Do I Need to Heal Before Dating Again?

Do I need to heal before dating again? When is the right time to start dating again after a relationship? And, is the answer different if one is deciding whether they are ready to date or whether they are ready to get into a relationship again?  These are not simple questions to answer, nor are they the same for each one of us.

For me, there are five essential questions to answer before dating again.

1. Have I gained enough awareness and understanding about the internal and external obstacles/challenges I brought to my previous relationship and taken steps to shift those patterns, even if I have not completely changed them yet?
2. Does my frustration, anger, resentment, bitterness, pain, sadness, or grief towards my previous partner/the breakup still feel alive and active on a daily basis in my thoughts, emotions, and body?
3. Has there been enough time and space to genuinely connect and discover a new person without comparing everything they say and do to my previous partner?
4. Am I secretly wishing that whether it be in six months, two years, or ten years, my previous partner will do/say ___________, so we can get back together again, and I will be happy?
5. Lastly, what is my primary motivation for wanting to begin dating again? What am I actually looking for, as opposed to what I think or other people tell me “is good for me”?

As stated several times in the article below, we never “completely” heal from relationships or any other past wounds and/or trauma.  However, we do heal enough to embrace new opportunities for love, companionship, and deep intimate connection.  Our fear of getting hurt again can create, conscious and unconscious, barriers to forming loving and trusting relationships again.  This is one of the reasons that I have listed this first:

Have I gained enough awareness and understanding about the internal and external obstacles/challenges I brought to my previous relationship(s) and taken steps to shift those patterns, even if I have not completely changed them yet?

If you are considering dating, I invite you to explore these two pieces red flags in relationships and green flags in relationships.

Dating can be fun, scary, exciting, and challenging.  What is the question that is most essential for me to address before dating again?

Trauma Is Not Your Fault, But Healing Is Your Responsibility

Do I Need to Heal Before Dating Again?

by Donald L. Cole

CARL’S STORY

They were barely a year into their marriage when Carl and Jessica (not their real names) contemplated getting a divorce. Carl wondered where he went wrong. He looked back over the last several years, remembering the devastating demise of his first marriage and how he met Jessica soon after. She was divorced too, and they found comfort (and distraction) in each other. Now, he wonders if he moved on too soon and if he ever properly healed from his last relationship before diving into the next.

He asks the critical question: “Do you have to heal completely before you can start a new relationship?”

GRIEF AND HEALING

First, let’s go deeper into the question. What do we mean by healing? Does anyone ever “completely” heal? How can you know when you are ready to start again?

Grief is a constellation of emotions you experience when you lose someone with whom you had emotional attachments. The feelings you have when grieving are normal, but most of the time, they are unpleasant. People tend to want them to go away. What you need to realize though is that these feelings have a purpose. Sadness helps you to step away from others and to look inward. It gives you time to assess yourself and come to terms with your own failures and mistakes. It gives you time to think about the future you want and to slowly take steps forward.

There are other feelings when you grieve. Anger is a powerful emotion that helps you make changes, but it often becomes a source of bonding that can cause problems. Grieving people can join with one another in a relationship based on their anger at their ex-partners and quickly bond over that commonality. These relationships can grow fast and feel very powerful, but they need much more than shared anger as a basis.