4 Red Flags That Make You Undateable After Divorce
#4: You’re still obsessed with your ex (and it’s so obvious)
I thought I was ready to date again.
Red wine. Naked bodies. It should have been fun.
But on the drive home, my stomach felt like a pile of bricks.
A steamy night with a marine biologist from Germany? You’d think I’d be car-singing Coldplay at the top of my lungs. But all I could think about was my ex.
The next day, I told her I had unprocessed feelings from my last relationship.
She cut straight through my bullshit.
“You probably shouldn’t start something if you’re still hung up on your ex…”
She was right — I wasn’t ready.
I see this all the time with divorced dads. You’re swiping through profiles, but you’ve barely begun processing how much roomier the bed feels. You’re desperate to feel wanted again but emotionally unavailable. And it’s just one of the red flags that make you undateable after divorce.
Here’s 4 to avoid if you want a second chance at love.
#1: You hide behind your kids
Saying your kids come first is an excuse.
You’re trying to avoid intimacy by playing the “my kids are my world” card. Raising kids takes a lot of energy. You work full-time. You try to have hobbies and maintain friendships. Your time is at a premium.
But if you’re truly ready for dating, you’ll make time.
If you genuinely can’t—stop swiping.
Then there’s the profile pictures with your kids in them.
Big red flag. No woman wants to date your kids. She wants to date you. She doesn’t want to audition for stepmotherhood.
No, you shouldn’t hide the fact that you have kids (I’ve made that mistake). But there are more subtle ways to signal your dadhood than advertising them on Tinder. Mention it in your bio. You can reference the reality of your life without make it a test she has to pass.
Dating as a dad is about balancing priorities—not using your kids as a shield.
Action step: Audit your availability to date. If you truly don’t have the time to see someone at least once per week, step away from the apps until you’re ready. If you are ready, ditch the dad resume and remove the kiddie pics from your dating profiles.
#2: You treat dating like a job interview
You’re not looking for love.
You’re looking for a perfect résumé in a dress.
After I broke up with my ex, I wrote a list of all the things I wanted from my next relationship. It read like a fucking resume.
I thought I was being intentional. I wanted to attract the “right” match for me. But I’d become so proscriptive that all I was really doing was pricing myself out.
In today’s world we want our partners to be a Swiss Army Spouse.
Co-parent
Therapist
Best friend
Passionate lover
Business partner
Trusted confidante
5’7 gym bunny who loves blood sports…
No fucking pressure.
You might as well buy a fully customizable Wendy doll, because no human being could possible meet all these requirements.
How many of those boxes do you check yourself? You want a Ferrari, but are you showing up as one? Or…
Action step: Make a list of everything you want in a partner. Now flip it—instead of looking for those traits in someone else, work on developing them in yourself.
I help dads transform their confidence after divorce—so they can show up stronger, better, and more unstoppable for their kids in just 12 weeks. Ready to stop feeling stuck and step into your next-level self? Reach out HERE.
Let’s make this your 3.0 comeback story.
#3: You’re being low-key sexist
You don’t think you hate women.
But after surviving divorce, you’re carrying wounds—resentment that she moved on faster, bitterness over the custody arrangement, frustration over child support.
Instead of processing this, you turn it into broad generalizations:
Women twist the system to take men’s hard-earned money.
Women always get the kids because the system hates men.
Women get everything. Men get screwed.
These beliefs don’t make you some evil misogynist.
They just make you hurt. That pain festers. It warps your perception, fuels toxic narratives about women. Imagine carrying that into dating…I wrote more about that here.
Here’s one advantage women do have over men.
Women bounce back faster after divorce.
Not because the system is rigged. Because they’re better at building and maintaining support networks. Because they process their grief instead of drowning in it.
You?
You isolate.
You suppress.
You tell yourself to just “get on with it”.
You drag this baggage into every new connection.
And you wonder why you’re getting the same results.
Action step: Seek out strong, emotionally intelligent male mentors who model what healthy masculinity looks like. Build a real support system—men who will call you out, not just agree with your bitterness. Here’s how I did it.
#4: You’re still obsessed with your ex (we can tell)
If you still check their Instagram, you’re not ready.
You tell yourself you’re fine. You’ve moved on. Dating will be good for you.
Then you see a post of her living her best life, and suddenly, you’re back in 2022—heart racing. Your fingers drift to that hidden photo album, the one full of intimate pictures you swore you’d delete. Your body starts screaming for something it can’t have. Fingers twitching impotently over your phone.
If that hit home, you’re not ready.
You’ve got unfinished emotional business.
I know what this looks like because I’ve lived it.
After divorce, I tried to drown out my loneliness with endless Tinder swiping. But every date felt like a weak imitation of what I had. My heart was stuck in the past.
I wasn’t dating to be with someone—I was dating to not be alone.
You say you’re ready. Prove it.
Delete the old texts
Stop creeping on their socials
Quit DMing them when you’re lonely
Don’t try sleep with them ‘one last time’
Throw away the half-empty shampoo bottle they left
If you can’t do that, you’re not dating—you’re running.
Action step: Ask yourself—are you dating to heal or to avoid healing?
Journal on what being ready actually means. What would it take for you to truly feel open to commitment again?
Date like the man you want to be
Dating as a single dad feels like a minefield.
Don’t make it harder by jumping in before you’re ready. Relationships are not a band aid for feeling angry, horny, or just desperately hollow. First you have to become someone you respect. A man who understands himself.
Self-awareness is the difference between a second chance at love and a series of trainwrecks.
Become the type of man who attracts the relationship you want.
90 days from now, you could be more confident, taking bigger risks, and fully enjoying fatherhood—with a clear head, free from constant negativity. I’ll show you how.
If you want my no-BS roadmap for transforming confidence after divorce, I’ve created a FREE email course to get started.
Start here →Let's F**king Go!
For more dadsplaining, check out my recent edition. I shared how you can stay single forever by blaming women for everything :)
