What next? Someone give me a shake

[Coriandersucks]

Welcome to my pity party. I feel like I’ve reached a crossroads in my life with no options available to me and I can feel myself turning into a very unhappy, bitter and angry person and I need to vent here and for someone to talk some sense into me before I can’t go back.

The only good thing in my life are my children. That’s it. Every other aspect has gone to shit. I give you:

Relationship - dp who I was incredibly happy and in love with has completely changed over the last 18 months. We are still together co parenting but that is it as far as anything else goes so our plans of growing old and happy together are out the window

Sex: see above. I’ve not had ex in over 3 years and have recently moved to a new area so getting to know anyone new is almost impossible unless I want to jump the dads on the school run (no I don’t) so doesn’t look like I’ll be having it for a while longer

Family: had great relationship with my family before I moved nearer to them. Now we argue all the time and it’s always awkward and no longer fun spending time together

Career: had a great career with great potential. Now work is drying up in my field and I’m not qualified to do anything else. I have no passions so can’t confidently say I want to retrain to be x,y, z because I don’t know if I would really want to do it and don’t have the time or resources to retrain anyway

Finances: affected by above. Never been rich but not had to worry too much. Now I can only see my income going down which rules out the move I wanted to make in a few years time

Image: never been happy with my weight or looks BUT is the only thing I am actively doing something about right how. What’s driving me to improve is that if I’m more confident in my appearance that might help me fix some of the issues above.

For the first time in my life I am starting to think that my best and happiest years are behind me. I’ve never thought like that I’ve always been a really positive and hopeful person. I hear lots of stories about people turning things around but they’re usually for people who have passions and talents, I have neither. Does anyone have any tips or do I just accept my fate? I’m 41 if that helps.

You don't have to 'accept your fate', no. You are only 41. You have half of your life still ahead of you.

First of all, acknowledge the good things. your 'one good thing' is actually a huge thing to celebrate. You have your children. Enjoy your time with them. Make fun plans with them. Make great memories with them.

You've listed all the areas your life is inadequate, as a list of failures. But it's actually really helpful that you're thinking of them as separate areas. You can therefore come up with an action plan for every area of life you aren't happy with. For each, think about where you would like to be in 10 years from now, 5 years, 1 year (or whatever time frame suits). Then start taking steps to get there.

Unhappy relationship? List what you need to do to get out of it. The you can be happily single or at least open to another relationship.
Work drying up? Actively think about what you like doing, consider seeing a careers coach. Keep an open mind and be willing to change direction if something doesn't work out.
Falling out with family? Look at what's making you fall out. Maybe you just got used to seeing them less often, and you need to revert to that. Then plan some nice things for when you do see them.

Sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees, and you can feel overwhelmed that everything is wrong, and the way out seems like too hard a climb. But with every small win, every change you manage to make, you feel a little stronger, and you realise you can do it.

You won't change everything at once. But you can start making small changes straight away. And then you'll start seeing more glimpses of the life you want. One day you'll realise that your 'failure' list is much shorter, and actually you're happy with what you have.