wants to drag every little conceived wrong through the mud and get their way, under the guise of "it's for the children," or "I'm protecting the children."  But, I suppose you could say if lawyers started doing that, then they'd have less business.  Counter-productive for them in that case.

I am utterly disgusted by the people who claim that "young adults" do not have brains that are fully formed and so should not be held responsible for anything.  I graduated from college (a really top notch school) at 20 and by 22 managed a major IT project in Europe that connected all of our international sales offices.  Back in the day when many airlines still used index cards for reservations.  It pisses me off for people to claim that I was a mindless idiot because I was not yet 25.  And I was not an exception - many of my contemporaries were far more accomplished than me.

Now I personally think an 18-20 year old who dates an older man is an idiot.  But that is still their perogative.  I never wanted to date someone who could have been friends with my parents - but that was me.  My wonderful current DH is much younger (almost a decade) than I am.  Maybe some people think that is weird.

I wish this thread would get shut dowm now. It was ridiculous and inflammatory to call her exes new gf a 'child' at 18 and even worse when the ex is called a pedophile. Some people need to look up what exactly is the definition of a pedophile. 

The 18yo GF may be an issue... but in my experience most likely not.  Our situation was somewhat similar.  DW was a single teen mom and had SS when she was 16 and the SpermIdiot was 23.  So he was in act  a statutory rapist.  When DW was nearly 18  and SS was nearly 1yo the SpermIdiot started cheating on DW with his 15yo new GF. So DW  nailed his ass in court with an order of paternity and CS while retaining full physical and legal custody.

She and I met in college during the last year of my 11year undergrad career and her first semester of college out of high school .. SS was 15mos old.  I was 29 and my DW was 18.  During the year before we married there was an ongoing legal  battle over custody of my SS that was back and forth before it actually made it before a Judge.  We went to court two weeks after we married.  The SpermIdiot married his still 16yo GF a week before we married to avoid being yet again nailed as a statutory rapist only this time in front of a Judge. 

So the tit for tat lawyer moves were that he was a repeat statutory rapist with a 16yo wife.  Their lawyer replied that I was 30 and my wife was 18 so what the hell were we complaining about.

The Judge commented that the SpermIdiot's penchant for underage girls was disturbing but he was legally married to his latest victim with the consent of that victims mother so our perspective had no merrit and since my wife was of legal age their perspective had no merrit.

As disturbing as your X's Lolita fettish may be... his Lolita is legally an adult so at best it will be hit or miss whether or not a Judge will have anything to say about it.

In my experience of course.

Good luck.