Is it okay to start dating before my divorce is final?
After a divorce, there are no hard and fast rules about when you should start dating when you've just left a marriage or when your marriage has dissolved right in front of you. The truth of the matter is you have to do what feels right to you. If you feel you need to take time to really get centered again you shouldn't start dating before your divorce is final. You need to lose your anger and figure out how to build up your self-esteem again before you begin dating again. Dating artificially boosts our self-esteem, and it's confusing as we may feel like we're just trying to put band aids on gaping wounds which is really not very helpful. On the other hand, if you feel fairly resolved mentally and you feel centered, and you feel like you know what you want, and who you are you should go for it. If you've been in a marriage that hasn't been good or successful for lots of reasons and you want to start dating again, I don't think that's it's a bad idea. But I think you have to be really clear on why you're doing it and what you hope to gain from it. Some people really feel they need to prove to others they're okay and therefore, start dating again. They want to prove there's nothing wrong with them, that they're not defective, and the only way to do that is to say, "I'm dating again, I'm okay." But you may be defective. You may be temporarily defective and you had really better look at what's going on with you, and start rebuilding some of those defective parts of you first, before going back into the dating game.
