I recently met an older woman (im 24, shes 31.) weve been talking and hanging out a bit, and i would say with 99.9% certainty she likes me. shes a very great person, and the age thing doesnt bother me much at all, but shes divorced (no kids thankfully) and that might actually bother me. im not sure how long she was married and i dont know how long shes been divorced because its not exactly something i want to bring up while we are out to dinner. is this something i should be cautious about? im hoping it wont prevent me from developing feelings for her but i guess its too early to tell.

How recently have you met her exactly, how many "dates" have you gone on, and how close do you feel you two are at this point in time? Asking about someone’s divorce can be a touchy/personal thing. I suggest waiting till you’re on date number six or the equivalent of to bring it up. She has a right to know fairly early on that this could be a potentially big problem in your relationship in the future.
Why don’t you date her casually without the end result being you getting feelings for her?

My point is: Why does dating her HAVE to lead to you trying to drum up feelings for her?

Take her out. Have some fun. Decide if she is someone you could like and stop trying to force yourself to be attracted to/like someone just because they like you.
I’m not sure why her divorce status would bother you. Unless it occurred recently and you’re afraid of the possibility that she may have a lot of emotional baggage or you may be a rebound.
You sounding like you believe divorce = used or defective or tainted or damaged or whatever. Jesus….the older you get the more you’ll meet women who are divorced…..get over it.

Should it influence you? Fuck no. Have fun with the older womenz….they rule!! Damn I wish I was 25 again.
If you’re not comfortable talking to her about her situation, the relationship will never work. Period. If you’ve been hanging out and talking, by now you should be getting more comfortable around each other.

By the same token, though, I’d say IF she’s comfortable enough with you but hasn’t brought up the divorce situation, she’s probably over it by now.

no, its more like what the above poster said about it being too soon. it makes me think about how hard/confusing it can be to date someone too soon after breaking up, i cant imagine how much more difficult it would be after a divorce.

weve been on about 2 ”dates” and im making dinner this weekend for ”date” number 3. weve also hung out quite a bit with mutual friends. ill probably just try to date her casually and see what happens.

My question is what "date" is in paranthesis?

The reason I am asking because you said you hung out with mutual friends quite a bit as well. And you are going to ‘see what happens’. There’s a chance of "friendzone" going on here possibly.

Have you kissed or had sex or anything like that yet?

It very well should influence you, and I dont know many people it doesnt. Divorce says alot of someones past, and someones past is very important in making decisions about your future with them. Total judgement shouldnt be left up to the fact they are divorced, but it does come with the total package. Also, ive met several older divorced women that carry ALOT of baggage with them years down the road.

Definitely a case by case thing, but to say it shouldnt influence you seems rather rediculous

When looking at a divorced woman, I’d want to ask myself WHY she is divorced and how she looks at it.

If she is consistently blaming her ex-husband for the divorce, she’s probably more likely to have baggage.

If, however, she recognizes her part in the divorce, she’s probably learned from the experience and it’s not an issue.

Almost ANY divorce has happened because BOTH parties did something wrong. Sure, there may be a definitive person who caused it to end (a cheater for instance), but there are almost always faults on the OTHER person as well.

If a girl can recognize what SHE did wrong, then she has probably learned from it.
Have you never been in a realtionship that hasn’t worked out? What’s the difference?

Exactly. Heck it can even be a positive thing if she learned from the experience. But it still a significant part of her past and should be taken into consideration.

A relationship isnt a life long commitment that got broken

Without knowing the exact details of the divorce, I would give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was being abused or he cheated on her. She can’t be blamed for leaving if those were the case.

The difference is a legal contract.
this chick is probably going to eat your lunch. I say date the woman, but don’t dive in for love instantaneously.

im sorry thats all marriage is to you.

thats why you find out

Well you’re confusing the issue. Simply being divorced in the past is NOT indicative of baggage. Divorce is just that, a divorce. The other issues you bring up have more to do with the person and whether or not they are a good person to date/be with.

There are many fine people that are divorced for a variety of reasons. I would suggest that one should not be using that as any sort of criteria on whether or not they want to date the person. Why? Because it can seriously taint your image of that person….a taint which in all likelihood is incorrect.

Now the other issues you raise about baggage, problems and all that are very relevant but they are separate issues from the divorce.

See the thing is, soo many people are looking for perfection in everything. They look for perfection in the other persons physical appearance, they look for perfection in their dating partners life prior to dating you and they look for perfection in the other areas.

Divorce is incredibly common, especially as you age and start dating older people. There are very few, never been married people out there. And some people are so ate up with the dumbass about perfection that they look at 40 year olds that have never been married as somehow bad. It’s like they say, "Well if there wasn’t anything wrong with them, then they would have been married by now. Since they aren’t, something must be wrong with them."

Sadly this sort of idiotic logic is all too common.

She wants babies. Do not have them, you are not ready.

Beware.

Do not have children untill you have built your income up above and beyond $100k/year.

Oh man, I guess about 80% of the population will never have children if they follow your advice.

I don’t mean to be rude, but stop giving advice. Thanks.
When you said "Older" I thought you meant "older" — she’s not out of the "culturally" accepted age range. It may feel that way to you (or not), but to me the only difference between you and her would be where you are in terms of having a family. Beyond that, maturity and goals aren’t too different I would think.

As far as divorce, it has nothing to do with your relationship with her.

I see nothing to be cautious about here based on what you’ve presented, but watch for other red flags as you go (As with any new romantic relationship you’re considering)

If it just happened, then yes that is a red flag in my book. I won’t date a woman who doesn’t have a minimum of 6 months behind her while single after the ending of a serious relationship.

Make sure you test her to see how she really feels about her last relationship and where she stands now. Don’t be obvious of course, just see if the red flags are there. Is she truly ready, or is she compensating for her loss and using you as a rebound? Find out the facts, and stay detached emotionally until you do.
All this here is good advce, but i would say just keep it light and go for it dude, have some fun and see what happens.
If you feel yourr starting to care for her on a deeper level, that would be the time to ask her about it. If she’s mature enough she’ll prolly just give it to you straight and that’ll be it. If she’s still sore about it, it might be a sign that she’s not in the right emotional shape to start a new relationship.
Me personally. If I was going to date a girl who was divorced. I’d want to know a little about it. I’d want to know if she still talks to her x husband and what kinda person he is. Sometimes husbands can get really jealous when they see there x wife with another guy. I’d want to know if this guy was crazy or dangerous. It probably would be hard to get the real truth but who knows. She might come out and say "yea my x beat me and still stalks me". Might wanna be careful with that one.
Hmm…Glad I checked OT today. Got some sage advice for ya.

I’m 24, my girlfriend of 8 months is 32. When we met, she was still married (though I did *NOT* know that when I asked her to dance at the bar, her ring had been off long enough for the tan line and indentation to be gone (I always check that, I swear)) to her husband of 11 years. We talked while we danced, laughed because we quite a bit in common, interest wise, and I gave her my number, not expecting anything of it. The next Friday, I get a text from her, asking if I remember her. Giggity.

So, we text a bit, then start talking, and she’s gonna be up again (a few weekends later). But she needs to tell me about her marriage. Okay, so I figure she’s divorced. Nope. Still living with the husband, waiting for her taxes to come back and drop the big D, after 2 years of failed counseling and continuously being treated like shit. No physical abuse, just a lot of verbal and emotional, and being from a small town, having his buddies keep a hawks eye on her at all times.

Long story short, we date for about 2 months, she moves out (which got her a nice tackling in the front yard from him when she was getting the last of the bare necessities and he came home), files for divorce, and starts getting herself back.

Now, I’ll agree with some of these guys on here, about the possibility of there being baggage. She’s got 2 absolutely wonderful kids, 9 and 6, that I adore. It’s taken a little adjusting, all three of them getting used to the fact that they don’t have a totalitarian thumb pressing down on them all the time. The kids have sprung up from it pretty quick, but it’s taken her awhile to do so. It’s been 6 months since she left, and she’s just now able to tell him to "Go fuck yourself" as of yesterday evening. Needless to say, there’s a lot of self doubt she’s still working out, but she’s getting there.

The key to this is clear, open, honest communication. Don’t beat around the bush, but then again, don’t come out and say: "I want to know, what kind of clusterfuck am I getting myself into?" If you can find a way, casually slip your questions into a normal conversation when you’re alone or on the phone, since it’s not really any of your friends’ business and she may be uncomfortable talking about it. In turn, openly and honestly answer any questions she might have about your past relationships and why they didn’t work out.

I agree but on the other hand, if I were single and met a divorced guy, I might be concerned as to WHY the divorce happened, not because of the divorce itself. Granted sometimes things just dont work out, that happens, but people don’t wake up one morning and decide it’s over. There’s got to be an underlying reason. I had a friend going through divorce proceedings , and the reasons for the divorce are pretty solid…the wife didn’t contribute anything to the relationship and expected to be served hand and foot. He tried for a few years to comminicate and encourage, but she wouldn’t have any of it. She did her own thing and let herself go…and by letting herself go, I mean REALLY letting it all go If I had the power I would post her on dontdatethisbitch.com but it’s not my place LOL.

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