There’s an oft-cited rule of thumb regarding dating after divorce that uses a 4:1 ratio for every four years of marriage, you should spend one year alone. If you were only married for six years this might work, but are you really going to wait five years to date after your 20-year marriage ends? Probably not. However, when it comes to dating after divorce, patience is still a virtue.
“First and foremost, give yourself time to heal,” advises Christina McGhee, author of Parenting Apart: How Separated and Divorced Parents Can Raise Happy and Secure Kids on her Parenting Apart blog. “Before seeking new relationships, get to know yourself again. This can be a great time to re-evaluate your life goals, as well as what you may want in a future relationship.”
Divorce is a time of turmoil and heartache, but it’s also a time for new beginnings and positive changes. Did you love hiking in the woods and sleeping under the stars before you met Ms. Allergic to Tent Camping? Did you shove aside pipe dreams of becoming a surfer chick after your husband commented on your lack of balance and then brought up shark attack statistics?
Think about it: This is the perfect time to follow your dreams again, to do the things that will make you feel happy and whole. If you’re a parent, take those first post-divorce months (or years) to spend more quality one-on-one time with your children. Even if your kids are OK with the idea of mom and dad dating other people, they still need time to adjust to the new family configuration and get used to this new life.
More important than any of the rules of dating after divorce, however, is to simply trust your gut. If you have qualms about dating, it’s not the right time. If you’re still going through the emotional rollercoaster that accompanies most divorces (no matter how amicable they might be), and feeling grief, guilt, shame, and/or anxiety, you probably want to hold off on dating. “Even very reasonable and civilized people can find unexpected, hard-to-manage emotions popping up at the most inconvenient times, particularly during the early months of a separation and divorce,” caution divorce experts Pauline Tesler and Peggy Thompson in their book, Collaborative Divorce: The Revolutionary New Way to Restructure Your Family, Resolve Legal Issues, and Move on with Your Life. “Recovering from the shock of a failed marriage involves moving through that initial period of diminished capacity, until gradually, more and more of the time, your pre-divorce ‘best self’ is back at the helm.” For most people, this best self doesn’t fully emerge for at least 18 months after the divorce, say Tesler and Thompson.
Ready to date again? Now what?
Once you do feel ready to date again, do yourself a favor and read this spot-on blog article called “Low-stakes First Dates,” which says that the key to avoiding a tangled web of confusion and dejection is to stop betting everything on the first date. A good first date, writes blogger Benji Feen, is one that “leaves room for casual conversation and offers opportunities to tell stories and articulate thoughts, but doesn’t last too long.” It should go without saying, but a good first date also does not include sex. First dates that end in the bedroom tend to bring on some pretty serious feelings of rejection in the days that follow. Both of you moved too fast, and the embarrassment and awkwardness usually outweigh any initial interest. Keep it low stakes in the early days. Remember that and your first, second, and third dates will improve.
Dating may be a natural process for you and you may meet available interesting people all the time, especially if you’re involved in activities that appeal to you and also attract other single adults. More often, though, particularly for single parents of young children, the people you run into everyday coworkers, other parents, and friends from your married life are more likely to fall into the undatable category.
Richard Price, 41, an account executive for a nonprofit in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, found himself in this exact situation a few years ago, after his nine-year marriage ended. “I had gone through a period of just wanting to be by myself and enjoying both my free time and my time with the children, but eventually I was ready to date I just wasn’t sure how to meet someone,” Price says.
Price, then a father of 7-year-old twins and a 2-year-old, had no idea where he might meet potential dates. “I knew I wasn’t going to lurk in bars or stumble onto someone in the checkout line at the grocery store,” Price says. “I also avoided, for obvious reasons, dating anyone from work or anyone from my past that had not worked out previously I eventually decided to try online dating.”
We could write an entire book about online dating after divorce, but there are thousands already on the market. Check out Amazon’s list of “Top 10 Books on Online Dating” if you’re interested. But the key thing to know about online dating, especially if you haven’t dated in the 21st century, is that it’s not as scary as it sounds. Filtering options let you preview potential dates, keep your profile hidden to all but a select few, and exchange low-stakes messages before you agree to meet in person. For Price, online dating didn’t produce the match he had hoped for, but there were elements that appealed to this single dad. “I could put my situation out there from the beginning,” Price says. “I could explain that I had children, that I had them some of the time, and that I was interested in getting to know someone and start a relationship at a gradual pace. It gave the person a chance to decide if they were comfortable with my situation.”
The bad eventually outweighed the good, though. “It was interesting meeting so many diverse people, but online dating can be overwhelming after a while,” Price says. “So many people were mired in the cycle of it everybody is chasing someone who is chasing someone else I couldn’t wait to get off of it, honestly.”
Price’s online profile went away the very weekend he reunited with an old friend who was visiting from Colorado for a weekend wedding. Having bonded platonically years before over their love of guitars and baseball, the two finally hung out as singles and fell in love. These days, the couple is busy planning their summertime wedding. “I got lucky,” Price says. “It really was just the perfect situation for both of us.”
Whatever dating brings into your life, greet it with an open mind. Maybe you’ll find your soul mate online or, like Price, reunite with an old friend and fall madly in love. Or maybe you’ll be happy just playing the field, meeting interesting people, and stockpiling a bunch of I’m-sure-it-will-be-funny-later stories to share with your friends over beer. (Like the one about the guy with the miniature spoon collection who wouldn’t let you stir your coffee with his special windmill spoon.)
Regardless of what dating brings, it is a normal, healthy part of life after divorce, and “Spoon Dude” aside, can actually be a lot of fun. You deserve to flirt and feel butterflies in your stomach before the first date, and laugh with people who think you’re the sexiest, wittiest, most charming creature on the planet. This is your new beginning. Enjoy it!
