Dating After Divorce - Carrollton,TX

As a child of divorce, my advice is to wait on dating and keep focusing on you and your children. YES have a social life, and friends but don't rush into things. Make sure you get used to being with yourself for a while. When you have kids, dating is different. They should not meet the person until you start talking marriage. Otherwise they will just get hurt over and over and over again. My mother was a serial dater and it sucked. We came second and if she got close to someone, then we did, and when it broke up, we lost out too. When you seriously start to date, the person has to understand that they are getting a package deal - he and you are not in a relationship with just 1 other person, you are in it with 4 - you and your kids.

Good luck and enjoy Saturday. Have fun being with adults. Just take your time where your heart is concerned.

I can give you all the standard advice - that I didn't follow! Take it slow. Enjoy the dating and don't jump into anything (serious emotion and/or bed) too quickly.

I would tell him about your kids, though. If that is going to scare away a man, I'd like to know that right away...

Relax?

I am stupidly extroverted so I had my first official date a week after my divorce was final. Took me about three years to find the good one, haha, he is mine! mine I tell ya! :p

If I had one piece of advice have fun dating but don't put money on any horse until you have healed. It took me about two and half years to get all my ex's games out of my head. If I had married the first guy I dated after my divorce I would be as miserable as I was when I was first married.

It seems like we fixate on our ex's most obvious flaw and say we will never date a guy like that. The strange thing is you date a guy who does that but does it in a different way because we haven't healed, we can't tell the difference.

So have fun, heal, keep your kids out of it until you are ready! That is the other strange thing, I dated that guy for two and a half years, never felt like he should meet my kids. Troy met them two weeks after we started going out but then it is hard to drive to his parents for Thanksgiving without him actually meeting the back seat passengers. :)

Oh for crying out loud, tell them you have kids. Not something you want to spring on them after you have been dating a while. Sure they may run, let them run on the first date as apposed to after you have invested months in the relationship.

Relax, have a nice evening, don't get serious....keep the focus on your children. If you are looking to get married again, date a few people and when you find one that loves and respects you and your values and will love your children too, get engaged for a year before you get married.

i feel your pain!
ive heard one big word of advice is dont mention your ex.. just talk about you and dont talk about the kids until you feel comfortable that he might stay around to be apart of their lives.

I couldn't sleep the night before my first date after my divorce, I was so nervous. Poor guy who asked me out. I really wasn't ready. But it was a milestone and I was glad to get that behind me.

Best website I've found on the subject is datingwithdignity.com. Really great sensible advice, and they have short videos where the hosts talk about some of the pitfalls of dating, how to have the right attitude, treating yourself and your date with respect, what to do about the kids, etc.The website founder is divorced with 3 kids so she speaks from experience.

Good luck on your first date!

eh... I am with you my friend. Go into it with no expectations.
Just have the mind set that you are hanging out with a friend. No need to move past that status for a while anyways in my opinion.
I dont tell my kids i am going out. They are with their dad if i do go out. I dont go out on my nights with kids and i will not have any man around my kids until i am sure about him.

When I kicked my crappy husband out and immediately divorced him, dating was the LAST thing on my mind. However, after about a year of my ex not paying child support and not even seeing the kids except for a few hours every 3 months, I had had it. So I took him back to court to sue him for child support and to MAKE him take the kids every other weekend, I know, so sad. Anyway, back to dating. It was so hard! I didn't have a problem GETTING a date, but it was so hard to have him not around my kids and me around their kids...it was just too much to try to schedule it. So I said forget it, I'm going to concentrate on my business and my kids and my vibrator will be my new best friend...no kidding...I ended up literally 3 days later after deciding that, meeting my now husband. So my advice is to NOT introduce the kids to him until you are going to be VERY serious with him. "Putting your kids first" does not mean you have to become a nun. It means you have to be responsible ALWAYS to your kids first and make sure they are dealing with and healing from the divorce. The kids take it the hardest. Make sure you know that. Just go out and have fun. Don't expect anything other than that and you'll do fine. Good luck!