Dating After Divorce

January 14, 2017 - 10 minutes read

Dating Tips after a Divorce

The end of a marriage is no ordinary break-up. Aside from any heartbreak associated with ending a long-term, live-in relationship, life after divorce is often wrought with legal and financial repercussions. Even picking up the pieces of your own life afterwards is an achievement, let alone picking up women.

Dating after divorce can only work once you’ve cleared the cloud of self-absorption that follows a broken marriage. Even then, it can feel like navigating a foreign landscape, with you fumbling for etiquette you have needed for maybe 5-10 years. Maybe more.

So follow these steps as a guide. It won’t be easy, but you’ll enter a whole new phase of life once you get through them.

• KNOW YOU’RE OVER HER
• THE SELF-PITY GOES
• PLACE THE VALUE ON THE TWO OF YOU
• BRUSH UP ON ETIQUETTE
• STAY POSITIVE

It’s hard not to think of it as divorced dating. But that’s kind of necessary. You have to frame any new connections in the context of your new, positive life and if you’re not there yet, you may want to reconsider dating until you’re ready.

Know you’re over her

You’ve brushed your teeth with her, been to every wedding and birthday party with her, maybe you have children together. Even outside of the legal ramifications, you’re losing one hell of a relationship with huge stakes.

When is it time to divorce? Well, how to know when to divorce is really down to you. If you can’t stand to be around each other anymore. If one of you cheats. If domestic abuse becomes involved.  The key is open communication – if one of you proposes a divorce, it’s easy to take it to heart and become stubborn and defensive.

It’s important to see this as an ultimatum. Ask yourself if it’s something you want to salvage or if you really can imagine moving forward and not being with her. Make peace with yourself on the idea. But always know where she stands.

It doesn’t matter how to start dating again if your bitter, vengeful ex is throwing knives at you through the window of the restaurant. Clear communication is the one way you are going to establish an amicable outcome to the split. If you want to know life beyond her and stand a chance of finding love after divorce, you’ll need her to at least be placated enough to let you breathe.

I know I’ve spent a long time on this part, and you want me to skip to the bit where you have loads of vengeful sex after divorce, but bear with me. Over ordinary, previously unattached dating, you have to make sure you are going in with the right mindset. You won’t get that if your life is in tatters.

Once you know you’re over her, and the legal loose ends have been tied up, and your living arrangements are settled, then you can think about other people. You owe any kids in the equation that much, and yourself on top of that.

The self-pity goes

You don’t have to brush your divorce under the rug like a dirty secret. Maybe you’re dating a fellow divorcee, or hopefully a good woman who empathises with you. It’s a part of you and have you have to accept it and keep your confidence high.

The same way you wouldn’t bang on about being lonely when you first started working out how to start dating, you need to avoid saturating the conversation with deep-rooted divorce misery.

That means not outpouring vitriol about your wife, however you feel about her, and focus on the positives and what you’re building towards with your life. The really long first paragraph above should have seen to that – if you’re over your wife, and really rebuilding from a point of knowing what’s coming, that closure and positivity should be apparent in what you’re saying.

It’s hard, because it’s consumed a lot of your world. But starting over after divorce needn’t be a bad thing. The fact that you’re on a date means you’re further out of your shell than most divorcees.

If you give off the impression that you’re not ready to be there, she’ll have no reason to see you again or any reason why either of you should be there.

Place the value on the two of you

If you’ve got kids, you’re likely to have been at risk of losing them or limiting access to them through the divorce. Dating after divorce with kids can create endless dialogue about your children rather than yourself. She does not want someone who lives vicariously through their children – she wants someone focused who can make her happy in his own right.

Don’t lie, obviously – bring them up. A man who loves his children is a great turn-on and generally what the world needs more of anyway. But how to date after divorce can come at a time when you are rethinking everything. Don’t put her in the step-mum role just yet.

Talk about what interest her, what drives her, talk about what you would have done on a date before your marriage. She respects you as a father, but she wants you as an individual.

Which reminds me…

Brush up on your etiquette

You haven’t been on a date with a stranger for quite some time. Read up on how to make a woman feel special. Hold doors for her, offer to take her coat, take her arm. You’re probably beating yourself up for a lot of mistakes in your marriage right now, but you have to act the part until it fits.

How do you plan on finding love after divorce if you don’t woo her, and romance her, and convince her that notions of love have not died inside you? Your first relationship after divorce is not going to come to you. It will do wonders for your confidence and make her feel like a movie star,

Stay positive

This is the key when asking yourself “when should I start dating?” I’m sure you are in a strange place in your head right now and are adapting as you go, but this is why you shouldn’t rush into relationships after divorce until you know you are stable again.

Life after divorce for women is difficult too; maybe more so, as many may be past childbearing age and loaded with completely different insecurities of their own. They’re in the same boat; they need your positivity as much as you do. Provide that and you will stand out from the crowd.

Being positive, especially in the face of adversity, is an admirable trait, and doesn’t go unnoticed with women. It also means you’re more likely to be proactive in the conversation, leading and finding new topics as well as suggesting fun stuff to do.

Especially with your first sex after divorce, you are going to have a miserable time if you’re not really in the room or are thinking about your wife. Know you deserve happiness, and then find your own.

For more information on how to get rid of the stigma that dating a recently divorced man is dull, sign up to one of my 7 Day Courses here.