Good morning. First time poster here looking for some advice. I am recently divorced after a 17 year relationship with three wonderful boys. I have began OLD and to be honest, I am so overwhelmed. Firstly, I am a catch. While I am a bit older with children in tow, I have a great job, I own my home, I have many talents in the kitchen, incredibly empathetic...I could go on but than that just sounds silly. My point is, I know I am someone special and absolutely HV. What I am having issues with is excepting that value from others.

I am unsure if this has to do with years of essentially being emotionally abandoned or the men I am coming in contact with are just too strong. I seriously do not know. I do also suffer from co-dependency issues which I work heavily on in therapy. But it is becoming very difficult in the dating world because the compliments make me truly uncomfortable to receive and sometimes even give. I have been talking to one really nice guy for a while now and he finally kind of went off a bit and said "gosh, can you ever just take a compliment." Mostly because I would follow up anything nice he said with why it wasn't a big deal or why I'm not that special. I know, self-deprecating to say the least. But how do you know if its genuine? How can I learn to accept the compliments as truth and not manipulation?