Getting your confidence back after a long marriage

Why your confidence has gone, and why it's normal

After a long marriage, you haven't just lost a partner. You've lost a role, a routine and often a way of seeing yourself. For thirty years someone else may have booked the holidays, carved the joint or remembered birthdays. Or you did all of it and never had a minute for yourself. Either way, being on your own can feel like learning to walk again.

On top of that, dating itself has changed, and your body has changed since you last thought about how you looked to a stranger. No wonder confidence feels thin. It's not a sign you're not ready. It's a sign you've been through something big.

Confidence comes back through doing, in small steps, more than through thinking. The rest of this guide is a set of small steps.

Step one: a life you'd enjoy anyway

The most attractive thing you can bring to a date is a life you already like. That's not a motivational poster; it's practical. When your week has its own pleasures, a date that goes nowhere doesn't knock you over, and you have things to talk about that aren't the divorce or the loss.

Some ideas, chosen for being sociable and low-pressure:

• Learn something. In the UK, u3a has over 1,000 local groups where people in later life learn together for fun, and make friends doing it.
• Join something regular. A choir, a walking group, a book club, a volunteering shift. Our guide to meeting people over 50 has real organisations in the UK and Ireland.
• Do one thing alone that you'd have done as a couple. A café lunch, a gallery, a seaside day out. It feels strange the first time and ordinary by the third.

Step two: make peace with the mirror

Almost everyone over 50 worries about how they look. The people you'll meet are your age and are worrying about exactly the same things. They are not looking for a 30-year-old; they're looking for someone who seems warm, happy and themselves.

Practical things that help:

• Get a good photo. Ask a friend to take a dozen pictures outdoors in soft light while you chat. Pick the one where you look relaxed, not the one where you look youngest.
• Wear what makes you feel good, not what you think you ought to wear. Comfortable and well cared for beats fashionable.
• Look after yourself for you. Walks, sleep, a haircut you like. Not as a project to become someone else.

Honest photos also mean nobody gets a surprise when you meet, which takes a lot of pressure off the first five minutes.

Step three: practise talking to strangers

Conversation is a muscle. If you've spent decades talking mainly to one person, it may need some exercise. Practise in places where nothing is at stake: chat to the person next to you at a class, ask the man walking a spaniel what breed it is, talk to the volunteer at the National Trust house.

Three habits make you easy company on a date:

1. Ask open questions. "What do you enjoy about living by the coast?" rather than "Do you like the coast?"
2. Listen to the answer and follow it up. The best conversationalists are the most curious.
3. Share a little back. Not your whole history, just enough that it feels like an exchange.

Step four: start with low-stakes dates

Your first few dates don't need to lead anywhere. Think of them as practice, and as a chance to enjoy someone's company for an hour.

• Keep them short: a coffee or a walk with a café at the end. Our gentle first-date ideas have easy places.
• Keep them in daylight, somewhere busy, and travel yourself.
• Have a video call first. It shows you whether you'd get on, and takes the edge off meeting a stranger.
• Judge the date simply: did I enjoy it, and would I like to see them again? That's all.

If you're nervous about the whole thing, your first date in decades explains what's different now and what isn't.

A week-by-week way in

If the whole thing feels too big, break it into weeks. Nobody needs to see your plan, and you can stretch any week into a month.

The point isn't speed. It's that each step is small enough to do on an ordinary Tuesday, and each one makes the next feel normal.

Step five: be kind to yourself about rejection

Some people won't reply to your message. Some dates won't call back. Some will be lovely but not right. Every one of these happens to everyone, at every age. It isn't a verdict on you.

A useful way to see it: online dating is a numbers game played at a gentle pace. You only need one good match, and every "no" gets you closer to finding them. If you've had a bad week, take a break; your profile will be there when you come back.

Watch for people who prey on low confidence

A word of caution, because it matters. Someone who floods you with compliments, declares love within days and seems to understand you perfectly can be very flattering when your confidence is low. Sometimes it's genuine. Sometimes it's a romance scam.

The test is simple: a real person will happily video call, will meet you in a public place, and will never ask for money. If someone can't do the first two, or asks for the third, stop. Our guide to romance scams shows the stories scammers tell.

When it's more than nerves

Feeling low or anxious after a divorce or a bereavement is common. If it lasts, if you're not sleeping, or if you've lost interest in things you used to enjoy, talk to your GP. Samaritans are there at any time on 116 123, in the UK and Ireland, if you need to talk to someone. If you've been bereaved, our guide to dating after losing a partner lists specialist grief support.

And when you're ready, online dating for the first time walks you through the first steps.