To All the Single Ladies: Divorcés are Where It's At*

*with caveats. Also, THE APPLE CRISP RECIPE! 🍎🍂

Since I feel I need to caveat everything I say or write, this is a fun opinion piece highlighting my personal experience. Of course, there are so many “okay BUTs” and “well WHAT IFs,” so please take it with a grain of salt and enjoy it for what it is. Also, I don’t think I have any male readers besides my husband and dad, but it goes unsaid that this is also the case if you’re divorced and a woman! I write in hetero terms, but please read it in whatever terms you relate to most.

If you’re new to me, allow me to share a very brief rundown of my dating history:

19: First college boyfriend and first first.

20-23: On and off again college boyfriend #2

23-33: Serial dater with countless situationships and a few 10-month boyfriends thrown in the mix

33: Met Zac.

Back when I was single, dating was already a shit show and we were just getting started with the whole dating app debacle. Nowadays, from what I see and hear, things have gotten so much terribly horribly worse. I’m not sure how seeing as though it was already pretty fucking bleak when I was in the midst of it, but it has. The world of dating has suffered tremendously over the last four years, and I have a hunch that COVID had a lot to do with it.

But I digress.

Finding your person feels impossible. It’s the most excruciating needle-in-a-haystack kind of experience, which is often why people will settle for a fine looking piece of hay rather than the needle itself. Dating is not for the faint of heart — in fact, it’s not even for the strong of heart. It’s just fucking terrible and there are no words to make it better. It’s all fucked. Every part of it.

The bevy of absolute heathens I went through from age 23-33 is what I’ve been debating writing a memoir about for years now. I just have so many stories, so much content. Unbelievable tales of fuck boys, gaslighters, emotional abusers, alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, people with girlfriends or wives, misogynists, megalomanics, chauvinists, emotional fuckwits or freeloaders, perverts (if you know what I’m quoting… we’re BFF) and the list goes on. So, if you’re newer to me and only know me A.Z. (After Zac), you only know 1/10 of my story.

But we don’t need to break all that down right now. That’s not what this letter is about. This letter is about what I think the key to finding love may be in your mid to late 30s, and that key comes in the shape of a divorced man.

Hear me out. My mom suggested I open my heart to divorcés as I approached my 33rd birthday and I grimaced at the thought. I didn’t want someone’s sloppy seconds. I didn’t want a broken man. I didn’t want a failure, someone who couldn’t make it work the first time and who was more than likely to blame for the demise of his marriage. Ew. After all, 33 isn’t OLD — it’s not like everyone was taken. Surely, there was one single guy left who was around my age and wasn’t tainted with the stank of divorce.

That was my thought process.

Then, I swiped right on Zac. And with our two year wedding anniversary tomorrow, today seems like the perfect time to share my initial thoughts on what became the love of my life.

Within the first day of messaging, like in literal hours, he let me know he himself was a fresh divorcé.

I can’t remember exactly how he worded it, but it was something like “Also, I hope this isn’t a turn off but I am divorced.”

The truth is, it was a turn off. In fact (and I’M SO MAD I DON’T HAVE THIS VIDEO SAVED), I remember talking to the camera one night on IG as I do and lamenting about online dating during COVID and how “I’m talking to a few guys. One is a divorcé, though, so that probably won’t go anywhere.”

“JOKE’S ON ME!” she said 4.5 years later, married to said divorcé and pregnant AF.

My delicious divorcé

Alas, I ended up agreeing to meet him outside of a coffee shop on the curb one Saturday morning in April 2020. We sat and talked for two hours and, in those two hours, without having to be prompted, he told me exactly why he was divorced and has answered every and any question I’ve asked about it since with no hesitation or reluctancy.

Now, I won’t share specifics on why because it’s private and I don’t need to air out dirty laundry here. The only thing you need to know is that it wasn’t on him and divorce was the only solution for an egregiously whoreish act. And that’s the most important thing when getting into a relationship with a divorcé — if it wasn’t on them, you’re in the clear. If it was, well — that’s your call to make.

Here are some popular examples of divorce reasons I think make dating a divorced man A-OK:

• Got married too young and to the wrong person

• Simply fell out of love/realized they weren’t soulmates/should’ve never gotten married in the first place

• Infidelity (by the woman)

• Different pages about having kids (as long as his desires align with yours)

• Abuse from the spouse (mental, emotional, physical, fiscal, etc)

• They’re just a terrible fucking person all around (the wife, I mean)

• Mercy-killing your ailing cat (if you get this reference, once again, we are BFF)

Of course, you also need to suss things out on your own by getting to know his family and friends and ensuring his side of the story is rock solid because people lie. But if you resolve that he and his actions/personality were not the cause for the dismantling of his marriage, being with a divorced man is where it’s at.

Here’s why.

• They’ve committed before, so they’ve shown they can and are willing.

• They probably have a much clearer idea of who and what they want after what they’ve been through.

• They’ve already been through it once, so chances are they are desperate not to make the same mistake again, which means your chances of going the distance (if you’re soulmates, that is) are high.

I’m not going to touch on kids being a part of the picture, because Zac had none so I can’t speak directly to that level of added complexity when dating a divorcé. All I know is if he was ultimately the victim of a failed marriage and you are into him and things are going well, you shouldn’t count him out on the grounds of solely being a divorcé. Not until you know the full story.

I have felt strongly about this ever since meeting Zac, obviously, and was reminded of the sound logic behind it when visiting the dentist’s office last week. The same dental hygienist works on my teeth every time, and we are eerily similar women. Same age, same religion, same alma mater, same biting sense of humor and, unfortunately, same absolute sham of a love life.

However, when I sat down in her chair last week and asked her what was new and if she was still dating that one guy from April, she said

“No. Emma, I’m like… in a serious relationship.”

“WHAT!?” I exclaimed with the bib around my neck.

“Yeah. I broke up with that guy and then, just as I was like ‘fuck this, I’m done and gonna be alone alone forever', I matched with this guy on Bumble and we’ve been inseparable for three months.”

She proceeded to fill me in on all the details while cleaning my teeth (side note: your teeth and gums being fucked up during pregnancy is a huge symptom, and I’m very proud to report that she was in shock with how solid my mouth is. “You have one of the best pregnant mouths I’ve ever seen.” 💁🏻‍♀️). This man is 7 years older than her, Scottish (HOT), and divorced because his wife led him to believe she wanted children but ‘just wasn’t ready yet’ up until 10 years into their marriage when she finally admitted she didn’t want them at all. He desperately wants them, so he jumped ship.

My hygienist is the happiest I’ve ever seen her.

“Divorced men are where it’s at,” she said to me.

“IKNOR” I said enthusiastically during swishes and spits.

“There have been no games from day one. He told me everything right away. It’s all just been so easy? I’ve never questioned where we stood or felt like any of it was forced or hard.”

I was beaming. As someone who suffered the single life for a decade and often wondered what was so wrong with me that I couldn’t seem to keep anyone around or pick the right guys to love, I know exactly how she’s feeling and it’s such an indescribable state of mind when you get there. When you meet the right person for you, you realize that it should never be hard. You should never wonder if you’ll hear from them or how they feel about you. You don’t analyze every text or phone call to death. It’s just easy. Not boring, but easy. Solid. Secure. Reliable.

When it’s right, safe feels sexy.

But I digress. Again. While that’s how it should feel whether or not they’ve ever been married, we’re talking about dating divorcés here, so let’s stick to that.

Her and I spent the majority of my cleaning agreeing on how nice it is to be with a divorced man for all the reasons I’ve listed in this letter today: the commitment, the assuredness, the maturity. Yes, if it was messy and their ex is a psychopath, that’s not good. But like I stated up top, for the purpose of this letter, I’m speaking solely from my experience and I was incredibly lucky to find a divorcé who had as clean of a break as he could get with very little baggage to carry into our relationship. And I’m so happy I didn’t turn my nose up at him. I’m so happy I listened to my mom and gave a divorced guy a chance. Because look at me now, MA!

TLDR: Divorce doesn’t mean diseased. It doesn’t mean broken. It doesn’t mean failure. It could mean they were just waiting for you, but they didn’t know it and you didn’t know it. It could mean you both had to go through some shit to get to each other. So, if you meet someone and hear they’re the big D, get the full story before you decide how to proceed because you could end up super happy and super knocked up in a few years time.

Just sayin’.

And now, for the most incredible Apple Crisp I’ve ever had. Follow it exactly and serve it with cinnamon ice cream if you really want to see God (how-to on that here).

Also, for the month of October, I’m offering a year-long subscription at a discount. Instead of paying $50 a year, I’m going to mark it down to $40. If you upgrade, consider it your early Halloween treat! Click below to upgrade now.

xox,

EGM