Sounds like an unhappy relationship. Perhaps look to successful relationships of people your parent's age, and try and work out what it is that makes them work,

Sounds like an unhappy relationship. Perhaps look to successful relationships of people your parent's age, and try and work out what it is that makes them work, and what personal traits you can encourage within yourself to match them? You haven't said what she feels. The partner being broken up with usually has an extremely tough time dealing with it. It is something you need to work through with her. A relationship is mostly about how you both deal with the bad stuff. The good stuff doesn't cause problems. It is your joint responsibility to work through your problems together. Lots of people recommend counseling/pschologists etcetera. However I personally think that most advisors are terrible, and that you put yourselves into a dangerously submissive position. I felt depressed in my last relationship - and it was with a with a nurse with psych experience who told me I had clinical depression. After I split up the depression disappeared - my clinical depression was cured! I loved her but I felt trapped and I couldn't live with her. > thinks it is already too late to find a new person Likely a sunk-cost fallacy. It ain't easy. > however lacking a set of larger goals. That is a modern religion - and it is often about status. Status is a zero-sum game. Here be dragons. Perhaps daily pleasures matter more? A hard one - I am nowhere near finding an answer for myself. I set some financial goals and personal goals, but achieving them doesn't seem to help me as much as I thought it would.