When you've recovered from your divorce -- and you will recover, although you may not believe so at first -- you will be able to start your life anew. You get the chance to develop new interests and to meet new friends. Eventually, you might want to get married again; if you're like most people, an experience with divorce doesn't necessarily mean that you've totally turned off romance and marriage. This is completely normal and healthy: most human beings don't want to spend their entire lives alone. It's in our nature to yearn for a lifetime soulmate, even if we didn't get what we wanted the first time around.

"I don't like to think of ended marriages as 'failures,'" says internationally renowned relationship expert Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D. "When you sell a house and move into a new one, you don't consider that a failure; when you quit a job and get a better one, that's not a failure. Leaving an unhappy relationship is a success -- you've taken it as far as it can go, and you've grown and changed through it. Staying in it would have been a failure." So remarriage shouldn't be looked upon as making up for something that went wrong in the past; it's an opportunity to move forward toward a happy future.

Yet according to statistics from the Stepfamily Association of America, even though 75 percent of divorced persons will eventually remarry, 60 percent of remarriages end in divorce -- an even higher rate than that of first marriages. So how can you avoid becoming an unhappy statistic? "The first thing you should do is a deep assessment of your first marriage and earlier relationships," says Dr. De Angelis. "How did they function? What didn't work? Were there problems with sex, or power struggles? You then have to reevaluate yourself, work on yourself."

Don't rush into a rebound marriage without considering these things; above all, take your time. You need to find somebody you can truly love for what he or she is worth; you must also be highly compatible with that person. You and your new spouse will have to commit to the marriage, and believe in it, to make it last this time around. As well, the prospect of remarriage (either for you or your new partner) often leads to the unexpected challenges of gaining a stepfamily, but these challenges can be overcome with some patience, understanding, and adaptability.

Before considering remarriage, make sure that this is really what you want. Remember, it's better to be single and independent than to compromise your beliefs, values, and goals for the sake of being in a relationship. If you want to remarry, do it for the right reasons: because you've found somebody you want to be with forever -- someone who is truly compatible with you and brings out the best in you. Don't do it because you're ashamed of being single, to enhance your image, out of pure lust, or because you're looking for a way to pay the bills.

"The critical issue is not when you remarry," writes Barbara Lovenheim in Beating the Marriage Odds, "but why you remarry and whom you select as a spouse... If you give yourself time to know who you are and what you want and what you can offer to a spouse, your chances of creating a solid marriage are enhanced."

Discover how to make your second marriage a success: