Dating After Divorce? Four Important Steps to Take

Have you recently been through a painful divorce? If so, you might feel like you’re ready to wade into the dating pool again. However, before you plan your first date, you need to consider taking four important steps.

Analyze Your Feelings

A divorce can be a devastating event in someone’s life. This is especially true if you were married to your mate for a long time and if children were involved. Before you start dating, you need to carefully analyze your feelings. For instance, you need to determine your motives for dating again. Do you crave companionship, friendship, or intimacy with someone else? Before reaching out to someone new, you need to understand your desires and expectations for a new relationship.

Some divorcees feel the pressure to start dating again after seeing their former spouses involved in new relationships. However, this occurrence should not be your sole reason for wanting to get back into the dating game. If you only want to start a new relationship to make your ex-mate jealous, you may not be ready to date again. Take time to heal and re-enter the world of dating on your own terms.

Talk With Your Kids

If you are the parent of young children, you should talk with them about the emotional subject of seeing someone new before you go on your first date. Undoubtedly, they may be upset about your decision to move on with your life. Allow them to voice their concerns. Carefully gauge their reactions before formulating a response.

Image of an couple

Don’t try to rush a relationship between a new love interest and your children. Allow things to progress naturally. You may not even want to introduce a new significant other to your children until things become serious. Your kids have recently suffered the loss of one parent from your home. You wouldn’t want your children to become attached to a new mate only to have the bond severed if the new romance doesn’t work out.

Start Slow

After the sorrow and loneliness of a painful divorce, you may be tempted to jump into a new relationship with reckless abandon. However, you need to start any new dating venture slowly. Allow yourself to enjoy dating for the sake of dating without worrying too much about marriage or the distant future. Look at dating as a new adventure in the next chapter of your life. Use dating to try new experiences. For instance, you may want to:

* Dine at a new restaurant
* Go ballroom dancing
* Skydive
* Rollerblade
* Go to the ballet

By planning dates around fun activities, you can enjoy each other’s company without feeling pressured to spend too much time alone with each other.

Fight the Urge to Compare

Finally, when dating after a divorce, you need to fight the urge to compare your new partner with your former spouse. Constantly looking for similarities between your former spouse and your new love interest will make you feel insecure and will make your new partner very uncomfortable. Keep your ex-spouse in the past, and move forward in your new relationship.