I told my friend we should wait until his divorce is over, now he’s moving in with someone

A woman finds herself questioning a difficult decision she made regarding a long-time friend who is in the middle of a divorce. After being asked on a date by her recently separated friend, she chose to wait until his divorce was finalized before pursuing anything romantic, concerned about being a rebound.

However, her friend has now moved on quickly with someone else, and they’re already talking about marriage. Did she miss her chance at something meaningful? And what should she do?

‘I told my friend we should wait until his divorce is over, now he’s moving in with someone’

A few months ago, my friend (38 M) told me (37 F) that he and his wife were getting divorced. About 5 months into his separation, he asked me on a date. We’ve known each other for almost 10 years and I always found him attractive and felt like we had good chemistry. But he was in a relationship so it obviously never went anywhere other than friendship.

When he asked me out, I honestly didn’t not want to date a married man, so I told him that we should stick to being friends until he’s officially divorced. Plus, I didn’t want to risk him going back to his wife or being a rebound. I read a lot about dating separated or recently divorced men and most was not good. He kind of distanced himself for a bit after that.

Fast forward and he’s now in – what seems to be – a really serious relationship. Apparently, there was another woman out there that had no issue dating a married man. She started seeing him before his divorce. Now, they’re moving in together and talking marriage less than 6 months after his divorce. I feel kind of bad about myself because I guess he really was ready to move on from his marriage. Did I make the right decision to turn him down?

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

CaffeinenChocolate – You made the decision that you felt was right for you. You said that you don’t feel comfortable in dating a man going through an active separation or divorce, and that is absolutely your right. You stayed true to what you believe, and that’s what’s most important. He was able to find someone who was, and who he happened to like. You will absolutely find someone that you like, and who checks your immediate boxes as well.

You can’t beat yourself up over a decision that you made, which was made out of respect for yourself, solely because the outcome wasn’t what you expected. You didn’t allow yourself to get pressured into crossing your boundaries, and there’s nothing more important than that. It’s definitely an ego-hit when someone chooses to move on; but you chose to do what you wholeheartedly believed in, so there’s no reason to beat yourself up over it.

He found someone – but you absolutely will too. Sometimes things don’t always play out in our favorr, and that’s totally okay.

Solanthas – This is such a beautiful response. I will only add, regrettably, that there is no guarantee his new relationship isn’t a rebound – things may turn out in such a way that OP ends up being grateful she didn’t involve herself in her friend’s unhealed emotional pain from his divorce.

On the other hand, as some have mentioned, he may have moved on emotionally a long time before actually filing for divorce. When my ex moved out and the divorce was finalized, I was relieved and theoretically ready to move on. 7yrs later and I am still learning how to be ok with being alone and getting my heart broken at false starts at new beginnings.

inko75 – Eh, a lot of married folk go through a year or two where the marriage is over but they haven’t mustered up the guts to end things, so when it does end, it feels more like it’s been a couple years not months.

Also, my divorce took 8 months to finalize and we were working together fully amicably but the stupid county kept nitpicking random crap back at our joint attorney, but the initial filing for general legal purposes is when the marriage is “over”.

It does sound like this dude is a bit impulsive and sounds like you are the opposite 😂 that can work! But it could also be messy and I think that’s the more likely thing here. But, it’s sort of eh to outright judge someone as “still married” when it’s often the court system just doing its thing. A better gauge would be to talk to that person and see where they’re at overall.

audra_williams – I think five months after a separation is a reasonable time to start dating. I also don’t think I’d expect someone to wait for me until I was formally divorced. That process (in Canada anyway) takes at least a year. Depending on what the end of someone’s marriage was like (sometimes things feel like they’ve been over for a long time), a year might be longer than they want to wait to find out if a crush could be more than that.

As for if he’s moving on too soon, I really don’t think there are hard and fast answers about that sort of thing. Maybe this new person is just a great fit and your friend thinks it’s worth the risk of finding out!

ponchoacademy – Gotta say, I’m disheartened by how many people are hoping/expecting his relationship will fail and he’s the sort who will just come back to her as a second option, and other such things.

Ofc, I don’t know much, or as much as they do about him. All I know is she described him as someone she considered a friend.. Of over 10yrs so a long lasting friendship, someone she found attractive, and her only thing was she didn’t want to date him going through a divorce, it had to be finalized first.

I’m not sure if everyone is trying to burn her like she’s not capable of choosing good friends, if there’s something wrong with her for finding him attractive. Cause I didn’t see anything from her about him being this terrible person who deserves his relationships to fail or she’s someone who comes off as second choice.

Pretty cruel when all she’s doing is trying to sort through her feelings over turning him moving on after she turned him down. She chose not to date him, which is fair. He felt he was ready to date and met someone, which is also fair. That’s kind of it.

What do you think about OP’s story?