“Maybe this year I can find a better husband and give the kids a father,” a divorced mom said to me at the start of the new year. “I feel bad that they’re growing up without a man in the house.” She brought to mind a divorced friend, whose ex hadn’t been the best father once out of the house, who some years ago went on an intensive search for a man to marry who would be a good father to her kids. That was her prime prerequisite: that he be a good dad. Everything else was further down the list of qualifications…including love.

Admirable. Selfless. But misguided.

I am not talking here about the woman who marries a man just to get help with the kids because she finds it difficult raising them alone. That may be a related scenario, but it’s a different one. I am talking here about the woman who marries strictly for the kids’ sake.

It’s natural to want to find a husband who’s going to be a good stepdad to your kids. I certainly hope you wouldn’t knowingly marry someone whose qualifications as a dad—temperament, morals, and other such considerations—left something to be desired. But marrying someone strictly for his “Fatherhood Quotient,” without regard for your own feelings, is not doing any favor to your kids.

Why?

There are several reasons:

• If you don’t love him, or you aren’t happy being married to him, you aren’t going to be a very happy camper. And if you’re not happy, the kids aren’t going to be happy either—especially if you’re in a persistent bad mood.

• You may even grow to resent the kids because you “did this for them,” and now you’re miserable, or at least unfulfilled. Resentment does not make for a good mother.

• At some point you may realize that the marriage just isn’t working and may seek a divorce from this man you never should have married in the first place. At that point, if he’s really all the father you thought he would be, the kids will have likely grown attached to him. Now you’re ripping him out of their lives, and for the second time, they’re losing their father (stepfather) from the household. Even if he’s such a good stepdad that he remains in touch with them and sees them for visits, it won’t be the same. Besides, such visitation is a scenario that, while it isn’t unheard-of, also isn’t terribly likely.

Marrying just for the sake of the kids is noble, but it’s wrong-headed.

A related scenario is the woman who marries again to give the kids a new dad and does so not so much out of selflessness as out of guilt. She feels guilty that she divorced their father and broke up the family, the kids whine because Dad doesn’t live there anymore (and maybe even actively blame Mom for this), so she marries again—often to the wrong person, someone she doesn’t really love or isn’t really compatible with—just so the kids will have a father in the house.

This, too, is wrong…and in this case not even noble. You can’t help your kids that way either.

So if you’re hoping that 2012 will be the year you meet Mr. Right, right on!  If you hope 2012 is the year your kids get a new dad, and you choose wisely—someone with good fatherhood potential whom you love and who is well-suited to you—right on.

But don’t get married to Mr. Wrong just because he’s got great potential as a father. In the long run, you’re doing your kids no favor at all.

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