Ep 23 Swiping, Healing, Hoping: Dating After Divorce

Swiping, Healing, Hoping: Dating After Divorce in Midlife

In this “Faded to Fabulous” episode on dating after divorce, the hosts share SurveyMonkey results and discuss “gray divorce” (divorce increasingly common ages 45–60, roughly doubled since the 1990s), noting that one in four divorces involve adults over 50 and women initiate 65–70% of divorces. Survey respondents were largely from long-term marriages (mostly 10–20+ years); common hardest parts included managing kids, finances, custody time, loss of the family home for gatherings, judgment, and starting over. Reported divorce reasons included marrying too young, alcoholism, abuse, infidelity, emotional neglect, and growing apart. Dating topics included fears (rejection, trust, body image, blending families), app fatigue, and “icks” like fish photos, poor communication, sexting, old photos, and unsolicited explicit pictures, plus red flags such as love bombing and lying; many emphasized knowing what they want, being picky, and learning independence, with a positive story of finding love at 64.

00:00 Biggest Dating Icks
00:28 Podcast Intro and Topic
01:31 Why Survey Anonymously
02:42 Gray Divorce Explained
05:16 Remarriage Stats and Trends
06:49 Divorce Realities and Survey Results
10:29 Dating After Divorce Questions
11:39 Modern Dating Terms
12:07 Ghosting Breadcrumbing Intentions
13:37 Catfishing and Online Risks
13:47 Catfishing Cautionary Tale
15:17 Survey Dating Status
16:17 Fears and Insecurities
16:55 Upsides of Midlife Dating
17:48 Apps and Profile Icks
19:23 What I Wish I Knew
20:21 Red Flags and Love Bombing
21:05 Lessons and Community Support
22:10 Age Gaps and Lifestyle Match
24:43 Hopeful Love Story Ending

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

If dating, what has been your biggest ick? Multiple women wrote men holding fish in their profile picture. So if you you've never probably scrolled through, you scroll through it. It is, it's like men standing by a truck or kind of holding a fish. So if any men are listening to this, it's an ick.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

Welcome to Faded to Fabulous, the podcast for women who know that midlife is not the end. It's the beginning of something bold. Let's get into it. Hi, ladies. Hi, ladies.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Welcome. Welcome to Faded to Fabulous. Uh today's topic is swiping, healing, hoping, dating after divorce. Figured this would be a little bit of a juicy topic. We really haven't covered this. We haven't. Um in any of our previous uh podcasts, but it's it's kind of a big deal. It impacts a lot of women, and it impacts a lot of women a little differently, I think, in this season of life than in prior seasons.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

You know what I was thinking we were we were usually share a yuck or yum. Yeah. And I think it won't be a yuck or yum, it'll be an observation. Sure. So when I went to Greece with the 24 women, 50% fell into the category of a previous marriage, so had been divorced or widowed. So it's just very interesting that, you know, of that group of women, 50% of them had experienced the becoming of single, remarrying, or in current status of being widowed. And what does that look like going forward? So just, you know, it's part of our we'll get into some of those statistics for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Um yeah, so Kim and I, when we were talking about this part, we were talking about do we bring somebody on as a guest? And I did ask if there was somebody that wanted to come on, but I think that's a tough one to come on and talk about. It's very personal. And then also, if you're talking like my ex is such a boob, if you have kids that are gonna maybe see that on the internet down the road, you know, we wanted to be mindful. And we also, everybody's experience with dating and divorce and relationships in this season of life is so different that we wanted to get a lot of perspective. Yeah. So we ended up doing a survey monkey, sending off a survey, which so many women showed up to do, which I was so thankful for. And so we could kind of get the voice from the majority, if you will.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

So also allow them to anonymity so that they could share their their truth, but not be vulnerable as far as their family. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

And so we'll do a little bit on here. Uh the first section, I'm gonna talk about the answers that they gave regarding their divorces, and then we'll kind of dive in a little bit more about their responses to to dating and things like that.

unknown 2:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

So let me go through some of the stats that we have here. Gray divorce. So have you heard that term?

SPEAKER_03 2:45

I have, and I think it's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Gray divorces referencing gray hair. So it just means people who are getting divorced older. The average age of divorce is actually increasing. Many are in the 45 to 60 range. So that's what gray divorce means. It means you're getting a divorce when you're older. Where typically we would you would see it when the kids were younger or when the kids went off to college.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Before you're gray.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

It has roughly doubled since the 1990s. Why do you think that is? Oh boy. I think a lot of reasons. I think that women are more financially independent. I think that women are less tolerant of baloney when they go through menopause. I think that's a that's honestly a real biggie. I and I think we you can understand that, right? I think that we talk a lot about the season of life and some of the challenges and some of the things that are unique to it. And it's this season where you're like, okay, I've done all the things and taken care of all the people and I had all these roles, and now I'm forced to sit without some of those, reflect on my life, and try to figure out like, is what's going on in my life right now working? And part of that is exploring like, is my relationship working? Is my marriage working?

unknown 3:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

I think some women, maybe when they're younger, stay in a marriage because of young children, right? Not to blow their lives up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

So they have stats on that where you know it's like it when a woman is gonna leave, it's gonna be when the kids are young or they wait until they're you know out of high school. Literally they go out. And there's actually some that show it's like it's harder for the kids when you wait. Because yes, because they feel when you know, they the last kid goes off to college and all of a sudden you're like, hey, dad, and I and they're like, What do you mean? We thought everything was normal. So it's a rug pull-out a little bit. Yeah. So I don't know. But so more stats. One in four divorces now involve adults over 50. Women initiate, this is not surprising, 65 to 70 percent of divorce overall, and even higher when you're college educated.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

That that surprised me because I thought that some of the marital discord or marital breakdown might be because the partner can't deal with the changing woman. Right. And so that they may initiate it because, like my husband said, I, you know, I didn't know who was coming down the stairs every morning, right? Like so that's very interesting. I that wasn't that was a surprising one. Yeah, yeah. So remarriage interesting statistics on there. The rates of remarriage are lower when we're in midlife, especially for women.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:26

Fifty to sixty percent of divorced men remarry, but I have a question based on this one, versus forty to fifty percent of women. So if fifty percent of men divorced men are remarrying, who are they marrying? Probably 20-year-olds.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

Because I was gonna say, shouldn't the match?

unknown 5:45

No.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Not necessarily, right? Maybe not. Yeah, maybe not. Okay. Because they're dating 20-year-olds. Yeah. So we see that in our practice. Sure. You know, we we do see women, like I have a couple of clients who are upper 60s and getting married for in maybe a second time or a third time. But why do we think that women in midlife are less likely to remarry? I have lots of thoughts on this one. Go for it.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Uh Golden Girls. Watch the Golden Girls. That's why. I think I my prediction, quite frankly, and I love, I'm in a happy marriage and I love my husband. And I predict that there are going to be like generations ahead of women living in tiny houses in communities together. I just, I don't know. That's yeah, I think we may see a lot more of that. But yeah. Um, men don't do as well when they're not with a the actually, there's like health statistics, and I don't have them off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

But I remember seeing in the past that mental health statistics for men, they don't do as well as single as women do, which is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Yeah. So divorce, I mean, divorce is tough. Kim, you coach women and you have women in your practice who have been through it. You yourself are in a happy marriage, your parents were married, Michael's parents were remained married. I come from divorce as a child. I was divorced. I got I was 40. I got a tattoo and a divorce. Um, which do you like more? Definitely my tattoo. My yeah, divorce is no joke. It's definitely tough. I mean, people can do it really well and be great co-parents. That was not my experience. I had lots of things that I would have done differently. Um, but here we are, and I am in a happy marriage. But it was interesting doing these surveys, kind of looking at the questions like, would you remarry or are you dating and all of this thing? So I'm gonna I'm gonna go through like some of the stats that I did. I love it. So the questions that we came up with, current relationship status. So 33% were remarried or married, 3% were in a relationship, 15 were single and dating, 5% were separated, and then 10% were single and not dating. Um, some of these things ended up, people would put other and then have really funny comments. So I've got some good ones in here. So if divorced or separated, how long were you together? This one was interesting to me. There was only one respondent who was zero to five years, everybody else was 10 to 20 or 20 plus years. So these were the the women doing these surveys were in long-term marriages. What was the hardest part of divorce, separation in midlife? Some of these were interesting. Many, many, many responses, managing kids. So the dealing with doing it on your own, with wrangling the kids, dealing with things around the house, finances was definitely um a theme there. Not being able to see your kid every day, huge adjustment, obviously, through divorce, not having the family home for gatherings. I definitely remember that one being a toughie, you know, if it wasn't your year to have Christmas morning or what something like that. Judgment from my family. I felt bad for whoever wrote that one. That's just yucky. Doing it all alone, starting over and learning to put myself first. That was actually referenced a few times. Navigating dating with children as a single parent, definitely not easy, especially as you get into remarriage and blending families. And then another response of finding myself again, which I really liked. That was a big theme through here. Did your how did your confidence change was another question. Interesting. So 10% said decreased, 15% stayed the same, and then we had like 50% increase, which I loved hearing the increase. So, like, yeah, you can girl get that glow up with that, like, yeah, what that which doesn't kill me, right? Yeah. And one person wrote, decrease at first, but then I realized I can do hard things. Confidence kept increasing. So yeah, ladies, you can do hard things. If divorced or separated, are you comfortable stating why? So I wanted to kind of get a sense of what was bringing people here. And married too young. And I would say a good quarter or more of women listed drinking problem or alcoholism.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Couple mentioned abuse, infidelity was decently on there. I love there was one divorced amicably. That was great.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Neglected emotionally. And he this one broke my heart. He said we grew apart. I was struggling with menopause. So that, you know, just takes us back to why we need to make sure we're educating like partners and women so that they can communicate, that they can get support. But yeah, that was yeah, that one broke my heart a little bit. Okay. So now we're gonna dive into dating. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

So let's get into dating. It's interesting because when I think about, you know, I'm 61. Yeah. If I was found myself single soon, right, for whatever reason, would I date? Would I, you know, consider getting married again? Any of those things? And and I guess when I sat and thought that those questions through, I have no idea. No idea. Like I can't even predict that. Like I can't predict using the apps and and doing all that stuff. That sounds heinous to me, just because I've watched my kids use it and it doesn't look fun even for you know young people. But I I don't know. Like I think, I think I would have to like I got some responses like that.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yeah. You know, I don't know. It's not out of the realm of possibility, because I asked, would you get remarried? Uh I personally I believe wholeheartedly it would be me and my dog ride or die. And then I would live in a I'd live with women. Yeah. Um, you know, but who knows? You know, I could you could go to the grocery store and fall in love. Like you do, you you just don't know. We can't predict it. But I would say very solidly, no, I would not at this point. So it'll be interesting. When I when we were we write things up ahead of time so that we have talking points, and so I had a little bullet point, and then Kim was reviewing it, and I was just laughing because I wrote down ghosting, bread crumbing, mismatch intentions, and Kim wrote, Kim does not even know what these mean. Which was funny. I hear it from like some of my, some of I think it's like it is women our age, and it is women that are younger. So ghosting is apparently this practice where you are dating somebody, you're seeing somebody, you're talking to somebody regularly, and all of a sudden they fall off the planet, they like block your phone and they never talk to you again. That sounds like fun. Yeah. I mean, why are we doing that? Like, why can we not just say, hey, I don't think you can in social media. I know. I know. And then bread crumbing, I think what I gather from is you're you're talking to somebody and things are going really well, and then they kind of pull back a little bit and you're like, oh, I don't know, I haven't heard from them. And then all of a sudden you'll hear from them a little tidbit, a little bread crumb. And then they'll pull and so when husband, I'm like, yep, Miller, the dog, and I are gonna live together. Mismatch intentions is another one that like people were listing as like a theme. And that makes sense. So you can have so say you go on and you're looking for real, you're looking for casual, and somebody else is looking for casual, and then you get feelings for that person, and they're still like, hey, I just wanted casual. So I think that that can happen.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Or you have somebody who's kind of a jerk and lies and says, like, I am looking for like marriage, but really they just want to see you naked. You know what I mean? So that you can see in the world of dating. This these are things I hear from other people.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

I was thinking about it like from the perspective of financial too. What if you're a woman of means?

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Sure. Right?

SPEAKER_03 13:28

And somebody is like, Oh, I I'm looking for a relationship and friendship and companionship. And actual fact they just kind of want some financial security. So that's what I was sort of thinking about.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

And then there's catfishing, which we won't even get into.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

You have to because I don't know what the heck that is.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

I feel like I'm missing all these words. Is it like growing up in Nova Scotia? Like, you're not you do not heat need to worry about these things right now. Like, so catfishing is real. It's when somebody like they have pictures that aren't themselves or they completely lie about who they are. My mom, I'll share this because she won't listen to this, was actually catfished. When she got to she was widowed, she went to date. Um, and I was like, Mom, you need to date. And the only way to do it is to go on these so senior whatever silver group. And of course it's like yuck, yuck, yuck. And so she's swiping, and all of a sudden this guy's, you know, relatively attractive, and he lives in Portsmouth, and he owns his own business and all of these pieces, right? So they get to talking. And I mean talking, they take it off the app multiple times a day. He's sending her messages, texts. You're so beautiful, she's so excited, she's so flattered. They're gonna meet up. And he had to put it off because he had to fly away. He had a business meeting. Red flag, red flag, red flag. But I wasn't getting the red flags right out of the game. Okay, you know who figured it out? Avery. I was gonna say, or your girls. Grandma just went to go get a $300 Best Buy card because he needed for his grandson and didn't have time to get it. I was like, oh man. So I said, Mom, I need you to send me every information you have about him. I want pictures. I did a reverse Google search. She was totally being catfished. And by thank God, guess what she lost? $300, no more. But women can lose like significant amounts of money. This is not to scare people from dating, but realistically, this is some of the things that women have to think about as they're yeah, it's crazy. So again, it's gonna be Miller and I. So the questions that I asked about dating, I'll dive into. Are you currently dating? And honestly, a lot of others were in a relationship, about quarter had remarried, so you know, pretty consistent. No, thank you was 20%. Um, yes, it's rough was 10%, and no, but I want to was 5%. So interesting. If you're single after divorce, are you hoping to marry again? Maybe if the right person comes along. So that, you know, along with what you had said earlier made sense. That was like about a quarter of the women. Happy dating was 10%. Absolutely not was again 20% to the marriage part. One person said, I like living separate and being together, which I could get my I could get around that. I I know people who do that, they just keep their own places. And this is definitely funny because this is when I knew which one of my friends sent this. Yes, but only for money and someone to kill bugs. I know exactly who wrote that I love her. What is your biggest fear about dating in midlife? And I think it probably goes in alignment with what we just talked about, probably all of those categories that Kim has never heard of. Yeah, rejection, decent amount, trusting again. So that probably lines up with the women who were kind of heart-betrayed, whatnot. Body image, sadly, was 20% in you know, uh, there's like a song on the radio now, I forget what it's called, but it's like, I don't want to have to get naked in front of anybody else again. It's a breakup song. Starting over emotionally. That was another big one for people, and blending families. Yeah. So those are um pretty good fears or things to think about. I wanted to get some positive things about dating at this age, and I have had that's what I'm gonna say. I I don't want this to be a um pro-divorce, anti-dating in any way type of spin, because I I want everybody to be happy and loved. And I I do know so many people who had great experiences on the app, met the love of their life or at the grocery store, and are so happy in their second marriage. So just wanted to put that out there. Best part of dating at this age, I know what I want.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Um and also alternatively what I don't want. I know exactly what I don't want. I know how to spot red flags, excitement of something new, right? And then somebody wrote, There's a best part. Um, you can be picky and should be picky. I've proven that I can do it on my own. So I think getting the confidence. So dating at this age, you know, you don't need somebody, you want somebody. And that I think is pretty special. About 50% of the group said, Yes, I have used the dating apps, and yes, I hate them. A very small percent loved them, but most of them said it's just sort of a necessary because organic is it's you know, where do you meet somebody organically, especially since we're pretty chronically online these days? Yeah. If dating, what has been your biggest ick? Multiple women wrote men holding fish in their profile picture. So if you you've never probably scrolled through, no, you scroll through it. It is, it's like men standing by a truck or kind of holding a fish. So if any men are listening to this, it's an ick. Men who get offended when you're honest and say you aren't interested for whatever reason. Someone just looking for sex, unless you are just looking for sex, which is fine. Old photos, well, they don't look like that anymore. Where they jump to sexting in conversations instead of trying to get to know you. Ghosting, poor communication, and the gross, I didn't think this happened in our age range, but apparently it does. The D picks. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it happens apparently in our age. I know it happens in their 20s. Like I I hear about this all the time from my girls, but no, it uh happens in our age too. Yuck. I don't ever want anyone to ever send me a picture of their genitals for any reason. No, okay. Um, Kim's never dating.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

I kind of like the idea of the women commune and living in little tiny houses and having like a dwelling in com you know, a common house kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah, what's something you wish you knew before dating again? Um, how to navigate doing it when you have kids. I love this one. We are all just people experiencing life for the first time and not always getting it right. I really like that. It gives you a lot of grace and acceptance for other people. Yeah. Here we go. Do a background check. That's great. Make sure your plumbing is working prior to intimacy. Horror story, but I can now laugh about it. Yeah. So that's when you come and you you go get your vaginal estrogen ladies. You've you've heard enough of our podcast that you know you know what it is that you have to do.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

I like this one too. Take your time being single. You don't need to have a partner. It's wonderful to find one in this life, but you don't need one. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Red flags. What to picks? Yeah. Oh, okay. That would be like said the bad word. Yeah. I know it's what it is. Everybody knows. I'm gonna send one to Kim just to be funny. Oh, God. Um, what red flags? People who haven't worked on themselves lying. Again, guys who have a fish or a car or a boat in their pictures, if they if they don't smile with teeth in their pictures, ask, ask about their teeth.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Love bombing.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Love bombing. Did you hear that too?

SPEAKER_03 20:39

Yeah, and that's consistent with narcissism as well. So that's a huge red flag.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah. Where you're like, oh my gosh, this guy came out of nowhere. He was absolutely incredible and all those pieces. Yeah. And this one said, I can spot a narcissist from a hundred miles away.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

So yeah. I think we're getting good with social media because we talk about these things now. We talk about, you know, narcissism and and whatnot. I think people are a lot more attuned to things like love bombing and things like that. And then the last one, which I liked, was what have you learned about yourself through divorce, separation, dating? I'm pretty fun. I love that. I like that too. I can make anything happen on my own. I'm stronger than I thought. And this was repeatedly in the theme here is that I am stronger than I ever knew I could be. Um, I can do hard things. Yeah. I've learned that I don't need anyone else to bring me happiness. I have to find that within. I'm fortunate enough to have found someone who brings me additional happiness. So I I loved I loved these surveys.

SPEAKER_03 21:39

I love that too.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

I love the responses. It's good to hear what's happening because we hear about it individually with women in our practice. But I think, you know, if somebody's going through this, if they're divorcing and they don't have other people around them or they're trying to navigate dating, it's nice to have somebody else to absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

So hopefully this was helpful for somebody. Out there just sort of thinking about it and at least to feel like there are other women experiencing things and are willing to talk about it and willing to share their information. Back to my group of women. Yeah. We were talking about remarriage and making that vulnerable step to remarry. And one of my friends said that when she started thinking about remarrying, she realized at her age that she was either going to be a nurse going forward. Right. So age-wise, or a babysitter. And she chose babysitter.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Okay. So she's a cougar.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

And then another gal piped up and said, I did the same thing. When I started dating, I was so much more lively, active, young behaving than the men that were in my age group that she said I just couldn't identify. So she also ended up choosing a husband who was younger. And and not, I think, just because of lifestyle match. I think they just matched better.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Well, I see, I get these spectacular, we share them, these spectacular women in our practices who are like dynamos in their 60s and older. And they're like, I can't date guys my age. So it sometimes, yeah, you have it. It needs to be a match. At this point in in midlife, there it's not like, oh, I have to date somebody my age. Like you really have to just find somebody who's a match for you, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

Yeah. The I was thinking about one of our mutual friends, she is in a committed long-term relationship with her partner, and he is older than she is, but super duper active. And so just so you know that we recognize that there are lots of very active 75 and whatever beyond men. But I just thought that was sort of an interesting thing. And then another dear friend of ours, we joked about so these two women. One of them, her husband, is 14 years younger than her, and the other woman's husband is nine years younger than her. And so with this dear friend of ours who does not act, behave, look, represent her chronological age at all, we're like, you're gonna have to find somebody that's even younger than 14 years because this is the trend that we're doing.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

You're you're gonna have to rely on your dating app. Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:09

Seriously, yeah. So this has been a good conversation. And I think that there may be more to come. You know, we may have learned more, we may have more things to talk about as well with regards to that.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

I have some y ideas that we could dive into a bit more in terms of taking care of yourself through breakups and things like that.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Absolutely. Becoming a widow is not impossible for any of us. Like I, you know, I have dear friends who experienced Yeah, experienced it. So this, you know, not that I want to think about this as my reality, but kind of have to. So I'll end on a good note. So my brother, who turned 65, sorry Doug, for outing your age, and he doesn't act and look to his age at all. Um, he found the love of his life at 64, and his partner girlfriend is the same age. And so my brother was getting off a dating website because he was sort of like just kind of done with the activity. And Gail, his girlfriend, who is spectacular and I love beyond imaginable, she was dared or lost a bet or something to go onto a dating app. And just on the day that my brother was getting off, was the day that she's putting you together. So they connected and they're both really avid skiers. That is their thing. And I think that was sort of that common. So they started chatting together. And funny story, my brother is a dentist, and Gail snapped a tooth and had texted him, like, Oh my god, like I've snapped a tooth. And he's like, if you come into my office, I can take a look and fix it for you. So their first date was him fixing her tooth.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

Oh, that's that's pretty funny.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

That's awesome. Yeah, I know that's very funny. So I thought it'd be sort of fun to end on a good and they are actually celebrating their year first year together this week.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Great. Yeah, kind of cool. Thank you, ladies, for joining us, and I hope that this was helpful for you. We look forward to seeing you soon.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

See you soon. Bye. Thanks for spending time with Vicky and I today on Faded to Fabulous, where midlife is just the beginning of your boldest chapter yet. If you got something out of today's episode, we'd love it if you'd share it with a friend and leave a review. Hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you're looking for more support, inspiration, or sisterhood, come join us at faded to fabulous. Because you were never meant to do midlife alone. Until next time, stay fabulous.