43's a great time to reinvent yourself. You don't have to look at your progress on the plan you probably put together for yourself in your late teens/early 20s

43's a great time to reinvent yourself. You don't have to look at your progress on the plan you probably put together for yourself in your late teens/early 20s (engineer / wife /kids). Let's talk about steps: > There are no mental health facilities in the small town where I live. I let my professional network decay and die, and there is literally nowhere else I can get any kind of useful, actionable advice. (1) Get out of that town. Both problems you have are easily solvable with moving a few hours away from where you are now. Find a therapist, find professional meetups/orgs/etc. > I had all the desires of a regular guy: a wife, kids, a house, meaningful work, etc. I mean I still do, but I guess I'm too late for the first few. (2) Frankly, work on just one of those (hint: start with a girlfriend, figure out wife later; you actually have plenty of time, and the standards drop as your competitive pool shrinks). The others will come a lot easier. See #1 for how to make that situation easier. > With every passing day, I am becoming more bitter, angry and disillusioned. I don't want to live like this anymore, (3a) Part of that sounds like grieving. I'm guessing on this part: did your dad provide you some of your motivation and direction? If so, that's a second loss. (3b) What are you doing for fun? Do more fun stuff. This isn't frivolous, it's survival. Men in their 40s (I'm one too) forget to actually enjoy their lives. You have time, and you have health, and you have necessity for it. Your depression justifies more effort in enjoying yourself. So, as you're asking for advice, I'll give it. Move. Move somewhere that has good therapeutic, social, professional, and recreational potential. BTW: it's more important to go where there's people than somewhere with good rental prices. Suck up a crap apartment to have fun again. The nice thing about renting is that you can rent somewhere else a short time later. If you want really good advice that I'll probably get flamed for: Get a motorcycle. There's an old saying that you don't see motorcycles parked in front of therapists' offices. Riding is pure meditation and you don't need to have any friends at all to enjoy. It also makes you more interesting and respectable. As you're in your 40s and a professional, a BMW GS is kinda presumed (I also have one).