"Want to turn an easy divorce into a hard divorce? Date someone while the divorce hasn't been finalized yet. Want to make it really hard? Go ahead and talk about that new relationship on Facebook."
In my younger days, I probably gave that very advice verbatim. These days, I tend to be a bit more understanding and nuanced about it, but there's still a powerful kernel of truth there. I've had to discuss this with enough people recently that I thought it merited a blog post.
If you can make it through the divorce process without starting a new relationship, that is great. It keeps the process simple, limits the things competing for your attention, and avoids some of the emotional landmines between you and your ex and your kids while you work through all the necessary property and custody issues.
With that said, I realize that is one heck of an ask. Divorces are about as scary as it gets. In many instances, people have not had any sort of healthy physical or emotional contact for a long time. Seeking those things out can be one heck of a sanctuary. On a basic, human level, doing so can be very life-affirming.
I do not judge people who do so, but I do try and provide them with three important points of guidance so that the exercise is not causing the person, their kids, or their case any unnecessary harm.
Reflection - Sometimes, the desire to jump right back into something can be an avoidance behavior or repeating an unhealthy behavior. I will frequently ask people if they are in the right headspace to "get back on the horse," so to speak.
I cannot tell you how often I see people literally abandon one unhealthy situation to run into a virtually identical unhealthy situation. It is as if they are caught in their own personal time loop. There is a real value in pausing to reflect between relationships to avoid history repeating itself. If you cannot take the time to reflect between relationships, it is worth spending some time to figure out why - in fairness to both yourself and your partners.
"Why do I have to be with someone?" and "Why does history keep repeating itself?" are questions that can change your life if you work on them hard with a therapist. Divorce, when you are already raw and honest with yourself, can be a great time to ask those questions.
Bandwidth - Even if getting back into something is not unhealthy for you, do you have the time and energy to do it? Relationships are always hard, but if you are doing it while juggling a new house, a new schedule, new finances... that's a lot. It is important to make sure you are being fair to everyone else in your life that is going through the divorce process with you.
Back in bar exam prep, the guy who ran it told us not to quit smoking or break up with anyone while we were getting ready for the test. Harsh advice, but it had a valuable point - we did not have enough bandwidth for a lot of extra activities. Divorce is very much the same. I'm asking clients to ace their parenting, their work, their money, and their self-care. It can be really hard to have room for other things on top of that.
Discretion - There is one thing from my old advice which has pretty much stayed intact - be discreet. In many instances, people are not content to simply be in a relationship. They want to introduce the new partner to their children or make the new relationship "Facebook official," right where the ex spouse and common friends can see.
Talk about taking a perfectly calm divorce and setting it ablaze. I am not joking when I say that I have seen people do this and turn a $3,000 divorce into a $25,000 divorce.
Introducing children to a new romantic partner is its own separate set of posts (and don't worry - they're coming), but it absolutely should not be done while a divorce is pending. It is simply too much to ask of most children. They are trying to square with their old, comfortable world blowing up. Few would have the insight and maturity to see this new person as anything other than an attempt to "replace" the old parent.
At the risk of sounding terribly old-fashioned, I often tell my clients, "If it's worthwhile, they will wait." It's true. There can be a powerful feeling to immediately build a new "family unit" and a new "normal." That is entirely understandable, but the family system being reshaped is a massive one. It has to happen gradually or else it might be done on a really poor foundation. We have to be the adults and put what we want on the back burner so we can show up for our kids. The right person will get that and wait for the right time and the right place.
If the relationship is more casual... why are these people meeting your children in the first place? The last thing kids need at this point is faces in their lives that come and go. This is not good for children on a developmental level, and it certainly is not something that Courts look kindly on.
In regards to social media, publicizing the new relationship often feels a like more like a "victory lap" than a heart-felt expression of affection and adoration. I often joke with clients that most of the great love stories of the modern age were never "Facebook official" and somehow they still worked. In my own life, my mom and dad made it more than forty years and they did not even know what Facebook is. (My mom still calls it "the Facebook.")
Even if the social media posts are meant as affection, it is almost always interpreted by the other party as something else. (And before anyone asks, clients often swear to me that their social media has double-triple privacy filters and only five people can see and that there's no way their ex will ever see... if I had a dollar for every time those filters did not work and the info got out anyway, I'd be a wealthy man. Being a trial lawyer will give you faith in Murphy's law.)
Conclusion: Navigating relationships during and after divorce is very difficult terrain. Anyone navigating it has both my respect and my compassion. Hopefully this provided some good things to think about if you find yourself in this situation.
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