I (51F) was dating someone (51M) for a few months and I ended things today. Looking for your feedback to see if I did the right thing and if you think his priorities make sense.

I’ve been divorced for 5 years, no kids. He’s been divorced for a year, 2 teenagers. His kids live primarily with his ex and they do not have a set schedule. The kids both play multiple sports and he’s busy with their games 5-6 days a week.
I travel for work but am in town a majority of the time. I will also mention that I am the absolute first person he’s dated since his divorce. It became very clear early on that his availability was going to be a challenge.

And to be honest, I thought maybe it could work because I’m also busy and I’m an introvert so I don’t want to see someone more than a few times a week anyway.

In two months, we ended up going out 4 times. I haven’t seen him in 2 1/2 weeks and in talking about the upcoming week or so it was very clear he was not making plans to see me.

I told him this cadence isn’t going to work for me (especially considering he also talked about just dating one person at a time so seeing him while seeing others isn’t an option for him). He said he was disappointed but understood that dating someone with teenagers wasn’t going to work for everyone.

So I asked him…. “What does your idea of dating with teenagers look like?”

He said “Mainly around available time I guess.

My schedule is fractured and variable especially since they play multiple sports year round.

My weekday evenings and many weekend days are broken up with games and tournaments. And I absolutely love it. Would not change it.

Free time after that then goes to my friends and social activities or trips.

Free time after that I guess to dating. Which doesn’t leave much here and not nearly as consistent as you or others might want.

So I’ll have to continue to work through that and see where it takes me.”

I absolutely respect his commitment to his kids but it seems like IF dating is something he wants to do, he may need to be a little flexible with the other priorities. What do you guys think?