I (M48) was having coffee with a couple of women friends of mine in their 30s and 40s, we were talking about relationships and what we look for.

One of my friends was lamenting her toxic bachelor boyfriend who put no effort into planning dates and even bragged to her face that he loved living in the city because you don’t have to work very hard for women. She had reached the point where he would text her at 10 PM and then she would go over and have sex with him and fall asleep.

I was saying having been married for a while and now divorced, I’ve learned a lot of things about how to make a woman happy. And I was pointing out to my friend that she really should expect a man to make more than zero effort.

This woman is great, brilliant and accomplished, incredibly beautiful, but also very supportive and nurturing of her guy, and wants to make love every night to the guy she’s dating. She’s not a prospect for me because she wants children and I’m done having kids, but she would be fantastic for someone else.

And my other friend said that divorced men are the best. She said how they’re more likely to be thoughtful and understand what it’s like to live with a woman. And they will appreciate a woman who treats them well.

It was gratifying for me to hear because for a long time I felt shame about divorce. And I would go on dates with women and they would act like I must’ve done something wrong in order to be divorced, and I was somehow broken. Not all women, and I found some wonderful women to date. But enough that it hurt. So it was really nice to hear today that there are women who proactively seek out divorced men because they think they (we) make better partners.

Hang in there my brothers. There are women who value us for our experience.