I should clarify. My wife and I started seeing each other when her sons were 14 and 12. At first we only saw each other when her kids were with their dad, but as it began to look like it was going somewhere, it became more frequent. The older son had reservations about it, but the younger one loved me from the get go.
It worked out in our case, and obviously yours dmz.
But I would argue that, more often than not, it does not work out. A lot of kids watch their single moms become serial daters, with boyfriend after boyfriend, which has consequences. We hear about the dangerous ones.
While I’m glad that things worked out the way they did in my life, in hindsight I do think she and I were self indulging at the time. After two years of dating we decided that we needed to set a better example, and we married.
Desperate women usually put their own needs and wants first and the kids suffer.