If a divorced man is interested in marrying again, it ensures one thing: been there, done that, willing to do it again.
I began researching this statement and found that it’s true. There is a 64% greater chance a divorced man will remarry. Except this time, they are specific about the type of bride they desire.
The first time around, it’s a chemistry experiment with flasks, beakers, and imbalanced litmus tests. Though I do not advocate or endorse divorce, there are a few cases which grace is extended and God can restore the years that the proverbial locust has eaten.*
Getting married for the first time is ideal and better and lovely and new. But it does come with it’s own set of issues. Marrying someone who has been to the circus before understands what it takes to survive in the freak show. I’ve listed some benefits in case some single women out there are wondering if dating a pre-owned man is the route to take.**
- He’s been to war [read: divorce] and realized it was not fun. He—here’s the benefit—probably won’t go there again. Win.
- The likelihood of him understanding children and/or wanting children is higher. And, if you aren’t planning on having children, then it’s taken care of by the woman before you. Win.
- He’s domesticated which means he knows how to do laundry and cook. Otherwise he would have starved half-naked wondering how to boil water.
- He’s seen the body of a woman after giving birth. Win.
- He understands mood swings, chocolate cravings, chick flicks, and the need for make up. Win. Win. Win.
There are of course factors that need to be weighed prior to dating anyone [do they love Jesus, do they have a job, do they brush their teeth]. But sometimes divorced men are viewed as damaged good, sloppy seconds, or losers. With divorce comes emotional baggage from surviving the circus, but if someone is willing to go through the work of healing [counseling, therapy, community], believes in the institution of marriage [again], and is willing to live in a house with you and all your crazy, I’d say go for it.
Any divorcees out there who want to drop some knowledge? Feel free!
This blog was brought to you by Matthew Olthoff Inc., a non-profit company committed to cleaning dishes, doing laundry, and living with emotional human beings who watches horrible reality television.
*If you know Matt’s story, you know why his divorce was given a biblical thumbs up. And hello?! He got ME on the second round. Win.
**This statement has not been evaluated by the Federal Department of Marriage. All opinions are personal.
Bianca (Matt), you guys are hilarious! Thank you for your refreshing take on the “circus”.
You know it’s a circus sometimes! 😉
I LOVE that verse in Joel, one of my favorites!
And, yes, getting you was a TOTAL WIN! 😉
Awww, thanks Steph!
“There are of course factors that need to be weighed prior to dating anyone [do they love Jesus, do they have a job, do they brush their teeth].” <–OMGahhhh, that made me spit out a craisin! LOL!!!
See, I CAN make people laugh! 😉 Matt says I’m the only one who laughs at myself 😉
oh wow…I love how you balance heaviness with humor. Your blog is a good example of the reality of life in its pains and joy. I love.
I wonder about this a lot. I would consider marrying a widower, but my parents might go crazy esp. if he has kids. I have always wondered if I could marry a divorced man and my parents will go gaga if I tried. A white man is already causing trouble btwn us 🙂 sad!
Question, which areas do God extend grace when it comes to divorce and remarriage?
Also, I love you! 🙂
AdeOla, great question! The bible says God hates divorce. However, according to biblical law, a spouse has the legal and biblical right to divorce is there is infidelity in the marriage. Check out Matthew 19:9 🙂
Does that mean it is wrong to remarry for any other kind aside from infidelity and if an unbelieving spouse decides to leave the marriage (I believe that is a valid biblical reason too)?
I ask because I see many divorced Christians remarry even when the reason for their divorce is not biblical.
I feel God can also forgive divorce. I dunno, just pondering out aloud lovingly 🙂
Yes, you are correct. Matthew 19 addresses that. But more than anything I want to clarify again that I don’t advocate divorce nor want to sugar-coat it. Divorce makes God sad. 🙁
I understand Bianca. These are just questions i have been struggling with for a while. I am not sure why as a single woman, I am thinking deeply about divorce. I should be out there falling in love with a man that I will grow old and gray with 🙂
Thanks for your patience.
Ya know, good points here, B. 🙂 Am sharing this with my single friends..some who are dying to be married/remarried but hesitate to admit it. Poor things. Yo, and if Matt has any brothers, send them my way..I may have some hook-ups. 🙂 Jk, on the latter..match-making isn’t my calling.
Marcie, he doesn’t have any single brothers 🙁 But thanks for thinking of us! 😉
So true! My husband and I were divorce and found each other. What made me fall in love with him was that he loved Jesus and was busy in the LORD business. He did not want to be alone with me because he knew what could happening (flesh). I knew at that moment if he was going to be faithful to God he would be faithful to me. I win!
Congrats on being in the Second Wives Club! And yes, we win. 😉
So true! I’m about to enter the 2nd Wives Club in March (yay!). I never thought I’d marry a guy who’d been married before, let alone has a kid, but God is laying out an incredible adventure for us! Plus, he’s Mexican, so I’m gonna eat goood for the rest of my life 🙂
Hi Jen! Congrats! That is so awesome 🙂 Now be warned: inheriting a child is tough. Make great choices now to 1. be flexible, 2. be forgiving, 3. be patient. As new as you are to parenting, your step kid is new to you. Have fun!
This is a very touchy topic for me (so forgive my lack of articulation) and I maybe alone in my thinking but one of my checklist requirements is “MUST NOT have been previously married” and People, this is like number 2 on my list. And all my friends and family know it. This has been a topic of conversation many, many times.
I guess I have this romanticized view (not of marriage) but of meeting the “One”. I’ve waited a long time (still waiting) and I hope my future husband is waiting on me too and not off at the circus with the wrong girl. I would kind of like to be there with him the first time he witness the amazing trapeze artists i.e. my cooking and laundry skills. I’d also like to see his face the first time he encounters the scary, bearded lady, which would be the equivalent of me the first thing in the morning but I digress.
I like to imagine that when I do meet my future Husband I’ll know it. It will be unquestionable, without doubt and like a light from Heaven. I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that when some of the earlier posters who have remarried, met their second spouse it clicked that “This is thee One! This was always suppose to be thee One!” Am I wrong? Did you all have that feeling the first time around and if not, why did you marry that first person? Why didn’t you wait for that certainty? Do these feelings of certainty even exist or am really just romanticizing “the meeting of the One?” (I know this is getting convoluted and I apologize). I’m not judging anyone who has been divorced and remarried or has married a Divorcee. I guess it’s just a very, very hard subject for me to deal with.
If I am coming off all soap boxy, I apologize. It’s just how I feel and the irony is I have a divorced Sister and I would never want any man to hold that against her or write her off because of it… Go figure?
P.S. Love you Bee
Oh Max! I love this comment!!! Seriously, I do. Your parallels would make any Whittier College professor proud 😉
Ok, I totally understand your point of view. Truth. I felt the same way. In fact, the two things I was positive I did NOT want was 1. a divorcee, 2. someone with kids. However, Matt was someone who stood out above everyone else. I know some might have thought or considered it settling, but it wasn’t. At all.
If he had a jacked up grill, didn’t love Jesus, and zero fashion sense, yet still hooked up with him, that would be settling. I thought my non-negotiables were divorce and kids… what I realized that his love for God and strength in our savior was worth taking a risk.
About the “firsts,” I’m not going to lie. Sometimes it stings. However, I make up new firsts all the time. 😉 First time you kissed the woman you were meant to marry. The first time you married right. The first time you had someone who actually loved God. See? Tons of firsts! Kidding. Half kidding.
I’m not trying to change your mind. We’ve had conversations about this before. If that’s your conviction, awesome! But I’d like to say that if you met a TOTALLY AWESOMELY AMAZING guy who loved Jesus, but happened to be divorce (and healed), I think you’d might reconsider. Just sayin’.
Bianca! umm thank you for being vulnerable! This seriously speaks to me and my relationship with my boyfriend…we’re not even married or divorced!!…but he has had sex before…God has healed and still is restoring! 🙂 this topic not only is for divorcees but for that someone (me) who feels like “i dont have anymore firsts but “she” took them”..you’re right though! We can make up new one, not dwell, and move on! oh and realize we wonnnnn!!!
Now I’m curious about Matt’s story. I guess I assumed he was a widow(er?). I am a 20-something woman who is divorced, and it was also Biblical. But sometimes I feel like I have to strictly defend that, and make sure people know, lest I be judged… so I guess I’m interested in other stories about people in a position of being divorced in a Biblical manner. Does he feel the same?
I never pictured any of my children marrying someone who was previously divorced, but when my daughter fell in love with the man that she married last summer … his previous divorce just wasn’t that big of an issue.
It was a “biblical” divorce. He has learned and grown through it. He loves Jesus. He loves my daughter. I pray that they live and long and happy life together.
Mama D.
Bianca=WINNING!
y’all rock! There was a point in time after my 1st marriage ended that I REFUSED to date anyone who hadn’t been married before because I didn’t think they would understand this crazy thing called marriage. Then I met my current husband – and God decided to give me a man who was 43 and had never been married. Truthfully, there are some days I have to remind myself “Ok, he has never been married before, he just doesn’t yet get how this works. Deep breath” 🙂 Good thing he is a good egg!
Just another take on this post …
As someone who is married and has had a child, I sort of cringed at the statements about comparing one woman’s body to another’s who has had a child. That made me feel terrible. I’d hate to think that if I passed away and my husband remarried, his wife would be ‘hotter’ in his eyes because she didn’t bear his children. Doesn’t this just reinforce the world’s culture that child-bearing is equivalent to a loss of sexuality, to dooming ourselves to a frumpy life? That being good looking is the ultimate goal, rather than bearing and raising a Godly family that will make the world a better place? Doesn’t it imply that husbands compare bodies, and the body of a woman who hasn’t been pregnant, ‘wins’?
I know you don’t believe this, but I’m just pointing out that your comments (while tongue in cheek) do little to counteract those lies. Women who have children struggle greatly with feeling that they have sacrificed their body forever.
Lacey, I’m am so sorry. I mean that deeply. In no way did I think that comment through… at all. If you said it, there are many more who probably felt the same way but didn’t say anything. Thank you for calling me out. I will remove that from the post TODAY.
Thanks for the gentle rebuke.
You’re such a sweetheart for taking it so well. I didn’t mean to be at all confrontational, but just to share my heart.
I considered it more after replying, and I guess the thing that it comes down to is comparison. I realise that must be one of the.hardest.battles. that the second wife faces, as it’s one of the biggest battles all women face (being a twin would add even more fuel to the fire).
But I firmly believe that when we play the comparison game, we always lose, even when we win. Because we are telling ourselves that it’s a competition. And although we may win on some fronts, there will always be fronts where we lose. I prefer to kick the idea of competition out the door from the get-go, and to constantly remind myself that no one can measure up to me, because no one IS me. And vice versa. Okay, now I really am rambling! Thanks again Bianca: I appreciate your writing and your heart.
Gotta confess, I cringed at that one, too.
My body … after 11 pregnancies … just ain’t what it used to be.
But … I know your heart, and wasn’t offended.
Hugs!!!
🙂 🙂 🙂
Love you, Mama D. And yes, I’m sorry. Totally inappropriate. xoxo
i find it amazing that men are not commenting. After marriage #1 i was batter and bruised. I took emotional stones as well as verbal ones. It was tough for a man to go through. I found Christ and redemption through him and the person that showed me what unconditional love meant. If you say “Must have not Kids” and “Must never have been married” you are walking in the door with conditions thus you cant offer the unconditional love that you are looking to receive.
divorce does not make god sad, it makes him angry, in fact fue bible goes as far as saying the one WHO initiates a divorce covers thier garment with violence. The bible goes even further to say that the prayers of those whose garments have been covered in violence will not be heard by God. divorce specifically is a Human attempt to cut the spirit of god and what he has joined together a visual reference to describe spiritually what divorce really is would be similar to watching a live abortion taking place. it is a form of spiritual murder.