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Online Dating During Divorce

On Behalf of | Oct 9, 2014 | Divorce

Should you “reach out and click someone” while your divorce is pending? Tonight’s post by our Savannah Divorce Attorney, David Purvis, seeks to answer that very question.

Here’s the simple part: don’t do it. Just Dont! I realize the temptation, I do. You’re at the tail end of a marriage that just did not work for whatever reason. You haven’t felt love or felt loved in a really long time. You’re anxious about how to meet people, how to date people, how to find people, what your next relationship is like. Or maybe you’re really excited about those next steps.

It wasn’t so long ago when online dating sites started popping up. E-Harmony and Match.com and similar websites seek to find the right match for everyone. Now days there are gobs of online sites, some incredibly specific: bikers, clowns, farmers, sea captains, equestrians, cat lovers, and many more very specific interests and hobbies now have their own dating sites. That doesn’t even begin to address sites like Ashley-Madison.com. Don’t get me started!

I know that many of these sites allow you to select “separated” or “complicated” as your relationship status. However, simply because some website allows you to select it does not mean it’s a good idea to be on that site in the first place or that your involvement on that site is going to be “ok” before your divorce is final.

Quite frankly, while you are separated and until you are legally divorced, you should completely refrain from this activity (or real dating, while we’re at it). Your online presence in any capacity can and will be found, downloaded, printed out, and used against you in your divorce case. This will make resolving issues inherently more time consuming to get your divorce resolved, which only further delays you re-entering the cyber and/or in person dating worlds without constantly looking over your shoulder.

Get your divorce final before re-entering the dating world. It’s the proverbial cart before the horse if you don’t, and I can guarantee that waiting until you are all done will produce a much more enjoyable and productive ride without the threat of making your divorce unnecessarily more time consuming, expensive and heartwrenching.

David Purvis

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