Flaherty

Should You Date During Your Divorce?


Is divorce the right time to restart your personal life?

Ending a marriage can be long and emotionally draining. There is no question that divorce is a good time to reconnect with friends, build a support network and let yourself receive help and association offered by family and others.

Whether you should date is a question only you can answer, depending on your circumstances and your own needs. Consider these points:

  • In Connecticut, even if you are legally separated, you may not remarry until your divorce is final.
  • The tenor and length of divorce oftentimes depends on behavior between spouses during the divorce. If the divorce is contentious, or if one party did not want a divorce, the presence of an intimate friend of the opposite sex can inflame a divorce proceeding.
  • If one partner learns through other friends or through social media that you are dating, it may make what could have been easy discussions about parenting time or financial arrangements more difficult.
  • In a high-conflict divorce or custody matter, any evidence from your personal life could become misconstrued or used against you in a court of law.

Ideally, divorce could be concluded in a reasonable amount of time that allows both parties to attend to needed agreements and then transition into a satisfying social life. Unfortunately, along with expense and instability, divorce takes time.

Should you date during divorce? It depends. If you have questions, speak with experienced legal counsel in West Hartford about the details of your case.