Hi! Long post following: I just came out of a 9 year long relationship, and me and the X have two kids together (2 and 5 years old). I’m 31 years old.

Question: I’m starting to dig myself into a dark place, and I have to do something about it. I have never been good with girls. I am fit (195-200 pounds, not fat), make people laugh and have been told by some very hot girls that I used to be into that I would have had a shot, if I just had made an advance on them (pre relationship). Naturally, they told me this many years later... I don’t know how to read signals, I don’t believe that a girl can fall for me, and if a girl sends signals that even I can understand, I convince myself that she is messing with me and avoid the situation. Of the 15-16 women I have been with, I think I was initiating with 3 of them, and then I was so drunk that I don’t remember what I did/said to get them (and believe me, I have tried to remember).

Background: During our relationship me and the X moved across the country to her family when her mother got cancer. She lived for two years after we moved here, and it’s been almost two years since she died. During this time I was busy with work and trying to support my X emotionally. She struggled a bit with work, we both struggled with her mother being sick and I didn’t feel at home here and really missed the old town we lived in and my life there. Om top of that I lived with pain from a work injury, and was short tempered and probably not pleasant to be around..

Because of that my social life the last 4 years have been occasionally beeing with her friends or family, and meeting collegues at work. My only remaining hobby, working out, I did/do in the basement of the station where I work. I train alone.

Now, after we ended the relationship 5 months ago, I’m left with no social life, everyone I work with have their own family and while it was a relief to end the relationship (as friends), it naturally feels empty in the house when I don’t have the kids.

A week ago, my X told me she was seeing someone. I’m feeling even more alone. Before, atleast we were «alone together»/ in the same situation. /Background