In Praise of Having Sex With Divorced Guys

G. is divorced, in her late 30s, and lives in New York City. She’s got two kids and has been dating again for about three years. This is her anonymous story.

“It’s safe to say that anyone who gets divorced probably wasn’t getting laid a ton leading up to the divorce. It can be lonely, and people want human connection, and they’re also really horny. There’s no judging of bodies now, in the experiences I’ve had. These guys are used to being with real women with real imperfections. And that makes me more comfortable, and the sex is better, because no one thinks anything is weird. That used to stop sex from being sexy. When you’re younger, you’re self-conscious or they’re self-conscious or you are judging each other. These guys are all broken in, like a nice leather couch. They know how to do dirty talk, and they know where your spots are. 

I’ve been dating a doctor and, on date one, he went right for butt stuff. I don’t know if it’s our age, or just men, but things happen that didn’t happen when I was younger. Or maybe we’ve changed culturally. 

When you’re in a marriage, you sort of have these sex routines. You both know how to get each other off. With new people, there is no routine! Somebody’s just going to try something and it may or may not work. When you’ve been in a relationship for so long, just the act of being naked with another person is so shocking. This was a part of my brain that was dormant. It was off. And it’s weird to be in this position.

It was completely mortifying how little I understood about the [dating] process when I was newly single. I still call it online dating which is embarrassing. It’s not a phrase that other people use.

There’s still the question of, “Who’s his ex-wife?” And, is he dating other people on Hinge, and who are those people? Now the pool is so open. It used to be that you dated somebody in your friend group and you could kind of figure out if they were dating anybody else. Now there’s so much anonymity to dating that I don’t know what he’s doing. The guy I’m seeing now, we have no friends in common, we work in completely different industries, there’s no way I know what he’s doing when he’s not with me. But along the line of being more comfortable with yourself, there’s no hiding who I am and what I can offer and what I can’t. Once we’ve gone out a few times, it’s probably pretty obvious. They’re either going to be into it or not, and someone who’s hotter than me is not necessarily better than me. ‘Cause I’m old enough to know that that’s not how it works.

The guy I’m seeing now and I both have 50-50 custody of our kids, so we go off and are parents, and when our schedules align and we’re alone, we are just ourselves together. And that can become kind of a burden, because these sides can become really distinct — but I’m not going to introduce him to my kids or anything. There’s a weird duality to it. It definitely allows for a sexier relationship. Then the question is, are you going to stay single forever? Because I want to get married again, right? So it’s not a permanent solution, just one small benefit of the situation I’m in now. 

I don’t have the kind of life anymore where I can be hung over or tired because I was up all night. I always worry about whether I’m going to get enough sleep because I have shit to do the next day that involves taking care of children or working, and if I stay up having sex all night I’m going to be destroyed tomorrow. We can’t hang out two nights in a row because I’m physically unable to not get that much sleep! I need to recover from our date night. And I don’t even mean because we drank too much. Just the energy of it and the reduction in sleep hours. 

Dating is expensive. Ahead of a very nice tasting-menu date, I got like six services. I got waxed, I got a manicure-pedicure, I got my brows done, I got a spray tan. I got ready for that meal in a way that cost me some money. And that’s a choice. If you choose to participate in these beauty rituals, the older you get the more money you have to spend on it all and the more services you get.

I have my Hinge set to 40-50, so I’m dating guys who are usually 44 or 45. They have insecurities. They’re constantly alluding to the paranoia of losing their hair. They all talk about it. There’s also this looming pressure a guy puts on himself about how many times he can get hard and cum in a single night. And if that happens two or three times, there’s always a moment of him congratulating himself for being his age and pulling that off [laughs]. Morning sex is the sweet spot for older guys. And everybody has back problems. Everyone. 

I’m not on birth control because I don’t love taking hormones. I had an IUD, and then I took it out. I don’t know if every woman feels like this, but the loss of my fertility makes me feel a little bit bad. Even if I don’t want more kids, there’s still that value in being able to conceive. Maybe I still enjoy the fear of pregnancy because it makes me feel younger. But I’m clinging to it a little bit, because it’s not really a thing anymore. Or it soon might not be.

There are a lot of complicated emotions around this. If I meet the love of my life and get married, it’s a shame that I won’t be able to have children with that person. No matter how you come at it or what your position is, it’s a tricky topic.

On Hinge, there are all these Hinge types in the age bracket. There’s that one persona in the 40-50 age range: the guy who is just now ready to have kids and get married. Most are divorced, but there’s definitely the guy who’s like, ‘Okay, now’s my time.’ And in their profile, it will be like, ‘Looking for my Julia Roberts to settle down with and mess up our kids together’ or whatever their dumb phrase is. And you’re like, NO. I don’t even know how I made it into your algorithm; why don’t you have your settings capped at 35? That’s a great guy for another person. But for me: red flag! No way. I don’t even want somebody who’s idealistic about marriage, let alone the kid thing. I don’t want somebody who’s like, ‘I’m ready to soar to the stars with you!’ Like no.

You sort of chip away at it [the topic of getting married again]. There’s the elevator pitch about how you’re not that fucked up. And then you unpack the difficulties as you get to know each other. It’s nice that everyone has a healthy respect for marriage, but also a fear for the challenges of marriage and a desire to do it a different way the next time. And more self awareness. At least, that was my experience. 

Your thirties are hard and a lot of shit happens. You have kids, lose jobs, people die or get sick, life is more expensive. It’s really challenging for a relationship. My ex and I were very much on the same level when we met. We split our finances, we both had the same type of job. When I started having babies, and we made different amounts of money, and our career trajectories became different — we were not prepared for that negotiation. Dating when you’re older, you know what each others’ career is and how many kids you have… there’s way more awareness about how you may fit together. I’m also just trumping up this thing that I’m newly experiencing, so who knows? Maybe the same thing happens over again. I could be dead wrong.

I haven’t dated women, but I did set my Hinge to include men and women, which would be a new experience. There’s a type of energy that I’m seeking that was not in my marriage. You do get a chance to explore new personality types or erotic energy types. Maybe when you were younger, you didn’t know how to find those people because you were afraid or because it was non-confirming in some way.

Having sex with the same person for 10 years or whatever is hard. It’s just hard. And women are not as allowed to admit that. There was an article about how it was harder for women to be in long-term, monogamous relationships because our erotic center is narrative, not mechanical, and when the narrative becomes really routine and stale it can kind of kill the charge.”