In one of the beginning lectures, Professor Aimee Miller-Ott from the
School of Communications at the University of Hartford came to talk to the
class about dating after marriage. Having parents who are divorced, I
have personally witnessed my mother getting back into the dating scene.
While I probably could tell many funny and interesting stories relating
to this, it is more interesting to hear the reasons behind the specific
challenges that divorcees face.
Dating is complicated already to begin with. But if you add in the extra baggage from
already having been married and now being divorced, getting back into the
dating scene can be a difficult task.
Anybody who has been divorced is a part of the new dating scene after
marriage. Therefore, there are no exact
rules or restrictions on who dates after being married, as it can be any
gender, race, ethnicity, religion, etc.
Examples of this are all throughout the television, newspapers, and
other mediums. For instance, there are
dating for African American people, dating for Mormons, dating for Christians,
etc.
Dating after marriage has become more popular in recent years than it
has in any other generations before now.
Some of the challenges that people used to face in the past are the
stigmas of divorce. In our grandparents’
generation, marriage was taken much more seriously than it is now. If a couple were to divorce, then their
community would not be as accepting of them, and the couple would personally
have felt as if they had failed and let people down. This would have especially been true for
women more than men, and it would have been much harder for divorced women to
date especially if they had children.
Nowadays, people have a more lax attitude towards marriage. People tend to feel like if there marriage
does not work, then oh well, they can just get divorced and it will not be that
big of a deal. This attitude change is
what has made dating after divorce become so popular because people still want
to be in a relationship even if their previous one did not work.
Besides the changing attitude of people, social media in the new age has
helped dating after divorce become much more popular and well-known more than
it ever used to be. Popular sites such
as Facebook, and other dating sites have made it much easier and more accessible
for people to put themselves out there again after divorce and meet many new
people. One thing that Professor
Miller-Ott stated is that divorcees have used Facebook as a tool to find exes
and have started up relationships with them again. As a side note: I personally do not see the
point in this. If it did not work with
your ex before, what makes you think it will work again? Social media and
dating sites, as a whole though, make it so much more convenient for people to
date after divorce. Being divorce
creates a lot of challenges, which I will go into further detail later, but
online dating creates a comfortable barrier for people. This way, people who are divorced can put
themselves out there without actually having to put themselves out there.
Dating after divorce presents quite a few challenges: personal,
children, and ex-spouses/co-parents. As
one of the personal challenges, Professor Miller-Ott stated that many people
feel as if they do not know how to date anymore because they have not done it
in a while. We see this in the example
she used from the movie, Crazy, Stupid,
Love. The main character is
separated from her husband, so she reads the book, Dating for Dummies, so that she can relearn how to date since she
is not focused on her marriage anymore. Dating
when you are younger is much easier because there is not as much emotional
baggage, but since the dating scene changes as people get older, some people
feel afraid to jump back into it. A
major challenge with dating after marriage is if the person has children. Miller-Ott stated that in a study if you were
under twenty, had no kids, and were divorced; you would be more likely to get
remarried. However if you were an older
woman with children, they would be less likely to get remarried. Also another study stated that men do not
desire divorced women with children as much, but women desire divorced men with
children because they typically will be more responsible and will not be as
likely to want to have more kids.
Therefore, it is much harder for divorced women with children to get married
than it is for men. Therefore dating
after marriage for women is much harder and is a difficult task. Another challenge is exes. Very often the ex-spouse will be in the
person’s life forever of they have children.
This can create challenges for someone dating again if the ex-spouse causes
problems.
Overall, dating after marriage presents so many challenges, but more and
more people are willing to go through it anyways. Dating is difficult to begin with, but it is
becoming much more easy for people to do it after marriage because it is becoming
more comfortable and easier to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment