Hi all, I’ve been reading with interest around the forums. Some of it really rings a bell for me and I’m glad I found this website.

I’m currently in a bit of a mid life crisis I think and finding it really difficult letting go of things that have happened over the last couple of years and moving forward with my life. I’m 37, gay and have recently found myself single and living on my own after 2 failed relationships.

13 years ago, I thought I had met my match for life and we had a great relationship and moved in together after dating for 6 months or so, I was very happy for a long time until we kind of just got stuck in a bit of a rut, we stopped communicating and I found that we grew apart emotionally. I didn’t have many close friends near by and found myself alone a lot of the time. I can pin point when all this started happening, probably back in 2010 when my partner got mugged and seriously attacked, followed by 6 months of recovery. At the same time I was going through a redundancy situation at work and was really stressed out trying to find a new job. I had a delayed stress reaction to everything that happened at that time and turned to drinking more to help me cope.

From there my depression and anxiety got the better of me and I found myself drinking more and more, despite knowing it was in fact making things worse and I ended up in a vicious circle. I went to the doctors who prescribed several different anti depressants. My partner was initially supportive and did try and help his best but I found that I couldn’t stop binge drinking, despite having some legthy periods of abstinence. I attended some regular therapy which I didn’t find helped me that much. Anyway, cut a long story short I did some stupid things whilst on some crazy weekend binges and ended up splitting up with my partner.

At the time I was on pretty strong anti depressants and I think this actually made the situation worse as the reality of what I was doing was numbed out. We were very amicable to each other and started to arrange the house sale and I started looking at moving to a nearby city and looking for a new job. All I seem to remember is it all being surreal and not properly thinking through the situation I was putting myself into.

Not long after that but before I eventually moved out of my ex partners house, I met someone new who I started dating, ignoring the fact I still had a lot of issues to work through and it being far too soon to get into another relationship. At the time I just wanted to date, party etc and see how it went with this new guy. We soon fell in love and after 3 months he moved into my place.

Everything was great for a while, although I missed my old home and the security of my previous relationship. I wasn’t entirley honest with him about the issues I had and he noticed I was drinking more than usual sometimes. Eventually, one night I ended up drunk and confessed everything – depression, being on medication and drinking too much. Following that our relationship deteriorated and we ended up fighting a lot, he really played on my depression and made me feel even worse about myself. I cut out the drinking and started some therapy again, however, things didn’t improve between us and the trust was way beyond broken. Despite me being honest about my feelings towards him, he ended up going behind my back and meeting some other guy a few times, supposedly as “just friends” which totally broke my heart when I found out. Then started couple of months of him sleeping in my spare room, arguing, fighting, alcohol binges and me eventually asking him to move out of my apartment for my own sanity, because I felt he was just using me for somewhere to live.

He refused to move out at first and said I needed support but he would only support me as a friend. He also said that he had nowhere to go, at the time I couldn’t cope with that situation as I was still totally dependant on him and heart broken by what had happened, despite him being controlling and totally unsympathetic towards my depression. He left in June and I’ve not seen him since. I’ve tried to not contact him as much as possble but there have been texts between us. It’s honestly been the most stressful period in my life.

So now, I’m totally on my own, replaying the last couple of years in my head constantly. Actually greiving 2 relationships (If that’s possible?) finding it hard to adjust to being on my own and finding it difficult to make new friends. I have dated a couple of people but came to the conclusion that I’m still a bit broken inside and I need to work on my issues as much as possible before I meet someone else seriously. The problem is, I’m so used to ‘Being’ with someone, my life just feels empty at the moment and I just can’t picture a future for myself. I know I have to focus on loving myself and doing things for myself, which I am trying to do – I’m currently buying my own place for some home security, swimming a lot at the pool, catching up with the few friends I have here in my new city. However, it’s so hard to not feel the void, constantly feel regret and the romatacising of my last relationship. I still feel heartbroken and totally lost. My head is stuck in the past. I feel like I’ve lost everything and I’m starting out again.

I have cut down on the drinking and got it a bit more under control. I stopped the anti depressants months ago which was the best thing I did as I felt like a zombie on them. But the darkness of depression, lack of self esteem, lack of confidence and loneliness still hangs on.

I don’t know, I’m still a bit lost, any advice? Any alternative strategies? Sorry it’s probably a bit of a rambling post…