Dear Prudence,
After a decade in a tough marriage, I’m a recently divorced man. When we separated my ex and I agreed we would see other people, and I dated several women casually. Over time, one of those became more serious, to the point where we have been dating for almost a year and are now essentially exclusive. A second marriage is out of the question. I want to focus on my young kids and prefer to separate my “kid time,” which I love, from my adult “dating time,” which is also great. I envision that for the rest of my life there may be a series of girlfriends. My dilemma is that I really like the person I’m dating, but I recently met someone else who interests me. I don’t want to break off a good relationship to go on a date with the new person, only to find that we don’t have much in common. Because I plan to be serially monogamous indefinitely, I need to figure this out now. How do I try out a new relationship while gently easing out of my old one, without crossing cheating boundaries and maligning my good name?