How to Date While You're Still Technically Someone's Wife

The first time I downloaded a dating app, I was married. 

He was in the process of moving out, but our wedding portraits still hung in the hallway leading to the bedroom formerly known as “ours.” My then-husband was sleeping at a hotel so we could officially begin North Carolina’s required one-year separation period, which meant I had a minimum of 12 months as his still, technically, wife before being officially declared divorced.  One more year on top of the time I'd already spent contemplating divorce felt like salt in the wound. I was ready for some fun.

I’d never swiped on a dating app before, except on wine-fueled evenings when friends let me play matchmaker on their accounts. I didn’t really know what to expect; I just hoped I still had it in my 30s like I did in my 20s.

But as I carefully completed my profile, curating which classy photos would bookend my thirst traps, I felt a nagging question bubble up: should I really be doing this? Yes, I’d taken the ring off my finger, but that was just symbolic (and its five year-old indentation was still there). 

Thousands of people find themselves in the same divorcing and dating limbo all across America, as divorces can take years –  and we don’t even have really good data on an average timeframe. While divorces drag on, dating apps make it easier than ever to explore who’s out there in a way that feels low-stakes.

Many states, in addition to mine, have nuanced separation and waiting periods that delay the legal conclusion of a marriage. All are intentional, antiquated laws that build in time to, in theory, encourage an estranged couple’s reconciliation, and, de-facto, draw out conflict unnecessarily and expensively– and can make dating during the in-between time feel pretty darn awkward, if not legally risky.

Susan Guthrie, Chicago-based attorney and host of The Divorce & Beyond Podcast, described a common misconception when people are ending a marriage, and thinking about dating: “Just because you filed for divorce, people think that means they're legally separated. Nope…you are married.” She added, “When the papers are signed [by the couple] and a judge signs off on them, then you're divorced.” 

Susan is one of the experts in family law and relationships that I spoke with recently on the topic of dating while divorcing.  

While I was acutely aware that I was still someone’s wife on paper, the men I swiped on would have no idea, unless I told them. Ethically, it felt like something I needed to disclose. In those early days of matching and messaging, I wanted to keep things light, but I also wanted to be transparent about my legal marital status– somehow without killing the flirty vibe. It was all a balancing act I needed to learn. 

Because the legal process and semantics around divorce are so confusing, the words “separated” or “divorced” might be tempting to claim on a dating app because they are simpler to explain– even if they’re not legally true. 

Bela Gandhi, founder of The Smart Dating Academy, warns that, “Sometimes people want to say that they're divorced already…don't do that. You don't want to start anything off with what can be perceived as a lie.” 

In learning more about how dating apps wrestle with supporting their users (or don’t) with answering this question of marital status, I’ve found out that some apps like Coffee Meets Bagel give the option on their profile to choose from a dropdown menu that includes: “Never Married,” “Separated,” “Divorced,” and “Widowed.”  Meanwhile, Bumble, Hinge, and Tinder, three of the country’s most popular dating apps, do not give users this kind of menu of options. As a workaround, I’ve seen male users dedicate character count real estate in their bios to phrases like: “Happily divorced,” “Amicably separated,” or “Never married, no kids.”  

Since Bumble was my app of choice, I had no drop down menu to guide me. So, I started messaging men after we matched some iteration of, “Before we get too much further, I want to let you know that I’m currently in the midst of getting divorced.” 

Then I’d wait.

I’d agonize over the staccato of their typing bubbles. I’d read criticism into the words, punctuation, and emojis in whatever they wrote back. I walked on eggshells, trying to show them how cool and 100% normal I was, and that I was definitely not at all secretly consumed with the idea that I was actually a huge failure for embarking on divorce at age 31. 

A few times, I watched the match disappear altogether after I shared that I was getting divorced. I tried not to let those unmatches bother me…but of course they did– they felt like little failures, too. 

I also experimented with communicating it in my bio as a preventative measure and the ultimate show of transparency. I wrote the “baggage” emoji, followed by “Was married, no kids.” (I went with the past tense “was'' even though it legally wasn’t true. It was just snappier.) My matches stopped seemingly overnight– virtually all of them. When I put anything about my divorcing status in my bio, like I’d seen the men do, it seemed like no one wanted to connect with me anymore. I felt like I was a pariah. 

It also didn’t take long before Bumble offered up the profile of a man who was a friend of my still-legally husband’s. I let out an audible expletive, quickly swiped left, and hoped that the algorithm hadn’t already revealed me to him. I spiraled: what if he took a screenshot of my profile? Would my not-yet-legally-ex be angry? Would that impact our mediation process? Would he tell other people that I was dating? And what would those other people think about me doing that?

What we deem an “appropriate” amount of time to start dating again after (or during) the end of a marriage is inconsistent. “There's all sorts of urban legends out there that say you should be single and ‘dating yourself’ for every year that you were married,” Bela Gandhi laments. “Who came up with that rule?” 

And it seems to be only women who carry the stigma when they do choose to “get back out there.” 

“You know, nobody ever asks a man why they're ‘already’ dating, or why they're ‘already’ out there. It’s the woman who has to justify her actions to everybody– her family, her friends,” says divorce and parenting expert, Michelle Dempsey Multack. 

The heaviness was overwhelming in many of my early dating experiences. I couldn’t shake the shame. I’d gotten the message loud and clear that dating “so soon” was something to be hidden.

I was treating my divorcing status like a scarlet letter – but I didn’t need to. Yes, there are legal considerations for dating while getting divorced. But I had nothing to be ashamed of for dating in the first place. I didn’t need to whisper about my divorce in penitent DMs, nor did I need to post it on my profile like an apologetic billboard. It was when I treated my divorcing status like a scarlet letter that it became one, and I’d argue that I experienced confirmation bias of my biggest fears when men unmatched me in those early days. I was operating under an assumption of my own guilt. 

It took me months to internalize that I need not feel guilty for dating while getting divorced. I am not doing something morally wrong, and I am not a failure because I chose to end my marriage,  in the first place. 

What is a failure, though, are the laws and bureaucracy that keep couples stuck in divorce proceedings that could be over, sooner. We shouldn’t have to face the decision of whether to start dating while we’re still married because the process to end a marriage is intentionally prolonged. 

Over time, I realized that my marital status was in a limbo period completely outside of my control. And when I started thinking about it like what it was– a collection of policies to make my life as inconvenient as possible while getting divorced– my shame went away. I got more comfortable with the fact I was getting divorced. And, as a result, in my dating life, I started to attract people who weren't scared of my divorcing status–  because I wasn't scared anymore. 

No one I spoke with for this piece, whether their quotes are included here or their perspectives informed my writing behind the scenes, advised not to date at all while going through the seemingly endless slog of getting divorced. Every single person affirmed that the stigmas are overblown and gendered.

Getting divorced was just one part of me, among the many things that made me, me, at that moment in time. I needed to communicate it, to be thoughtful, and disclose truthfully, but my divorcing status didn’t define me. As it naturally came up, I shared I was going through a divorce, whether that was via text, on the phone, or on a first date. It was just one part of the fabric of my identity.

So, yes, you can get back out there. Go have some fun. Trust me: you still got it.