Man Agrees to Go on One Date with Single Mom to ‘Be Nice.’ Now, They’re Married with 5 Kids

When Chelsie Dort’s husband, Bedford, first agreed to go out with her, he told himself he was just being polite — not signing up for a lifelong commitment.

In a video Chelsie shared on Instagram on Nov. 3, she can be seen hugging Bedford at the door as he heads out. Text over the clip reads, “Said he was going on one date with a single mom just to be nice and was never going to talk to her again.”

The video then cuts to a photo of their now family of seven, with the words: “12 years later.” In the picture are their five children — Jax and Sloane, 4, Naomi, 6, Mya, 8, and Ryker, 11.

“It’s true. @bedford_dort said he was only going on a date with me because he didn’t want to be rude to a single mom but wasn’t ready to have a kid. Which is fair. But thankfully, it didn’t work out that way. 💛,” Chelsie wrote in her caption.

Chelsie says the two first connected on Tinder — and at the time, she had no idea Bedford thought he was just doing a kind gesture by keeping their date.

“We scheduled our first date knowing that I would be bringing my 2-year-old son,” she explains. “I had dated a few people who I had started to like, they knew I had a son, said they were okay with it, and then stopped talking to me when it came time to potentially meet him.”

To make things easier, she arranged a breakfast date at a nearby café close to her parents’ house and met Bedford there with her toddler. What she didn’t know then was what Bedford was telling his friends.

According to Chelsie, he didn’t admit it until they were on the verge of getting engaged.

“He said he had told his friends that he had set up a date with me and then realized I was a single mom and didn’t want to be rude, so he was taking me out still but had no plans on continuing the relationship,” she recalls.

Those plans changed quickly. The couple ended up marrying just eight months later.

“We did get married 8 months later. My husband took the pages out of a book, made his own pages with pictures of when we met and our story from the beginning,” Chelsie says. “He read it to me, and my son, and the ring was in a hole in the back of the book.”

Today, Chelsie says her firstborn, Ryker, and Bedford have a strong bond and have grown together as part of their blended family.

“Certainly there have been some things we’ve needed to navigate emotionally as we’ve blended our family, but they’ve always been respectful and kind to each other as we’ve done it,” she explains. “It hasn’t always been easy, but we love each other, and we’re dedicated to figuring it out.”

Looking back at the date that changed her life, Chelsie says she’d give her past self one simple reminder:

“I would tell myself the same thing I told myself then, which was be open-minded, know that you deserve someone who loves you both, never settle [and] love is a good thing.”