There is nothing scarier than to start dating after a divorce! How to get back in the game without feeling like an outsider?! How to start dating again?! Here are some ideas that will help you.
There are so many things going through your mind!
- Am I attractive?
- Who will want me?
- I have 3 kids, two dogs, no job, and a crazy x husband who gives me drama – what man wants to deal with that?
Where do I even begin?
- Online Dating? What the heck is that?
- Tinder? JDate? Match? Bumble? Which to choose?
- Who pays for Dinner? Am I supposed to pay my half when I can barely feed my own family and my x refuses to give me alimony?
- Does he pick me up? Do we meet somewhere? How do I know he’s not a criminal or a rapist?
- What about STD? How do I even know if the man is safe?
- I have no time to date?
- My X will kill any man who wants to date me.
- There is no one out there for me, I am doomed!
The list is endless isn’t it?
Let me help you with insight on how to start dating after a divorce!
TAKE YOUR TIME IN DATING AFTER A DIVORCE
You have to relax! Release this sense of urgency to “meet a man” – there is nothing more detrimental you can do to your emotional well being and recovery than to find another man so fast after your divorce fails – it’s a recipe for disaster!
There is NO rush!
That is the most important takeaway from dating after divorce! At the very least I ask that you wait one year – YES – ONE YEAR – to allow yourself 4 seasons of being without a man to rely upon getting you through the healing. Instead rely on your village – your family, your friends, your therapist, support groups, etc.
Never rely on a man to heal you so soon after divorce.
Why? Because in the first year post-divorce (or post-separation or not living together, whatever your definition is of a divorce) you will be an absolute mess, emotionally and psychologically.
You will be very vulnerable and very sad.
You are in a state of shock, pain, trauma, sadness, vulnerability.
And my dear, this kind of space is absolutely NOT space from which you want to be dating a man!! Why? Because you will attract someone who preys and smells vulnerable women like you at this stage of “acute” divorce! And then your guard will be down, you will not have hour boundaries in place because you are in such a place of lack and vulnerability you will take any man who will show you 1% of love and attention.
We don’t want 1% – we want 110%. That’s what you are working towards – a woman who knows her worth and shows up as one. But right after a divorce, you are not in this state of mind (yet). You must heal FIRST.
You see what happens to many of us after our marriages end is we RUN so fast too go and meet another guy to quickly replace the “neediness” we have for a man. That’s our solution. We say to ourselves: I know, I’ll meet a man with money, and who will treat me like the woman I deserve to be treated, and he will take me in and my kids too and we will all live happily every after.
Uhmmm… WRONG!!!
What you will do instead is attract a man who preys on weak and vulnerable women and you will end up in another bad, toxic and depleting relationship.
WHEN YOU ARE VULNERABLE AFTER YOUR DIVORCE YOU ATTRACT A MAN WHO PREYS ON VULNERABLE AND WEAK WOMEN!
I see this all the time. In fact, they say that second marriages have a higher rate of divorce, then the first one.
You know why? Because of this exact reason – you don’t give yourself time to HEAL as a whole woman but instead run to another man to fix you, nurture you and take care of you. But the problem here is that you are a broken woman! You are totally hurt, sad, and vulnerable. How can you even attract a healthy and strong man into your life when your life is a mess and you are not in an emotionally healthy place yourself!
All you do is attract a toxic man who preys on weak women to bully and berate, or even worse, you attract a man who has worse issues than you and then you end up taking care of him and fixing him and never addressing your issues to fix and resolve.
Good grief – the cycle continues. Stop the madness! Stop it now.
TAKE TIME TO HEAL YOURSELF
The best advice I can tell you about dating after divorce is NOT to do it in the first year. Give yourself 4 seasons – Fall, Spring, Winter and Summer – 4 seasons – to get through birthdays of your kids alone, to get through Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, July 4th, alone, Valentines, alone, parent/teacher conference at school, alone.
The list is endless at all the “firsts” you have to do as a divorced woman!
That first year of doing all these “life events” as a divorced woman is so hard! It’s so painful, it’s so sad. It is so heartbreaking. I remember going through it and just crying all the time. It was so intense that first year (but now it’s so easy!! You DO get through it – I PROMISE! There is light at the end of the tunnel but you have to do the hard work and get through the tunnel, without a man).
I know it’s easy to lean on a man – that makes you totally normal and a total woman by the way! I do not fault any woman for wanting that.
If you insist on dating this first year then may I suggest you do it to simply date and have fun and to “run away” and “escape’ from your reality.
Make it clear to men that you are just wanting to date and meet new people and you are not interested in a long term relationship or in marriage again. And be safe of course as you do this. Create boundaries! Very clear boundaries and always put yourself at the top of the list. Always.
If you are strong enough to do it this way, then ok – date to have fun, date to discover yourself, date to find out how it is to date as a divorced woman.
But DO NOT DATE to find a long term boyfriend. Do NOT DATE to find a new husband. You are too raw and too vulnerable to attract a healthy man into your life.
Let yourself experience the transition of healing.
You will be amazed at how fast one year goes by.
TAKE TIME TO FOCUS ON YOU AND YOUR KIDS
Instead of being so fast to date a man after a divorce, consider instead to date YOURSELF.
Relearn who you are as a woman, what you love, what you don’t love, what you want from your life.
I suggest do a VENN diagram with your name in the middle and a circle around your name and then and draw lines all around your name to discover who you are. I did that right after my divorce and discovered so many things about myself that I totally forgot about.
This is the time to HEAL yourself and to FALL IN LOVE with yourself! Do this small homework of a VENN diagram to relearn who you are today as a woman. And then go do ONE thing on that VENN diagram that you love to do that you have neglected.
For me, it was dancing! I love to dance so I joined The Fred Astaire Dance Group and learned how to salsa, and bachata, and Tango and even Waltz! I LOVED IT!
And your kids! Your kids are also suffering. Your kids are also dealing with this pain and collateral damage of their world falling apart. Please do not forget that they too are going through this.
They don’t want their mom and dad to be divorced. So show up for them. Give them the love and security and foundation to remind that that this is not about them and they are not at fault. And love and nurture your kids. Take THEM to the movies, take THEM to dinner, take THEM bowling, make THEM a nice steak dinner. See what I mean?
If you do this hard work in the first year, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, the man you will attract one year post-divorce will be a VERY different man to the one you would attract right after your divorce.
One year is the magic time to truly recover from this acute pain – this trauma of an end of an identity, an end of a family unit, and end of what was and work on creating a new unit, a new family, and a new you.
FALL IN LOVE WITH YOURSELF FIRST AND THEN ATTRACT THE RIGHT MAN
There it is – you want to know how to start dating after a divorce? Fall in love with yourself first.
When you do this, the men will line up at the door. You know why? Because you will no longer be needy and vulnerable and weak. Instead you will be stronger and wiser and grounded. And that’s how you attract a man. From a point of abundance and security.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much information that I want to share with you. I will be sharing around 25 tips of how to date a man after a divorce. It all comes from emotional intelligence, having emotional needs being self met (that is key here) and being secure and whole with who you are as a woman.
When you do this hard work, I promise, you will meet your soul mate. He will naturally come to you as you will be ready for him.
Until then, fall madly in love with yourself.
YOU ARE AMAZING and this hard work and difficult time in your life will pass. I promise.
