The end of a marriage is never easy, but when you're young, divorce can present some unexpected hurdles. Here, three men open up about what it was like to start dating again after getting divorced in their twenties.

Tim, 27:

"My ex-wife was the one who initiated the divorce. Although we decided to go to marriage counseling, we both wanted different things. I was very career-driven and wanted to travel. She still was finding herself and figuring out what she wanted out of life. Dating after divorcing young is quite crazy. Unless you're a social butterfly, it's hard to jump right back in. Things that weren't important before or were negotiable suddenly are important or non-negotiable. Your priorities become different since you've been through some shit. I feel like getting married and divorced so young completely changed my perspective on what I wanted out of a partner. I needed someone who would be there to help pick up the pieces when stuff went completely sideways. It made me realize that I was allowed to be picky, but by the same token, that I should meet all sorts of different people to explore the world out there.

One of her friends said that because I was divorced, there must be something wrong with me.

"I met my second wife on OkCupid and started texting back and forth nonstop for a few days. We decided to meet up at a coffee shop. We literally talked for hours on our first date; it was like fireworks were going off. She was fine with [my divorce] at first, but I think after our third date, she spoke to one of her friends who said that because I was divorced, there must be something wrong with me. It started messing with her head. She was ready to break up with me on that fourth date, but I remember telling her something really personal about how I was there for my dad when my grandfather died and how I helped him through. That made her realize that what anyone else said didn't matter. Eight months later, I popped the question and the amount of joy, tears, and happiness that was flowing was amazing."

Ray, 28:

“I was engaged by my senior year of college and had got married the September after we graduated. The people we were when we got married weren’t the same people we’ve become since. We hadn’t settled into our careers; we were still figuring out a lot of what we wanted from life. We were 24 when we got divorced, and I think honestly, the hardest part was coming to that conclusion. It’s weird, because I always figured you could see a divorce coming; I always associated divorce with that kind of explosive drama. [Ours] was really a slow descent into this kind of unhappiness. We disagreed on a lot of the fundamentals, and I think they were things that we never had to discuss in college but became very pressing in the real world, like our finances, grad school, and where we wanted to live.

"It was overwhelming and exhausting having to actually meet people."

"I didn’t make my way back into the dating world sad or carrying any kind of baggage. I think in my head, it wasn’t that much different than breaking up after having lived together. But I had been with my wife throughout most of college. I hadn’t really 'dated' since high school. And compared to dating as an adult, a lot of that doesn’t really count. When I re-entered the dating world, I hadn't really heard of Tinder. It wasn't this big thing like it is now. There were no more drunken parties to go to [where you could] just start hooking up. It was overwhelming and exhausting having to actually meet people and put a lot of effort into finding someone. I've been managing. I've had a few long-term relationships that have since ended. The weird thing is, I feel like a few dates in now, I have to have 'the talk.' It's a very serious thing when I tell people I've been divorced. It's something people have to really take in and think about. I've noticed, weirdly, that some of the more casual 'relationships' I've had are with people who are less OK with it. It usually ends when they know I've been married. I'm seeing someone now but it's still new.”

Adam, 30:

“I got divorced when I was 26, and it messed with me for sure. I look back on it now, and I’m like, Why was I even upset? But I think at the time, I had this plan in my head. I found my life partner. I was set. Everyone wants to find their soul mate and their dream job, and I felt like I had already accomplished half of what I needed to. I was ahead of the game. We had all these plans and dreams, and we were going to spend our lives together. And then I wind up divorced and living back at my parents for a few months. It felt like someone came along and said, ‘You know what? Fuck the last three years of your life. They didn’t happen.’ It’s not that severe but I lost so much. I hope it wound up making me a better person. I think I learned a lot in hindsight, but in the moment, I just didn’t want anything to do with anyone. It wasn’t like I decided I’d never love again, but what I really needed to be doing was putting a lot of effort into finding a worthwhile relationship. Then the rest wouldn’t feel like it was so much effort. I had to stop holding my marriage up as a standard, because it shouldn’t be a standard.

"I learned enough from my past marriage that I know this one will end happily ever after."

"As far as dating went, it was really awkward anytime I told someone I was divorced. People almost always thought I was joking, and it became a whole thing to explain I wasn’t. It’s weird, because we don’t really judge people too harshly for the amount of breakups they had but a divorce somehow seems scandalous. Like something really bad had to happen for a divorce to happen, when in reality, people divorce for the same reasons they break up, really. I’m happily engaged now though and I learned enough from my past marriage that I know this one will end happily ever after.”

Follow Frank on Twitter.

Frank Kobola Frank is a contributing writer for Cosmopolitan.com

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io