Dating During Divorce? Not So Fast...

Let’s start with the bad news: You’re on the road to divorce. But the good news is that romance, love and, yes, even marriage doesn’t need to end with divorce. In fact, a survey of 2,000 newly divorced people found that nearly 50 percent of divorced men were eager to get remarried, and 20 percent of divorced women were hoping to repeat their trip down the aisle. That’s inspiring news for everyone hoping to be hit by Cupid’s arrow once again.

But is dating during your divorce a good idea?

While it may indeed be true that “all’s fair in love,” a little common sense doesn’t hurt either. And while I’d never want to throw cold water on a budding romance, I have some words of wisdom that I’d like to share.

I have an immense amount of experience helping individuals and couples make it through the divorce process. And I have even helped many through the more peaceful and amicable process of divorce mediation, which can save everyone a great deal of time, stress and money. In light of these experiences, here’s my compassionate and informed advice if you’re thinking about jumping back into the dating scene, and perhaps even if you hear wedding bells ringing in your near future:

If you’ve started your divorce process, honestly evaluate how your separation or divorce is going. Is it contested or uncontested? Is it demanding a lot of your time and resources? Is it emotionally overwhelming? You want to lay the groundwork for a new, strong relationship while you’re in a “good place” emotionally, psychologically and perhaps even financially, too. You also want to be able to devote your time and attention to your divorce, because the decisions you make during this time will affect you for years to come. Further, consider how your spouse may react when he or she finds out you’re dating. Is that going to add fuel to a highly contested divorce? More than likely, the answer is “yes.”

If you haven’t started your divorce process, then it’s important that you know what the road ahead looks like -- so you can prepare yourself and focus on the outcome you want. You also need to be aware that the process can be time consuming and, at times, exhaustive and difficult. After all, even the most amicable divorce is still a divorce, and it’s human nature to feel angry, sad and disappointed -- and sometimes, all three at the same time.

Be aware that there is a possibility that your dating behavior during divorce could affect custody and parenting issues. Your children haven’t achieved finality and closure of the divorce, and putting a new person in their life right now isn’t recommended by child psychologists.

Also, custody and parenting may be negatively impacted if your new boyfriend or girlfriend has a questionable past. This can further complicate the divorce process and significantly increase your legal fees if the focus becomes this new person, instead of you and your own divorce.

I also suggest that you be careful about having your boyfriend or girlfriend spend the night when you have overnights with the children. Innocently, the kids may comment to the other parent about how your boyfriend or girlfriend “tucked them into bed” or “gave them breakfast.” This could lead to an emotional response by your spouse and prevent settlement discussions from focusing on the real issues. Generally, if you use discretion and common sense and make an effort not to expose your children to your new boyfriend or girlfriend, it shouldn’t be an issue.

Happily ever after the second time ’round? Maybe -- or maybe not

It’s interesting to note that second marriages have a higher divorce rate than first marriages. While the reason for this higher divorce rate is unknown, it could be that some of these second marriages got off to a rocky start, because the ex-spouses didn’t deal with the emotional impact of their divorce, and aren’t really ready for another relationship -- at least, not yet.

My best advice? When it comes to dating during or soon after divorce, rely on both the wisdom of your heart and the intelligence of your head -- and not one instead of the other.

Cofounder Of New Dating Site Says The Key Is Social

Di Huang, the 24-year-old co-founded the dating website SoWink (www.sowink.com), which launched in December.

What is the difference between SoWink and other dating websites? With Match or eHarmony, they’re traditional dating sites, based on a matchmaking system. We’re trying to socialize the entire experience by having user engagement through our platform. We have a lot of social elements, unlike other dating sites, where the idea is to message back and forth. The first and foremost thing is we don’t do long profiles like you’d find elsewhere.

Who is SoWink intended for? We have a specific demographic: 18- to 35-year-olds, college graduates and young professionals. You have to do a Facebook verification or have a dot-edu email to verify. Primarily, it will be for people who are single, looking for someone to date. The site is not geared toward marriage; it’s for dating. It’s for people who are new to the area and are looking for friends and looking to meet new people.

Where is SoWink available? Right now, it’s limited by geolocations, focused to the San Francisco Bay Area extending to Davis and Santa Cruz. We’re expanding location to location instead of competing on a large scale immediately.

Eine neue Studie findet fast ein Viertel der Paare Met Online

The Virgins-Only Dating Website

By Amy Julia Becker

Fewer and fewer Americans are getting married. Those who do are, on average, waiting longer to wed than have previous generations. But according to Time’s “Who Needs Marriage? A Changing Institution,” women and men still want to meet and build relationships with each other, so marriage remains an ideal. Because of this, reports Stephanie Rosenblum in The New York Times, online dating sites of a remarkable variety have proliferated in recent years. Some are based purely on physical appearance, others focus on hobbies and interests, while others highlight education or the type of computer you use.

Wading into these crowded waters is WeWaited.com, a dating site exclusively for virgins. Only 30 percent of applicants to the site are admitted, and they gain access through a fee and a survey designed to assess their trustworthiness. The site’s founders admit that some virgins are left out due to the rigorous screening process, while some who lie about their sexual activity make it in. But, according to its homepage, WeWaited.com mostly achieves its goal: “to use virginity as a significant compatibility tool to bring people together.”

If movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and covers of Cosmopolitan weren’t enough, sociological data back up the fact that virginity before marriage is rare in the West. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 95 percent of Americans engage in premarital sex. So WeWaited.com offers a safe space for the small segment of the population who want to stay virgins until marriage. It enables partners who value their own virginity to pair up, and it affirms the desire to remain chaste before marriage.

The founders of the site, a husband and wife team who exchanged their “vows and their virginities” on their wedding day, believe virginity is something that goes beyond physical intercourse. They see it as physical, emotional, and spiritual, and believe waiting to exchange their “whole selves” until their wedding was a blessing.

WeWaited.com (formerly called YouandMeArePure.com) is not explicitly Christian, but its view of sex as something involving the whole person aligns with the Christian view. As Wheaton provost Stanton L. Jones writes in the January issue of Christianity Today, sex has meaning, and that meaning is derived from God’s intentions for sex, not from our intentions or desires. For Christians, sex is not a merely physical act, but one with implications for gender relationships, embodiment, procreation, personal fulfillment, and God’s glory. “God made sexual intercourse to create and sustain a permanent, one-flesh union in a male-female married couple,” Jones writes.

So on many levels, providing a space for virgins to meet one another is a good thing. It affirms a biblical perspective on the purpose of marriage as well as the significance and goodness of sex within marriage. And in spite of cultural norms and sociological data that suggest virginity is impossible, WeWaited.com provides proof that it is possible and desirable, if challenging, to remain a virgin into adulthood.

Despite its strengths, the site, and the idea of Christian virgins seeking only fellow virgins as partners, poses problems. First, by narrowing the pool of potential partners to virgins, Christians run the risk of making virginity — rather than a commitment to the gospel — the litmus test of a relationship. God cares about virginity. But, as Paul wrote, “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor. 6:14). A shared love for Jesus matters even more than a pure sexual past when it comes to Christian relationships. Second, although Christians uphold an ethos that supports sexual relations exclusively within marriage, virginity should not become an idol. To eliminate the vast majority of the population — including a good majority of Christians — as potential marriage partners may well emphasize sexual purity at the expense of God’s power to forgive and redeem.

The Bible advocates sexual purity. Further, though, a number of passages demonstrate how Christians should respond to sexual activity outside of marriage. Jesus, for instance, refuses to condemn the woman caught in adultery (John 8). He chooses a Samaritan woman who is living with a man who is “not her husband” as one of the first evangelists (John 4). The text assumes that the women’s sexual activity will be different in the future because of their encounter with Jesus, and with God’s grace, God’s willing and undeserved forgiveness for their sin. “Go and leave your life of sin,” Jesus says.

Similarly, Paul often addresses congregations of new believers who engaged in sexual sin before their conversion. He instructs them with a message of forgiveness for the past and encouragement for new life in Christ in the future. And as Peter writes, “you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do — living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. . .” (1 Pet. 4:3). Contemporary Americans, including many Christians, have sex before marriage. In so doing, they bring harm to themselves and to others. But God’s grace has always been able to redeem sins of the past.

Christians should be concerned with sexual purity. And it is a relief for Christians to find a safe space that does not assume premarital promiscuity as the norm. Moreover, God’s ideal for marriage includes both partners entering a covenant as virgins who give of themselves — body, mind, and spirit — only to each other. WeWaited.com implies that virginity is crucial to compatibility. But the highest concern for Christians in dating, and ultimately marriage, is a relationship based on the love and grace of Jesus Christ, the one who forgives all sin, the one who calls us to forgive one another, the one who can make all things, and all people, new.

Hur till Land en rik man