Dear Boris1010,

you’re welcome. I’m glad you’ve decided to sit with the difficult emotions, instead of shutting down and going into that grey void again. It’s human to love and lose, and then love some more…

No, no anger at her loss – – I blame myself entirely for it. Nothing there but sadness and regret. Not her fault if I wasn’t ‘the one,’ or even anyone.

Not her fault if you weren’t “anyone”. These words show that you have a pretty low self-esteem, Boris. And it showed in what you’ve shared about yourself before:

I also have a personal history of not knowing what I want… discovering something, becoming interested, immersing/learning, gearing up to do… and then just losing interest altogether right when it comes time to actually start DOING the thing I got interested in… so I absolutely do NOT trust what comes out of my head, either.

Head = untrustworthy, Heart= unknown territory… I simply do not know what to do, where to turn. 

I’ve long felt myself ’empty’ or ‘hollow,’ like there’s nothing *but* the facade I project in public… like there is no ‘wearer’ of the many masks.

I think I’d enjoy writing… but I find I have nothing to say. 

Music is another means of expression, as are art, and dance, and poetry… and in each case, I find that there’s simply nothing inside that wants out.  Nothing to say. 

Managed to land on my feet (strictly through the efforts of my wife, who of the two of us is the only one that possesses a working brain and the drive to put it to use).

So, according to yourself, you are: hollow, have nothing to say, wearer of masks, don’t trust either your heart or your head, don’t possess a working brain or the drive to put it to use.

I think that before you can have a quality relationship – be it romantic or friendship – you would need to work on your self-esteem. It’s been damaged. I don’t know if the damage started happening when you were 10, or even earlier. How were your parents treating you before they divorced? Were they mostly loving or they criticized you (or one of them was mostly loving, while the other criticized you)?

With the divorce and you losing your secure base and your stepfather coming into the picture, things definitely took a turn for the worse. Your self-esteem took a plunge, and it never recovered, it seems. Have you worked on your self-esteem in therapy?