Ready to Take a Chance Again

After a marital break up parents may make efforts to find new romantic partners, although little is known about how the process of repartnering unfolds. This study consisted of surveying by phone two samples of divorcing custodial parents who had been identified from court records (N = 39 for recent filers, N = 39 for one-year post filers). Results indicate that repartnering happened fairly quickly, with 50% having had some dating experience even prior to the divorce filing. At one-year post filing, typically parents had dated two new partners (range = 0-7) and their children had witnessed 2.5 new relationship transitions (range = 0-9). Among recent filers, younger parents, those with greater time since separation, and those in households containing other (nonromantic adults) were significantly more likely to have dated. While there were no differences in dating by ethnic group, African American parents reported significantly longer times since separation. Parental strategies for handling childre...