Divorce
Should you date a divorced man?
By their late 40s, about 4 in 10 single men are divorced. Ruling them out shrinks your pool by up to half, and the good ones remarry fast.
A lot of women put "never married" on their list without thinking about it. After about 40, that one rule quietly removes a big part of the pool. Here's what the numbers say about divorced men, and what to check before you write them off.
After 40, divorced men are a big part of the pool
Share of single men (no wife and no live-in partner) who are divorced or separated rather than never married.
| Country | 25–34 | 35–44 | 45–55 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 4% | 21% | 43% |
| United States | 5% | 24% | 48% |
| Canada | 3% | 19% | 39% |
| New Zealand | 3% | 19% | 38% |
| United Kingdom | 3% | 20% | 39% |
In their late 20s and early 30s, almost every single man has never married. By the late 40s and early 50s it's about 4 in 10, and close to half in the US.
What ticking "Divorced" does on the meter
Take the meter's Realistic standards (straight, no criminal record, lean to average build, at least 5'9", earning at least 80,000 a year in local currency). Here's how much bigger the pool gets when you add divorced men to never-married men of the same age.
| Country | 25–34 | 35–44 | 45–55 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | +5% | +26% | +73% |
| United States | +6% | +31% | +90% |
| Canada | +4% | +24% | +62% |
| New Zealand | +4% | +22% | +59% |
| United Kingdom | +4% | +25% | +62% |
For a woman dating men in their 40s and 50s, accepting divorced men grows the pool by about 60% to 90%. For men in their 20s it hardly matters.
They don't stay single long
In 2013, 64% of eligible American men had remarried after a divorce or the death of a spouse, compared with 52% of women, according to Pew Research Center. And four in ten new marriages that year included at least one partner who had been married before. Divorced men are in demand and they move quickly, so the good ones don't wait around.
What to check
- How long ago. A man who separated last month is in a different place from one who divorced three years ago.
- How he talks about it. Some regret and some ownership is a good sign. "She was crazy" is not.
- Children and the ex. If he has kids, they and their mother are part of his life for good. Ask how custody and weekends work.
- Money. A settlement or child support can change what his income really means.
The upside: he has already shown he can commit, and he has usually learned a lot about what makes a relationship work.
"Divorced" here includes separated and widowed men who don't live with a new partner. The meter treats divorced and never-married men of the same age alike for height, body and income, because the official data doesn't split those by marital status.
Run your own list on the meter
Estimates come from the same model as the meter: official population, census, health-survey and tax data for each country, combined age by age. Filters are treated as independent within each age, so treat the results as estimates, not a head count. The full method and sources are under "How it's calculated" on the meter.