\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, it\u2019s done!\u00a0 The lawyers are gone, the courts are played out, the property and kids are separated and one of you is living in the house or it has been sold.\u00a0 You are situated in a comfortable but \u201cnot exactly home\u201d place of your own The last time you dated you were really young, in fact in your twenties, if not your teens.\u00a0 There has been a lot of life since then.\u00a0 Internet dating has taken off, but we all have heard the horror stories of that.\u00a0 There is no college bar anymore, at least for middle age people.\u00a0 Perhaps you already have a girl or guy lined up, maybe even dated them while you were still with your ex.\u00a0 What problems happen now?\u00a0 Could this ever work?\u00a0 The good news is you are free again to remake your life.\u00a0 The bad news is this is the time people make huge mistakes.\u00a0 We are all going to deal with this in ourselves, a colleague or a friend, so you might as well read below.<\/span><\/p>\n First place, don\u2019t buy into the theory that someone has the answer for you.\u00a0 \u201cIf you go and get hooked up again I am going to shoot you on the spot?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou don\u2019t need anyone else in your life, you need a break from men.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou should wait three years before you date.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cMaybe you should play for the other side for a while.\u201d\u00a0 I have heard well-meaning friends say everything to a guy or girl getting divorced. \u00a0Turn the hearing aids off, turn the noise way off.\u00a0 Advice is easy to give and hard to live with if you take it.\u00a0 You are in pain, and you will be in pain for a while.\u00a0 If in the divorce, you are the one left or you are not the one to make the divorce decision, your spouse is emotionally way ahead of you.\u00a0 Don\u2019t try to catch up quickly.\u00a0 The advice about when to start dating can\u2019t be determined for each person with an overall phrase.\u00a0 But you do have to make some sense of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n You should start dating after you have other parts of your life re-established.\u00a0 Meaning, don\u2019t be looking until you have a lived a few months on the new amount of money you are getting, you have established healthy relationships with your kids, and you and everyone important to you has adjusted to you being a single man or woman again.\u00a0 You must know who you are now before you start letting someone else in.\u00a0 You must avoid emotional pinballing<\/a>.\u00a0 Before that, you are asking for trouble.\u00a0 Get yourself stabilized.\u00a0 If you are living in a refrigerator box<\/a>, don\u2019t bring\u00a0 person home until you can afford an apartment (or perhaps a refrigerator box in a better neighborhood).\u00a0 What about using people for sex in the meantime?\u00a0 Use the sexual energy to motivate you to getting yourself setup.\u00a0 Emotions get involved when you start cheating on these principles, so don\u2019t cheat.\u00a0 Okay reality, sometimes it is just too tempting, but really moderate the attachment.<\/span><\/p>\n Remember, if you stopped dating when you were sixteen, you will have the same confused 16-year old mentality when you pick it up again.\u00a0 If you stopped dating when you were twenty-five, you\u2019re going to go back to 25.\u00a0 Don\u2019t expect progress in your psychology when you have been in the storage bin of marriage.\u00a0 You will pick up quickly, but don\u2019t expect to start somewhere else.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Where the hell do you meet people when you are single again and haven\u2019t been on a date in years?\u00a0 We have all heard horror stories about online dating, finding a woman from a communist country, finding a man from work, etc.\u00a0 And most of them are true.\u00a0 But not all are horror stories.\u00a0 You need to get rid of your urgency to hook up or else you won\u2019t make good decisions.\u00a0 This time is about expanding your social networks and finding other single people.\u00a0\u00a0 Go to parties, go to social events, fund raisers, clubs, just expand whatever it is you enjoy doing and meet a lot of people.\u00a0 When you get someplace leave at least a quarter of the time to meet new people, not just hang with the people that you came with.\u00a0 Just do it.\u00a0 Meet waiters and waitresses, and people who are running the show and people who are shy.\u00a0 Just be sure to get your name out there.\u00a0 It\u2019s not sales; it is not bravery; hell it can\u2019t be worse than what you have been through getting a divorce.\u00a0 People are mostly receptive to meet you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I make a logical rule with men and women alike.\u00a0 If you date the first girl or guy you meet, you are limited to the one guy.\u00a0 If you meet the first person\u2019s friends, you have five, ten or maybe more people to choose to date.\u00a0 Make lots of friends during the pre-dating time and meet their networks.<\/span><\/p>\n Now what are you looking for?\u00a0 \u00a0The old advice was \u201cdon\u2019t fall for the first pretty face you see.\u201d\u00a0 I would expand that and say, don\u2019t fall for any pretty face.\u00a0 Find someone that likes to do things you like to do.\u00a0 You are going into a different part of your life than before, so look at what it is you will do at your age.\u00a0 If you are fifty, you want someone different than if you are twenty.\u00a0 You might want someone more travel-oriented or more exploring that can expand your horizon.\u00a0 Or someone to eventually be a homebody with.\u00a0 If you\u2019re thirty, then you might be looking for someone that will be a good partner to raise kids with.\u00a0 You don\u2019t go picking the party animal who is focused on their friends, and look to change him, even if he says he\u2019s willing to change.\u00a0 Look for their lifestyle and get a sense of what they like to do.\u00a0 And finally, don\u2019t ask them.\u00a0 People present their ideal self when they are single.\u00a0 So you may hear their ideal, but it is not what they are doing.\u00a0 Don\u2019t ask, observe.<\/span><\/p>\n Now for the worst news.\u00a0 The first thing you should look for is character.\u00a0 And character is hard to determine.\u00a0 The girl or guy that is criticizing waitresses or clerks is not who you want to be with unless you want your life to be criticizing a lot.\u00a0 A guy or girl who is always looking at the positive might not be attractive to you, or it may be.\u00a0 A guy or girl that doesn\u2019t handle money well, or has a ton of credit card debt, may take a different kind of person to be connected to them.\u00a0 Be sure you want to spend you life rescuing someone because that is what you will do.\u00a0 Look at the subtler signs.\u00a0 Don\u2019t be impressed that they serve meals to the poor if everything else is not in place.\u00a0 Remember, the bad patterns get emphasized in relationships, so be wary.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, it doesn\u2019t hurt if they have a pretty face, a rockin\u2019 hard body and you fit together really well behind closed doors, but that should be your strongest measure.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I always say to people let four seasons pass before you look for results.\u00a0 That goes for any type of stress.\u00a0 There is no greater stress in the world than a divorce.\u00a0 People don\u2019t kill themselves over anything else as much as a divorce or relationship problem.\u00a0 Death of a loved one, especially with a terminal illness, comes close, but as far as what it does to your life and after, divorce tops the mountain of psychological effects.\u00a0 I would say give it four seasons until you are acclimated before you dive into the dating game.\u00a0 You may be alright if you don\u2019t, but I\u2019d still give it four seasons.\u00a0 If a year is too long, you will need a lot of luck because you won\u2019t have enough information about yourself to date seriously.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Site Administrator:\u00a0 Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D. ABPP<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Please share this article from down below.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Please join the email list on the top of the sidebar and you can get these sent to your email.\u00a0 Also follow me on Twitter (https:\/\/twitter.com\/ThinBlueMind<\/a>) for other articles and ideas, and YouTube at\u00a0https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCfjNw0510ipr3bX587IvAHg<\/a> .<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Police Psychology | Divorce Part 4: Starting a New Life by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0 ABPP \u00a0 So, it\u2019s done!\u00a0 The lawyers are gone, the courts are played out, the property and kids are separated and one of you is living in the house or it has been sold.\u00a0 You are situated in a comfortable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17168881],"tags":[17168994,17168911,17168797],"class_list":["post-5834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-change","tag-dating","tag-divorce","tag-police-psychology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2644,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=2644","url_meta":{"origin":5834,"position":0},"title":"Police Psychology | Police Divorce Part 2: Hate to Admit","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"June 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Police Divorce Part 2: \u00a0Hate to Admit by Dr. Gary S. Aumiller When I was in my late 20\u2019s and just married, I asked a friend of ours (who was really old, a few years short of 40) what was it like to be divorced?\u00a0 Does it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Change"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Change","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168881"},"img":{"alt_text":"police, divorce, psychology","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/post-divorce-242x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2188,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=2188","url_meta":{"origin":5834,"position":1},"title":"Police Psychology | Police Divorce Part 1: Shutting Down the Blame Game","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"May 10, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Police Divorce Part 1: Shutting Down the Blame Game by\u00a0 Dr. Gary Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ABPP The real cause of police suicide is divorce or marital problems. Internal affairs investigations are a distant second. I would venture to say when human error comes into play in car chases,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Change"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Change","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168881"},"img":{"alt_text":"divorce","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/divorce-164x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4245,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=4245","url_meta":{"origin":5834,"position":2},"title":"Police Psychology | Divorce in Cops and Corrections","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"October 4, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Divorce in Cops and Corrections by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0 ABPP I just spent the past week at the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology meeting.\u00a0 I had been the first executive director of the group and was the president the year before that, so I (with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Public Information Bureau"","block_context":{"text":"Public Information Bureau","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168888"},"img":{"alt_text":"divorce","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/divorce-164x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5707,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=5707","url_meta":{"origin":5834,"position":3},"title":"Police Psychology: Divorce Part 3","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"March 30, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology:\u00a0 Divorce Part 3 by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0 ABPP \u00a0 \u201cAt first I was afraid, I was petrified.\u00a0 Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side.\u201d So starts the 70\u2019s anthem song about the breakup.\u00a0 Gloria Gaynor in 1978 found silver, gold and platinum, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mastering Change"","block_context":{"text":"Mastering Change","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168881"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/post-divorce-242x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":121,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=121","url_meta":{"origin":5834,"position":4},"title":"Police Psychology | The Principle of Entropy","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"March 27, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 \u00a0 The Principle of Entropy \u00a0 On the theme that scientific principles and theories have mental health correlates that we should pay attention to, I would like to add another scientific principle that can help us with police psychology called \u201centropy.\u201d Let me put this second law of thermodynamics\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Avoiding Being a Missing Person"","block_context":{"text":"Avoiding Being a Missing Person","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168886"},"img":{"alt_text":"Police psychology: entropy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/messy-desk-sipress.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/messy-desk-sipress.gif?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/messy-desk-sipress.gif?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/messy-desk-sipress.gif?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3221,"url":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?p=3221","url_meta":{"origin":5834,"position":5},"title":"Police Psychology | Not-So Fantastic Four","author":"Gary Aumiller","date":"July 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Police Psychology | Not-So-Fantastic Four by Gary S. Aumiller, Ph.D.\u00a0 ABPP The Human Torch, the Invisible Woman, the Thing and Mr. Fantastic are Marvel's creation of four people with super powers who work together as a team to stop crime.\u00a0 Not one of their powers is complete, but together they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Police Stress"","block_context":{"text":"Police Stress","link":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/?cat=17168885"},"img":{"alt_text":"BURSTRESS","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/BURSTRES-300x210.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p60sbO-1w6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5850,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834\/revisions\/5850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/policepsychologyblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/policepsychologyblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/homesweethome.jpg?resize=194%2C300\")
without a spouse living with you.\u00a0 What do you do now?<\/span><\/p>\n