J.C.
I've never gone through this, but I do come from a divorced family, so I know the affects of this type of situation from a child's perspective. I think 5 months is a decent amount of time, but if you can wait longer, I would wait. The main reason is because if your son meets him, ends up liking him, and you guys break up, it's going to really affect him. It makes you end up feeling like you can't give out your heart because in the end, that person may leave. So if you break up, and down the road you really DO find someone that you are going to marry and be with forever, your son will have major issues with him because he's going to treat him as if he's leaving soon anyway. My mother had a couple of boyfriends after the divorce, (I was around 8 or 9 I think, but my mind has blocked a lot of it out because of the devastation I felt), anyway, I really liked one of them, and it was her first boyfriend. I thought that since she brought him home and introduced us, and then he kept coming around, it meant that he was going to be staying with us. Well, we were wrong, and then when she met my stepdad, I was 14. I HATED him. It took YEARS for me to like him because he wasn't going away like her other boyfriends had.
Not having your parents together is hard enough. At any event in his life he's going to feel pulled as to who he is talking to. When his kids have games or music programs, he'll feel bad about who he's sitting by. At my wedding my dad wouldn't come see me beforehand because my mom was in the room, and I couldn't (and wouldn't) very well kick my own mother out, so I talked to him for the first time at the doorway of the sanctuary when it was time to walk down the aisle. Talk about a special moment....but that's what happens when you come from a divorced family sometimes, the parents tend to be more selfish with their own needs.
I wanted to tell you all of this because I think that divorced parents, or ones who were never married also, tend to not think about long term effects on their children. They tend to think about right now and what's the best way to do something at that moment. But many of the real effects come much later. I don't even remember very much of the days when my parents split and my mom brought home boyfriends except just maybe a few things, but it's much harder now having parents that don't get along and having 2 kids in sports because you feel guilty that if you're talking with one, the other one is by themselves and may think you are closer to the other one. Sounds nuts maybe, but it's the lasting psychological effect of divorce.....guilt guilt guilt