Am I stuck?

[Accuray]

There are two men is my office who have described that they picked their second wife partly because she had assists to bring to the table. I don't want someone to pick me because of what I can provide. It is scary.

Second marriages can be tricky. I don't think anyone is looking to take on a dependent or assume a ton of someone else's debt in a second marriage. If anyone, man or woman, is paying alimony and child support from their first marriage, they are going to be loathe to get married again to someone with no assets because they don't want to be buried even deeper if things don't work out.

Therefore, those men in your office are either being prudent about financial exposure so they don't have to pay double alimony forever, or they are gold diggers looking to get a piece of what their new wives bring to the table. In the second case shame on them, although I'm sure that's not going to be a very happy way for them to live.

This is not the norm, and you don't have to date with the exclusive purpose of getting married again. You can date to have fun and enjoy life.

I'd rather leave it all to my estranged H who will at least use it for the kids.

Or estranged H could do no estate planning and have it all go to his second wife who could cut your kids out entirely. Better to leave it directly to the kids than to estranged H.

If you're worried about a second H taking advantage of you, just insist on a prenup and you're covered. If they're a gold digger, they will not agree or run away and you're better off for knowing.

I've made platonic friendships and the guys are usually there because they hope for more.

How do you know? Have they made overtures? You should be very straightforward about the fact that this will only be a friendship. If that's okay with them great, and if not that's okay too.

I feel the weight and pressure of their hopefulness and It's too much for me. If they're good guys I feel bad that I'm not on the same page.

As long as you're up-front about your intentions, this is their problem to deal with and you shouldn't take it on on their behalf. You've got enough to deal with on your own!

Regarding the leap of faith, I think it's interesting that I can see the path towards forgiving and trusting H much more clearly than the path of trusting a stranger.

That's insane though right? H has horribly violated your trust, he's much less deserving of trust than a total stranger is. This is a story you're telling yourself to justify staying in your shell.

Stuck72, people will do what they want to do, and will see out anything to justify their decisions. That's how cheaters work right? They tell themselves elaborate stories about why what they are doing is okay, and they seek out people to validate their choices.

If you decide that you don't want to trust a new man ever again, you'll find no shortage of people who will tell you that's a good idea because you will seek them out, and you'll find no end of horror stories about gold diggers and people who took advantage of single women, because those stories reinforce the narrative that you've decided to believe. You're putting goggles over your eyes that filter out anything you don't want to see.

There are men out there who would take advantage of you, there are men out there who would cheat and lie, but they are in the vast, vast minority. There are tons of earnest and honest men out there perfectly capable of having a wonderful relationship with you, resulting in marriage or not. As long as you convince yourself they don't exist, you'll never see them.

Give that some thought, do you really want to reject any possibility of a new relationship with anyone other than H?

If the answer to that is "yes", then let's figure out how you can make peace with not having another relationship in your life, and learn how to find happiness and fulfillment in your current situation. That's not impossible at all, you don't need a relationship to be happy. The people who live the longest are married men and single women, there's a reason for that!

Acc