Are You Ready To Date After Divorce

Everyone has a timeline for when a woman should date after divorce and it somehow manages to be both too long and not long enough. I’m done with the rules, because the truth is other people don’t live in your body, they don’t know your history, and they can’t feel what your nervous system is doing when you imagine putting yourself back out there.

I'll talk about the history of where the rules of “waiting periods” come from, including the old-school roots of women being expected to publicly mourn and behave a certain way to stay socially acceptable. Those ideas never really disappeared, it just got rebranded as modern 'healing' advice. So if you’ve felt judged for dating “too soon” or “too late,” you’re not imagining that judgement but what's really going on is you're asking the wrong question.

Instead, I give you three real readiness signals for dating after divorce. First, a body-based check. Second, a pattern check so you can catch people-pleasing, self-abandonment, and validation seeking before they drive your choices. Third, a “why” check with journaling prompts that reveal whether you’re dating to escape pain or because you genuinely like your reasons and feel stable in yourself.

If you want a post-divorce dating plan that protects your boundaries, builds self-trust, and still leaves room for love, intimacy, and fun, hit play. Then subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review so more women can find the show. 

Make sure to stick around for this dating series where I'm also covering sex and intimacy after divorce, permission to experience pleasure as a woman and to cap it off an interview with Jennie Young, author of Burn The Haystack dating method. 

To download your FREE "Becoming You Again Podcast Map" click here. 

To schedule your complimentary consult with Karin click here.

Struggling after divorce to get to know yourself? Click here to grab my $7 guide to get started!

If this podcast resonated with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts.

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR EDUCATIONAL, INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND ARE NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING PSYCHOLOGICAL, COUNSELING OR PROFESSIONAL HEALTHCARE ADVICE. 

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Transcript

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Throwing Out Dating Timeline Rules

Karin Nelson 0:00

You need to definitely wait at least a year. Get back out there. You're not getting any younger. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone, am I right? Don't you dare date until your kids are grown. Honestly, you should have started like six months ago. I mean, don't you know the rule that, like, for every year that you were with the person, you're supposed to wait at least a month to get over them? Okay, all joking aside, every single one of those statements that I just gave is a rule that you've probably heard or you've heard other people say about when it's okay to get back into the dating field after you go through a divorce. But I want you to notice something about every single one of them. None of them is actually about you. None of them, they're all rules about how long a woman is supposed to take, given by other people who are not you, who don't know you, who don't know your history, who don't experience your nervous

A New Series On Dating

Karin Nelson 1:20

system, what's happening inside your body, and don't live your life. So today, in this podcast episode, I am throwing out all timelines, all rules, and I'm going to give you something that I think is actually going to be useful to you instead if you are deciding when and if you are ready to start dating. I'm going to give you three real, like readiness signals that are going to come directly from you, looking at your body, your patterns, and your reasons. So stick around. Welcome to Becoming You Again, the podcast where you learn to step into your power as a woman in this world, where you learn to reconnect to your wholeness, your integrity, and bring into alignment your brain, your body, and your intuition after divorce. This is the podcast where you learn to trust yourself again and move forward toward a life that you truly want. You are listening to Becoming You Again, and I am your host, Karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast, all of you amazing women. I am, as always, so happy that you are here, happy that you're back because this month I'm going to be something that I have never done on this show, which is an entire series on dating. Love, intimacy, all the things after divorce. Now, you may not be in this stage, but I know there are some of you who are out there who are like, I've kind of been thinking about it. I think I might be ready. So the next four episodes are gonna blow your mind on all the things dating, all the things sex, intimacy, pleasure. And then I'm going to cap out the fourth episode in this series with an interview with Jennie Young, who is the author of Burn the Haystack Dating Method. I am telling you, if you don't listen to any other episode in this series of the dating series, make sure you listen to that one because it will save you so much time, so much effort, so much pain in terms of your dating process, getting on the apps, meeting people, and finding a guy who actually is a good guy. So I'm so excited for you to listen to that episode. It's gonna be the fourth one in this series. So definitely come back for that one. But I think the other ones are gonna be really, really useful for you as well. So I hope that you'll listen to these ones too, of course. Um, but let's jump into this episode where we're gonna talk about how you know if you're ready, how to know. And what I want to like get really clear from the very beginning is I don't know the answer for you. I can't say yes. Okay, so you have to wait like three months and then everything is great and you're ready, or you have to wait five years because it's the time that tells you like, I'm not gonna tell you any of that. I can't know if it's been long enough or short enough, or if you've done enough healing, or whatever. Like, that is all knowledge for you. You are the authority of your own life, and you have to know for yourself where that comes in. But I'm gonna give you some like tools to help you answer those questions for yourself, or at least ask the questions, and then you can answer the questions for yourself. I kind of said that weird, but I hope you understand what I'm what I'm trying to say here very badly.

Why Waiting Periods Became A Rule

Karin Nelson 4:58

I'm trying to say it very badly. Okay, so we're gonna start with the rules themselves because I think like understanding some of the socialization that has come through history, you know me. I think that socialization has plays a big role in how we show up in our lives, whether we do it consciously or subconsciously. I think often it's subconscious. And when we can kind of recognize where it's coming from, then we have a better handle on, okay, we start to recognize these things and we go, okay, actually, if that is a lot of that is socialization, I don't actually have to subscribe to that or ascribe to that. I'm not sure what the word is, but I don't actually have to keep doing that in my life and I can work to decondition that socialized like habit or however I'm showing up in my life, and I can actually like work to change that. So that's why I talk a lot about socialization because it really does play a pretty central role in how we show up in our lives. But the cool thing is that you don't have to keep doing it that way. That's always a great thing, right? We get to decide for ourselves once we see it. Okay, so we're gonna start with the rules themselves. So there's this idea that women are supposed to observe like a waiting period after a marriage ends. And that's what's socially acceptable. And it might feel modern, it might feel like great practical advice, like healing advice, like something your therapist might tell you, or something that your best friend who went through a divorce did for them. And so you're gonna do it too. But the thing is, is this like waiting period, it's not new, it's actually very, very old, and it's based off of like Victorian ideas of the mourning period after the death of a spouse. And so this is where it gets really interesting because in the Victorian era, there were actually etiquette manuals for women on how long you had to wait to date again or to like go out with a man or like meet a man or get get engaged again or whatever, if your spouse died. So there were rules for men and there were rules for women, but of course, again, the rules for women are much more strict. So a widow was expected to be mourning for something like two years, and it was broken into different stages. Full mourning was the first stage, and then second morning, and uh morning as in like M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, morning, um, and then half morning. So there were rules about what color she could wear. I'm sure you've seen this in movies or TV shows, right? A woman whose morning is dressed all in black, and she does that for like a year. She doesn't wear any other colors. She basically probably only had like three dresses in her wardrobe, and one of them was black, and it was the one that she wore like every day for like an entire year. So all black. Um, there were rules about what jewelry she could put on, whether she could go to a social event, whether she could show up. If she was in full mourning, she was basically expected to stay home. She like couldn't leave her house. She could go to church, and that was basically it. But if you were a man who was a widower, you basically were in mourning for like three to six months. Maybe it just depended on like your personality, but like three months was like the minimum, six months was probably the maximum, and you wore a black armband. Like you, you were wearing your regular whatever sh clothes, but then you had like this black band that you like put around your arm. You immediately returned to work. You could remarry basically whenever you wanted. Typically, a man was kind of like most people would expect him to just remarry very quickly because he needed to have somebody who could run the household, right? We got to get that free labor and that free invisible labor of running your home back online. So get married quick. But for women, no, totally different thing. So if a widow started wearing color in her wardrobe too early, or if she showed up at a like a social event too early, and of course everyone knows, right? Because you live in this small community, everybody knows that you lost your husband within a year or whatever, and you showed up at this party. Everyone would talk about it. You'd be basically ostracized. People would be like, Shun, we are shunning you. You are doing it wrong. So basically, you had to publicly pretend like you were in grief. And I'm not saying you these women weren't. There were probably lots of women who were very much grieving. And maybe it was for two years, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was for like 30 days. Maybe it was however long, right? The point is the idea that there are rules about how long you need to get over your marriage or get over your past relationship is all based on this, these rules that we had that came from the Victorian era of how long we needed to mourn our husband. And that's not ancient history. Like the rules stuck around. We didn't call it mourning, we started calling it healing, which I talk about all the time. I do think that we need to heal, but just because you're healing doesn't mean you can't start dating if you feel ready to start dating. Okay. Like this is hilarious. But the idea is like if you start dating too early, people are gonna talk. And if you start and if you like take a really long time to start dating or don't date at all, people are gonna talk. So no matter what, you're gonna do it wrong by society's standards. People are always going to talk. And you are going to be the one who's punished societally by all of the chatter of whether or not you're doing it right or in their eyes, right? And so this is where I want to bring it back to you. We want to let go of what society says is the right way to do it, society says is the acceptable way to do it, and bring it back to how you feel, what works for you. Let's think about why you're getting into this relationship where you want to start dating. If you're doing it for an avoidant reason, like to escape being lonely, to escape the pain of your breakup, to get back at him, to prove something, to validate who you are, the relationship that you jump into is probably not going to go as well. It's probably going to end up worse. And if you get into a relationship because you feel ready, you feel stable, you feel confident about yourself. You feel like you've given yourself the space you needed to heal emotionally. And you feel like you're actually interested in another person. And in getting to know that other person, those types of relationships typically tend to do better. So it's not, so the question isn't really about when you're allowed to start dating or you should start dating. It's where you're dating from. And by where, I mean where is your brain at? Where is your body at? Because you could be four months out of your divorce and you grieved the entire marriage while you were still married, while you were going through the divorce, and then you're like, Yeah, I feel totally ready. I love myself, I love where I'm at in my life, and I kind of want to just like go out and have a good time with somebody, right? Or you could be six years out and like been working on healing, but you still can't be alone with yourself because you hate the lonely feeling and you just want somebody to like fill that void for you. I'm not gonna tell you which is which for you, but where you are is really going to determine whether or not you're ready to get back into the dating field.

Three Readiness Checks That Matter

Karin Nelson 13:14

So here's the three checks that I'm gonna teach you so that you can recognize if you feel ready for yourself to get back into the dating field. Okay.

Listen To Your Nervous System

Karin Nelson 13:25

The first one is I want you to check in with your body. That means your nervous system, right? Your nervous system knows things that your brain is going to like argue with because our brain likes to be right at all times. And our nervous system and our body can really tell us some other things. And so I want you to just check in with your body and see what your body is telling you for just a minute. So do this if you're in a place where you can just like sit still for a minute. I want you to just do this. Otherwise, do it later. But get still, put your feet on the floor, take a breath in, let it out slowly. And then I just want you to think of a specific thought. Like something that's like, okay, I'm ready to get myself out on Facebook dating, or I'm going to put myself out there on hinge or like whatever dating app, right? Or I'm gonna go to the bar this weekend and open myself up to talking to a specific person. So it could be any thought, but these are just some that I'm throwing out there, right? I'm there's a guy at work that I has kind of hinted that he would take me out on a date, he would like to take me out on a date. I'm going to say yes when my sister offers to set me up. Like any of those thoughts that you might be having, I would just want you to think about one specifically. And think about it in a way that's like a positive. Like I'm, it's a yes for me in any of these situations. When you think that thought, I want you to notice what happens in your body. Not what you think about it, not the story that you're telling yourself. I want you to notice what happens in your body. So get still. Plant your feet on the floor and just listen to what your body is telling you. Is there a bracing? Are you clenched? Are you holding your breath? Do you feel scared somewhere? Do you feel tightness somewhere? Do you feel numb? Do you go flat? Do things spill speed up? Do things speed up? Do you feel frantic? Urgency? Or is there a sinking feeling? Or is there like kind of an excitement going on? Is there like fluttering in your stomach? Um, is there a curiosity? Do you feel open? Do you exp feel expansive? I just want you to like be aware of what's happening in your body. I can't know or interpret what any of those things actually mean for you. But typically as a coach and in my own experience, things that feel more open, things that feel more peaceful, calm, steady, um, those things are typically more in alignment with this feels right, this feels good, uh, this could be the answer that I'm looking for. And things that feel urgent, closed off, tight, clenched, um frantic, numb, those things are typically like your body is trying to tell you something that you need to pay attention to. So pay attention. What is your body telling you? The second check that I want you to recognize is your patterns.

Spot The Patterns You Repeat

Karin Nelson 16:39

Because here's the thing: if you haven't become aware of some of the patterns that you used in your previous relationship in your marriage that need changing or that would like serve you from changing, you're still gonna bring those into a new relationship, right? Every pattern that you had in your marriage is still going to show up if you start dating someone else. Because we work off of patterns, we work off of habits. And it is worth knowing what those patterns are so that you can catch yourself and decide do I want to, is this something I want to take with me into my next relationship? So here's a couple of questions to just kind of start to recognize if there are some patterns that you want to work on or if these are patterns that you're fine with and you're happy to bring them into your next relationship, right? So if somebody asks you where you want to eat, can you actually answer that question, like with a real answer without worry of, oh no, he might not like me if I say this? Or do you just defer and say, yeah, wherever you want is fine. When you notice something that you don't like about how someone treats you, do you tell them? Do you block them? Do you break up with them immediately? Or do you file it away and start explaining it to yourself as like, oh, I need to change that, oh, I need to hide that. Oh, don't speak up in these moments. Oh, he was just making a joke, or that's just his personality. Do you give them the benefit of the doubt more often than they should? Like, look at these patterns of yourself to decide if these are things you want to take with you. Do you know what you actually like anymore? Not what your ex liked, not what your kids like, what you like? Have you explored what kind of music you like to listen to? Have you explored if you actually like to hike or go fishing? Have you explored if you like to go to art shows or if you like to swim in the ocean, or if you like to just take a morning walk, or what kind of food you like, or how you like to spend your Saturdays? Have you explored that? Or have you always just gone off of what everyone else around you is doing? Do you have somewhere to put your feelings that is not dependent on having a romantic partner? Like, do you have a friend that you talk to? Do you have a coach or a therapist? Do you journal? Do you do somatic practices? Do you do yoga? Do you do anything that is other than the other person in a relationship that you feel like you have to unload on them and they need to carry that for you? Or vice versa. Do you know how to validate yourself rather than waiting or seeking validation from outside sources? Meaning, do you think you are beautiful? Do you tell yourself you're beautiful? Or are you waiting for someone else to tell you that? Do you think you're worthy? Do you think that you are valuable exactly as you are? Or are you waiting for this outside relationship to validate that for you? These are important questions that you need to be paying attention to before you get into another relationship. When you imagine telling a man, no, that actually doesn't work for me, do you feel something in your body clench? Do you get nervous? Do you get afraid of what their reaction might be because they might not like you anymore or because of whatever, right? Pay attention because these questions are going to tell you if you are in a pattern of self-abandonment. And then the third thing that I want you to check is the

Get Honest About Your Why

Karin Nelson 20:28

why. Like, why now? Why do you want to get into dating now? Some of the reasons that I've heard are because my ex already is dating someone. Because I want to know that I'm still attractive. Because everyone keeps telling me that I should. Because I can't stand another Friday night like this feeling alone and staying at home. Because I want to prove that I'm fine. Because I'm curious what it would be like to be with someone who actually listens to me. Because it just sounds fun. Or something else, right? There could be more reasons or your reason that I didn't list. But I want you to understand the reasons why. And if you like your reasons for it, then go for it. You're the only person who has to like the reasons for it. I'm not going to tell you which of those are great or which of those aren't, because only you can answer that. But if you like your reasons, then go for it. That's really the ultimate determiner, is if you like your reasons for it. So I'm going to give you just a couple of questions that will help you explore yourself more and the reasons why. And then you can decide from there. Do I like my reasons? Okay. So write these down, answer them in your own time, but take some time and actually don't like judge the answers. Just kind of let out what you're feeling and then read through it afterwards. If nobody else had an opinion on whether or not you dated, would you start dating right now? What am I hoping dating will make me stop feeling? What am I hoping dating will make me feel? What thought is creating the feeling that I'm having right now when I think about dating? And would I still want to date if that thought wasn't there? Like if I couldn't think that thought. Where in my marriage did I abandon myself? And what do I actually want if I were to get into a new relationship? What would I want from it?

Choose Your Own Dating Path

Karin Nelson 22:38

So the point of this episode is to not say you should be dating or you shouldn't be dating or you have to date or you sh shouldn't stay single forever. You get to decide what is best and right for you. These are just things that I want you to start paying attention to if dating sounds like something that you want to do. If you decide you never want to date again, you never want to have another partner, that's totally fine. If you just want to date just to like go have fun with people and not actually get into another relationship, amazing. If you just want to go out there and have sex whenever it feels right and then not have like emotional attachments, totally fine. If you want to get into another relationship because you want to get married again, great. Like there are so many different options and there is no prescription on you must do it this way or else. You are allowed to be the kind of person that you want to be. And now that you're divorced, you actually have the opportunity to decide and recognize who that actually is. And if you want to get back into dating, great. I hope that you will use these kind of guidelines as a way to help you recognize whether you're ready, whether you even want to, and how to get into it without self-abandoning. And if nothing else, just let that be like your guiding compass. All right, my friends, I hope this was helpful. Next week I'm going to be talking about sex and intimacy after divorce. So I hope that you will check back in for that. Thank you so much for being here. You are all amazing and you deserve whatever kind of life you decide you want after divorce. I will be back next week.

Coaching Invite And Support The Show

Karin Nelson 24:17

Hi, friend. I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life with weekly coaching, real life practice, and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to Karin Nelson Coaching.com. That's www.karin, N-E-L-S-O-N coaching.com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts. And for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married, make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.