My parents had a bad marriage. My dad tells me now that the last ten years of their marriage was him just staying there so that we would have a dad. Once they were legally seperated, my mom took no time getting a boyfriend, but my dad took a while to find someone. Mom introduced us to her boyfriend very shortly afterwards. Dad took a little longer. As kids, we both hated the fact that there were new people in our broken family, mom was never home and left us there by ourselves when it was her turn to have us, refusing to let dad take us for an extra day or so. Dad, on the other hand, fell for his girlfriend and stayed with her, making sure everything was okay with us before he went out with her some nights. It wasn't with us, but we told him it was because he was happy for the first time in a long time. We weren't selfish too badly. (=
Unfortunately, once we started liking dad's girlfriend, they broke up. They had been together for a long while, but they fought too much and she had lied to him before, plus my mom started to meddle in their affairs and made the other woman very uncomfortable. And, unfortunately again, once we started to realise that mom's boyfriend was only dating her to get our childsupport, it was too late. They've been together ever since.
I think the parents need to decide when it is the right time to start dating again. Keep your kids' opinions in mind though, if they're anything like us, they aren't too willing to let other people in the family too quickly. It made us jealous to see our parents spending time with their new partners, even though they were happy. I also think that parents should be a little more careful when dating if they have children from a previous marriage. They shouldn't just rush into the first open armed person they see, if that's how they were when they were younger. You're not only looking for a partner, in most cases you are also looking for a father/mother figure for your children as well.