Dear Colin: I’m a woman in her 30s and considering a parenting partnership with a guy in his 40s who I was previously seeing. However, he didn’t want to live under the same roof while we tried to get pregnant and wouldn’t agree to marriage once we determined that we wanted to raise our child in Canada (I’m American). He also misled me on his age – do you think these are red flags that suggest we shouldn’t co-parent?

It sounds like there is a lot of complexity in your relationship, having started as lovers.  As such, before deciding you can co-parent with him, I think you need to finish processing your relationship with each-other.  Are you friendly exes?   Might you resume a romantic relationship down the line? Most importantly – do you both feel the same way about the answer to both questions?

Ultimately, there are two critical aspects to a strong co-parenting partnership: the relationship between the parents, and each parents’ commitment to the child.  None of your issues say much to me about his ability to parent, but all of them suggest there is a lot of uncertainly in terms of your relationship, what you want from each other and expect from each other.  Before you consider co-parenting, I would suggest you clarify all of that first.