The romantic landscape is difficult to navigate no matter who you are. But when you’re dating as a single dad, you face a different set of challenges.

As a dating coach, I’ve worked with men throughout the world who find themselves in different dating predicaments. Many of these are single dads. The percentage of single-parent households has risen significantly over the years, with the number of single fathers making up close to 20%. If you’re dating as a single dad, know that you’re not alone. Regardless of your circumstances, being a single parent is no reason to hold yourself back from the dating world.

If you’re ready to get back out there but don’t know where to start heed these 11 tips to help jumpstart you’re dating life.

Make Sure You’re Ready And Fully Healed

At first, a divorce can feel like an apocalyptic experience. Like the world, as you know, it is crumbling, and in a very real sense, it is. The life you once lived is no more. The person you spent your time with, the routines you had, and even your identity are about to change.

Some men need a while to pick up the pieces and sort themselves out after a divorce. Others feel liberated and are ready to dive head-first into the dating pool.

Vital to your romantic success is your state of being.

If you’re not fully healed from divorce and ready to date, seeing women could be a waste of time and even jeopardize your healing.

You may be looking for a magic number of how long it’ll take to heal and feel like yourself again. Psychologists might tell you a year or two, but it varies from person to person.

How you felt about the woman you divorced and the steps you take to recover, dictate how long it will take you to heal.

Here are five steps you can use to expedite the healing process:

• Spend two weeks doing whatever you feel like doing
• Workout on a daily basis (even if just for 10 minutes)
• Make time to see family and friends (strengthen your social/support circle)
• MegaDate when ready
• Talk to a professional

Also, remember that being legally separated is not synonymous with divorce. If you are legally separated, that means that you’re still married. And dating before all the correct paperwork has been signed and filed can open up a can of worms that you don’t want any part of.

You also want to make sure things are smooth (or as smooth as they can be) when it comes to custody agreements and the like. Remember that the woman you are dating won’t just be taking on the role of girlfriend and potential stepparent — she will also be privy to the relationship you maintain with your ex.

Download Five Dating Apps

If you’re been away from the single dating scene for a while you might be surprised to hear that the most popular way to meet women nowadays is through a dating app.

This is the case regardless of your age. 

39% of all new relationships start online.

This is because dating apps are convenient, easy to use, and function as a virtual speed dating event that is open 24/7.

The question you might have is, which dating apps should I download?

Here are the three must-use apps:

• Tinder
• Bumble
• Hinge

These apps (in particular Tinder and Bumble) have the lion’s share of active users. While these apps are designed with younger users in mind, their sheer volume of users means that you have plenty of women within your age range who are on the app and willing to date.

As for the other two apps that’s up to you.

If you don’t want to waste your time filtering out women who are not established professional maybe The League is best for you.

If you work in the entertainment industry and want to date a fellow creative, apply to use Raya, your favorite celebrity’s preferred dating app.

Then there are apps/websites like eHarmony, Match, and Silver Singles. These are the big three when it comes to online dating platforms designed for users who only want to date women on the older side. Each app appeals to users of various age ranges. Silver Singles for example only accepts singles 50 or older.

Meet Women In Person

Don’t only rely on dating apps to meet women.

It’s easy to overly on apps and have them quickly turn into a romantic crutch.

Use a two-pronged approach when meeting women. This shouldn’t be as hard for you, considering you have probably used this approach to meet women your entire life.

You may not realize it but you have a ton of opportunities to meet new women.

Here are a just a few places where you can meet women:

• Speed dating events
• Meetups/FB groups
• The gym
• Through friends
• Via religious events
• Volunteering
• Dinner parties

Take a moment to think about your ideal partner. Then ask yourself where she spends her time. Then frequent those places with the goal of chatting up your ideal woman.

MegaMessaging

Let’s go back to dating apps for a moment.

After you’ve selected, downloaded, and filed in your profiles, it’s time to swipe and message women.

Women greatly outnumber men on dating apps (even for older users). This means that just because you two matched (a sign of mutual interest) this is far from a date.

To convince her to spend time with you, a stranger, you’ll have to quickly build a rapport and show her your value.

The best way to start that process is by sending an amazing opening message to win her attention.

Do this by reading her profile, learning all you can from it, and asking her a question about something you learned about her. From there you want to revolve the conversation around topics you two are both interested in before seguing into a TDL.

Talk to Your Kids About It

It goes without saying that your kids come first. When you’re ready to date again, sit down with your children and let them know that you are going to be trying to meet someone.

Reassure them that their mother is not being replaced and that nothing in your relationship with them or love for them will change if you meet someone. Allow them to ask questions, listen to them and practice kindness, empathy, and compassion.

Of course how you interact with your kids depends on how old they are. Naturally the divorce will be difficult on small children. However, the impact changes depending on how old they are. The older your children, the more they will want you get back out there and start dating again.

Wait to Introduce a Woman to Your Children

The last thing you want to expose your children to is a revolving door situation.

Take things slow when it comes to dating as a single dad. Only introduce women to your children after things become serious. Make sure you sit down with your children and prepare them before introducing them to your new girlfriend.

Even if you’re serious with a woman, don’t feel like you need to rush introducing her to your kids. There is no specific timetable when it comes to this. Make sure that you and the woman have built a great foundation in your relationship and that this relationship has the potential to last a long time, even a lifetime.

Along with avoiding a revolving door, keep in mind that attachments can form between your children and the woman you introduce them to. For that reason, you want to only introduce people you don’t foresee a breakup happening with.

That’s not to say that even the strongest relationships aren’t susceptible to dissolution, but you want to do your best when it comes to certainty.

A good rule of thumb is to introduce your kids to a woman (if they’re on the younger side) only when you two are exclusive or about to be.

Be Upfront

No matter how you meet a woman, you want to be upfront about your status as a single parent as quickly as possible.

Some men are hesitant to reveal that they have children early in a relationship. They fear that revealing this fact will scare women away. This is because they are worried that having children makes them seem like they are “damaged goods” or “have baggage.”

But remember this — any woman that is going to view being a single parent that way isn’t a woman you want to date anyhow.

Some women don’t want children or even to be a stepparent, which means they wouldn’t be a suitable partner for you even if the two of you have a strong connection. Thus, it’s important to let ladies know right away that you’re a father so you can weed out anyone who wouldn’t be right for you before getting too far in the dating process.

If you get set up with someone or meet somebody out and about, let them know that you are a single parent before or during the first date. Don’t delay it.

When it comes to online dating profiles, be sure to pick a “Has kids” option if it is available. Either way, tactfully disclose that you have kids on your dating profile.

Use This Dating Blueprint for the First Three Dates

When you’re dating as a single dad, your time is limited. You may have to drop everything if your child has an emergency. Other responsibilities like school events and general quality time mean that you can’t go out all night with women or have tons of sleepovers. And you definitely don’t want to bring women to sleep over at your place when your kids are there.

But you can still sweep a woman off her feet without sacrificing time that should be spent with your kids when you follow my dating blueprint. You also won’t have to worry about spending loads of cash on women when you use the following guidelines. Using this blueprint, you can make the most of your time with quality women while also keeping your time in check:

For first dates, choose something that is less than an hour and costs $20. The first date is intended to build trust and rapport. You can even easily fit a compelling first date into your lunch break. For example, if you live in San Francisco like me, I’d recommend going to Ferry Building Marketplace for a coffee.

Second dates should be something active and free. Hiking, biking, a picnic on the beach and a visit to a cool museum all make great second dates. The purpose of this date is to escalate sexual tension.

If you make it to a third date, it’s a good sign that you two could be compatible in the long-term. Make sure to review my top third dates questions before going on the date.

The purpose of the third date is to assess whether you and the person you’re with are a good fit as far as morals and values go. At this point, you can find a night that is appropriate to take her out for a romantic dinner. Make sure to plan the date on a night when you don’t have your kids, as the third date is often when physical intimacy occurs.

TDL

The best (and only way) to ask a woman out is with a TDL (time, date, location).

• Time: The time of day that a date will take place
• Date: The day of the week that the date will take place
• Location: The exact location where your date will take place

Older women don’t have time for nebulous date requests. Hey want to go out sometime just won’t cut it.

Give her something concrete that she can schedule into her calendar.

In practice, this looks like:

Hey Sam. I’d love to take you out this Thursday for bowling at XOXO at 7.

When choosing a date idea, pick one that aligns with both of your interests while also introducing her to a new experience. For example, you could choose to have a picnic at an affordable or free outdoor music festival where the bands playing are similar to bands the both of you like.

Women will notice when you court them properly and — if you’re a single dad — they are likely to associate your maturity with that fact. Do you see how that upends any fears you have about being viewed as someone with “baggage” or as “damaged goods?”

There are a lot of pros to dating as a single dad, and I promise you that mature, quality women want to give you a chance.

MegaDate

MegaDating is a dating strategy that I recommend to all of my single male clients. Now, as a single dad, you’re not going to be able to load up your schedule like men who don’t have children. However, you can still use a certain extent of MegaDating to your advantage.

MegaDating is a dating process that involves dating several women at the same time in order to find a great partner and avoid settling for the mediocre. Keeping your options open is great when you’re dating as a single dad because it helps you practice your dating approach over and over again; in time, you get really good at dating, so those insecurities you have over dating as a single parent melt away.

Using this dating strategy also helps you handle things like rejection so that you can roll with the punches and inevitably find your perfect match.

Hire a Dating Coach

I understand that not all situations are created equal. Your experience dating as a single dad can be astronomically different from someone else’s. That’s why I recommend hiring a dating coach like me to help you find the most success.

Dating Decoded

Interested in learning how we here at emlovz can help you?

We teach our students the shortcut to finding their ideal match by MegaDating. MegaDating is our dating philosophy and it shapes everything we teach here at emlovz. Simply put MegaDating is dating prolifically with the specific goal of going on 20 dates in 90 days. This will give you ample women to compare and contrast so you can refine your not only your dating skills but who your ideal partner is.

To teach you how to quickly find highly compatible women in just weeks and become the most eligible bachelor in town you’ll have a team of romantic experts, each skilled in their own unique area to support you.

Our Team

• Emyli (me), co-founder, curriculum developer, head coach, and I host two coaching sessions every week
• Thomas, co-founder, and coach. He’ll lead the biweekly Man Cave event where men come together to talk dating, bond with one another, and support other single men
• Cat, Brooke, and Audrey are mock date specialists. Go on a practice date with them (and receive feedback) before your next date
• Hailey is your new stylist. She’s worked with celebs from every industry and is now about to raid your closet
• Tilly is our holistic sex & intimacy coach. She’ll help you get the most out of your sex life so you and your partner are happier between the sheets
• Aundrea is an award-winning fitness coach. Are you ready to eat right and build muscle?
• Mia is our social media expert. Revamp your Facebook and Instagram profiles with her help and start meeting women online

Our Community

And look, we realize that the single life can be difficult. If accepted into our coaching program, Dating Decoded, you’d be joining a community of supportive men and coaches who are there to listen, support, and encourage you as you navigate the single life.

Our program offers every student a lifetime membership (as if you’ll need it) so the support won’t stop until you’ve found your ideal partner.

If you’re ready to find your forever partner, book a Zoom session with our team today. Together we’ll talk about your dating history, your goals and show you how our program, Dating Decoded, can help you find your ideal partner.

Learn how our students have already improved their dating lives.