SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Curious. When did you all start dating? Or how long are you going to wait??

I'm curious about this too. I am only 5 months out from D-Day and I have friends pressuring me to start online dating. I am in no way ready, but I do wonder when I will be.

I started dating while separated which was a HUGE mistake. You should not date until #1 You are completely divorced #2 You have taken some significant time for yourself to heal and to get to know yourself again and #3 You feel truly ready and have standards as well as boundaries set in place (i.e. dealbreakers, requirements, etc that you look for in a potential mate that you are willing to enforce).

It takes lots of time to heal from infidelity...and to heal from a divorce. Be easy with yourself.....and don't settle. And, PLEASE....do NOT date while separated. You are NOT ready then. I learned the hard way.

D was final Valentine's Day 2012, almost 2 years ago. Although I have been noticing men again lately, I still have no interest in dating.

18 months post-Dday and 9 months after the D was final. After 26 years with XWH, that was definitely TOO SOON.

I made some terrible mistakes, put myself in a bad relationship and endured more pain. Broken attracts broken.

NL

Ddays were december 2008 and july 2009. We were separated in february 2010 and I started dating my current SO in January 2011. ExWH remarried already in April 2011, and he was in a hurry because they had a one year old baby and they live in a country where it's illegal to cohabitate.

I didn't want to date at all, but my co-worker wanted me to meet her brother-in-law.

[This message edited by BoardPearl at 1:37 PM, December 13th (Friday)]

Just started seeing someone last month so that would make it just over 2 years since S (and 10 months since D was finalized).

I'm still not sure if I'm 100% (I am pretty guarded... not sure if that is just me or a by-product of A and all the lies that go with it) ready so I'm taking things very slowly.

So glad to read this thread and know I'm not the only one.

Dday was in April and I'm still not ready. I'm still in the middle of S and have no clue when D will be final. Definitely not ready to date.

The first few months after dday were hell. I'm finally starting to feel like me again, my sense of humor is coming back and I stopped scowling 24/7 (not a good look ).

What is it with all the pressure to date? I have people saying get back in the saddle, jump right in, dust off the cobwebs, find a booty call, pick someone, anyone, just do it. ACK! (phew, I'm sorry don't know where that came from).

I dated less than a year after dday and was not ready. I then took about a year to rest, recover, and finalize the divorce. Divorce was final in Jan 2013 and I started dating in August 2013.

Two Years.

Today is my third anti-versary and 5 months into my first post D actual exclusive boyfriend.

I am 2.5 years past DDay, almost 2 years from the day we separated, a little over one month divorced, and dating is not even a consideration at this time. It would be so wildly inappropriate I can't even put it into words. I'm guessing that it will probably be a couple more years, if ever.

I started dating my SO less than 2 months after my husband died. SO had been a wonderful friend and neighbor to my husband and to me both for about 17 months before he confessed to having feelings for me. I suspected that he might have feelings for me about 5 or 6 weeks before my husband died. It confused me some, but did not upset me. My husband told SO to look after me when he died.

SO got his final divorce papers 2 months after we started dating. Needless to say, we bumbled our way bass-ackwards through the whole thing. But it continues to be the best of all possible worlds for the two of us. SO calls me his soulmate, has my name tattood on his bicep, and answers "not yet" when someone asks us if we are married.

So occasionaly things do work out. I am totally comfortable living alone (have done so for several years while husband lived and worked overseas) and know I will be OK, no matter what the future brings.

2 years.

5 months after d-day, and a month and change before my D was final. Certainly not the recommended timeline and I do have mixed feelings on the matter, but what's done is done.

I'm 2 years into my current relationship and things seem to be going well enough so far, but with all the warnings against early dating I worry there will be an "I told you so" chorus in my future with a "you were all right" refrain.

I met my SO 5 months after I filed for divorce, so that was 16 months after my 1st d-day. I truly didn't intend to start dating until years after my divorce was final, much less meet someone new while still in the divorce process. But ex had dragged out the divorce, I met this guy that really piqued my interest, and well, one thing lead to another.

Most of the time I can't recommend doing what I did, though. The key is to make sure you're well on your way in your journey towards healing, so that you don't use dating and/or the new person in your life as a bandaid to try to cover up the pain.

1 year post S, almost 2 years post Dday. I wasn't ready. At 3 years post S and pushing 4 years post Dday…I just now am beginning to really feel "ready".

We were only married six months, only dated a year before that, so after six months of complete NC separation, I started dating as soon as I was divorced. I think I was more or less ready, but there have also been things I've had to figure out as I've been dating, things I never would have thought about or could have ever learned no matter how long I might have stayed single.

I should clarify that while I was ready to date, I wasn't ready for the first breakup. It devastated me in a way my divorce didn't. My IC assured me this is normal, for the first real relationship after a divorce to be more intense and feeling-filled and painful if/when it ends than almost any other relationship.

Honestly, I started dating almost immediately after ex-asshat and I split for good and it was the worst thing I could have done. I jumped right into a relationship (with an abusive prick, no less) when I was so not ready.

A few years later, I left him and spent some time on my own (almost two years) to get my head together. Best thing I ever did.

I basically did what I should have done from the beginning, which follows Shelly's checklist. Divorced, healed and head on straight. And now I'm seeing a lovely man and am glad I got my act together. If I hadn't, I can guarantee he wouldn't have given me the time of day because luckily, HE has HIS act together, too. Like attracts like. Or as we say around here, broken attracts broken.

tl,dr... date when you feel ready. Not one minute sooner.

I'm almost a year out from DDay and 4 months out from divorce. I nowhere near ready to date yet.

I had my first girlfriend in 8th grade but I don't think that's what you're talking about. I still haven't started dating. I just realized that I have developed my first crush in over a decade a few days ago.

[This message edited by h0peless at 10:13 PM, December 13th (Friday)]