I don't have any idea why you think "a wife, kids" are out of the picture for you: after early adulthood, men and women are looking for someone they can see having a family with, and not for the more superfluous things in life (good looks, status or lots of money). At 43, having kids is harder for women, but usually not for men (well, at least making babies: bringing up kids does get a bit harder as you age regardless of the gender).
In any case, getting a job in a place where you'd be happy should "restart" your life: job is also a means to a new social life where you make the break from the old. So it sounds like you are only a decent job away from starting on the right path.
Having some vices also allows you to connect with others, so perhaps pick up a few non-damaging ones :D
Finally, note that you should look for professional help instead of listening to any of the advice I might give, though finding a psychologist who you can connect to is sometimes an ordeal as well.
> At 43, having kids is harder for women, but usually not for men (well, at least making babies: bringing up kids does get a bit harder as you age regardless of the gender).
And regardless, do consider adoption, even as a single parent. There are loads of kids taken away from parents who for whatever reason can't really care for them. Often there's a generational component: the kid's grandparent abused or couldn't support the parent; the parent ended up in foster care, exited out of the system at 18 with no support network, got pregnant, and can't really support the child. If they're not placed with an adoptive family, they spend the rest of their lives in foster care and repeat the cycle. You can make a world of difference.
My first marriage took a long time to resolve itself; by the time I married again, and we figured out that we were having fertility problems, my wife was "over the cliff" fertility-wise. We adopted a little one and he's been a real joy. You are wired to connect with children, and children are wired to connect with you; those circuits in your brain can't read DNA.
Obviously you need to get your own life sorted out first: lack of work and depression feeding into each other are major contributing factors to the problems the kids' biological parents have taking care of them. But get your head in the right space, a good support network around you, and a steady income, and there's no reason you can't be welcome a child into your family. Obviously having a partner can make the burden easier, but there were plenty of single-parent adopters in the "cohort" going through the adoption process with us. It's definitely do-able.
I second this! Had two bios, they got grown (as happens). Wife and I missing kids and fostered a little 5 month old girl and after two years adopted. She's 5 now and wife/myself are early 50's and she is the center of our universe and so much fun. We all fall asleep around 8pm :)
OP - You are young! Not even 1/2 way through life. You can do it.
Be cautious with this. Lots of kids need adopting no doubt. But adoption can be extraordinarily difficult for parents. I speak from experience. It's not something to be taken lightly.
You are right that you need to go into it with your eyes open. At least in my state it took about a year to get certified to foster and you set boundaries on what you can handle. For instance, I knew that I would not be equipped for a certain level of trauma/medical issues and indicated that. You still end up dealing with state agencies, family court, crazy relatives and lots of other stuff so it's not all sunshine. But in our case it was totally worth it.
That, I wanted to mention this myself. E.g. adopting kids that are already in school. That'll make their day and also considering today's divorce rates they'd probably be already studying should a divorce ever happen. I know families that adopted kids and everyone did really well (and did not divorce from what I heard anyway)
As I said, there was one man in my "cohort" -- the group of parents that went through the adoption training together. He was a tradesman -- single, self-employed, my guess in his early 40's; he passed the screening process and adopted a school-age boy. This is a "local authority" in the UK. I'm sure rules vary from place to place, depending on culture, experience, and need. I do know they look extensively at your support network, history, and so on; presumably the requirements for a support network are higher when you're going to be a single adoptive parent.
Second that age thing, 43 is not 'too old' for a man, past prime yes but definitely doable if your health is OK in that area. As a person who has 2 young kids (first when 39, second at 41) - in some regards I am much better parent than younger me, the only problem that probably got worse with age (for me) is patience. But parents are required to have endless amount of patience anyway and I've seen even otherwise stellar parents to lose it more than once when pushed enough. If you don't feel up to it anymore, look for single moms and give some proper good into the world, it desperately needs it now more than ever. Don't let (often ancient) social norms of your specific place rule your life, science is on your side.
Tons of other good advices here - if you think you really are suicidal (and not just fleeting emotion in the lowest position), get professional help, even if it means moving away. You owe to yourself as much as to anybody else, including your closest family. Otherwise try to get a job you want and like, AND get into some sports, whatever it is. Being active brutally increases mood, happiness and often integrates you with like-minded people. On top of usual stuff like better sleep, sex, longer better life overall etc.
Do some 'charity' work, helping unknown people with whatever, its extremely rewarding. Attempt in some way to overcome procrastination, attack it from different angles, ie set up appointments that you would feel ashamed to cancel later.
> At 43, having kids is harder for women, but usually not for men
Finding a partner becomes hard, especially if you expect her to be 5-10 years younger.
I used to be rather successful with women, was never single, always could find someone easily. I'm 45, in good shape with a good job, but it has became much harder.
Totally agree with this. I have an older (late 50's) gay friend who considers himself 'over the hill'. He talks constantly about how hard it is to find someone etc. However, by comparison to myself and my other straight friends, it's trivially easy for him to find both sex and companionship. Essentially it was so easy when he was young and handsome, he learned an aversion to trying. It's not so much that he doesn't know how, it's that he feels he shouldn't have to. As an average looking straight guy, I find his entitlement absurd.
Same goes for OP. I'm literally his age, don't own property, have less in savings (I don't work in tech), and consider myself both lucky and free. Also lucky not to live in the US, where other people's perceptions of your relative wealth seems much more important for dating / social life etc.
Perspective governs so much of how meaningful and rich our lives seem. I look at my family / contemporaries who have children, or have crushed themselves at a desk for twenty years and feel inestimable gratitude I didn't sacrifice my life on that alter. OP's problem is a long period unemployment and depression, not some kind of nebulous 'failure'. Fortunately it's readily fixable. 43 is not remotely 'past it'.
> Essentially it was so easy when he was young and handsome, he learned an aversion to trying
I think a lot of women experience the same upon reaching middle age. In their 20s and early 30s, getting a date, sex, long-term relationship, etc. was as easy as firing up the app and letting a dozen men dance like monkeys for the chance to take her out.
By late 30s, this dynamic is gone for most women, and even starts reversing itself where by 40's, many men - and not just the "alphas" or gay men who also had an easy time in their younger years - have a lot more power in the dating market, though mostly because they aren't so beholden to their hormones, and can make decisions based on what benefits a particular women and relationship brings to his life. In most cases, the negatives outweigh the positives, and thus women and gay men now get to experience the same odds that most men dealt with all their life.
If you'll excuse me saying -- and I may be totally misreading your comment -- it sounds like what you were looking for (and finding) so easily in the past wasn't really a partner, at least in the life-long sense, but rather a string of casual relationships. That's not at all the same thing as wanting a wife and kids.
Not really, I had many long term relationships, and shorter ones in between. I wasn't a super popular man, but attractive enough that I could always find partners with reasonable efforts.
But in any case, I think it's not that different as wanting a wife and kids. You need to be able to seduce someone, whether it's for a casual relationship, or for marriage. It's start with physical attraction either way. I don't think mentioning "I want to get married and have kids" will give you a free pass which is ironic considering many women complain men only want casual relationships.
Modern dating where people meet online makes it harder too. A gay friend of mine who is 60 years old says that back in the day, he would meet guys in saunas or bars, and older guy would have a chance. But online, nobody want to meet a 60 years old guy.
I think this just comes off as moving too quickly. After a few weeks of successful dates and comfort levels built, I've found this to be acceptable to mention casually, especially in a conversation meant for discussing goals.
It also softens things to say it like "Yea, someday I want to be married and have kids" but in a tone that doesn't include the woman you're dating yet.
They already know you're dating them presumably for this goal if you mention it, but it also communicates you aren't desperate and already thinking this far ahead with this person (even though you probably already are).
How long term can they have been if you had “many” of them?
There’s a huge difference between seducing someone for a casual relationship and forging a deep friendship with the person who becomes your life partner.
> I used to be rather successful with women, was never single, always could find someone easily. I'm 45, in good shape with a good job, but it has became much harder.
You're also most likely much more selective. In your 20's and 30's, there's no feeling of a clock ticking.
Yeah, as weird as it sounds, my wife and I are probably together now 14 years after we met because we had relatively low standards in our early 20s. Obviously you should have some baselines for fundamental character traits when considering a long-term partner, but we were both well-intentioned-but-half-developed at 21. If either one of us had been in a position to look down on our relatively lackluster lifestyles at that point, we probably wouldn't be happily married today.
I guess my point is prioritize fundamental character (honesty, communication, loyalty, values, etc), and someone you can have fun with. The rest can be taken care of with time and effort.
I agree that starting a family is very much still a possibility but also would suggest that it doesn't have part of a solution. Marriage and kids bring their own challenges and make any turn-around much harder.
I think solving your personal issues and the job should come first.
Wow! So many negatives. I had to whip out pen and paper to figure it out:
Negative: "avoid"
Negative: "not"
Negative: "rejecting"
Negative: "too late..."
So, you're saying: you wish people accept its ok to have kids at 43?
In any case, getting a job in a place where you'd be happy should "restart" your life: job is also a means to a new social life where you make the break from the old. So it sounds like you are only a decent job away from starting on the right path.
Having some vices also allows you to connect with others, so perhaps pick up a few non-damaging ones :D
Finally, note that you should look for professional help instead of listening to any of the advice I might give, though finding a psychologist who you can connect to is sometimes an ordeal as well.