A lot of our problems are self created since a lot of us stand in our own way of progress because of our negative outlook. But your pain is just as real as anyone else's and you've every right to post this thread and never feel guilty for it. No matter how much you fret about the past and how much you look back upon what went wrong, beating yourself up about it isn't going to change what happened or didn't happen. We all make the wrong choices, but what you can do is look to what you can do with your time from now on. You don't deserve to spend the rest of your life in misery and you're not a bad person, or a loser, nor are you unlovable. Your ex-wife doesn't deserve you and what she said was hurtful, untrue and wrong and I have the feeling that what she said was part of what she felt about herself. I don't care what reasons she had for saying something like that because nobody deserves to be told that; it's incredibly cold and cruel. Now you may dismiss this as you wish because I'm young and silly, I'm also a bit of a hypocrite because I'm better at giving advice than following it myself - otherwise I wouldn't be as unhappy as I am now. I look back on my teenage years and I feel I've wasted them, I really do. But there's nothing I can do about that other than work to make the future different. It's easier said than done I know... but think about this... how much of your current loneliness is self imposed and how much could you do if you just took the risk and didn't look at the past as what defines you? Your ex-wife, the people you say are sick of hearing you whine... you don't need them if they don't care about you. And you deserve to be happy. And if you say people are sick of hearing you "whine" (not that you're whining) - I think you need to get out of your social circle because it's clearly gone stale to some extent. There are people out there who care like you told me. And it's not too late at all...

I don't mean to sound like a smart *** though... I don't know exactly what your current situation entails. All I know is that you don't deserve to spend your life punishing yourself for your mistakes because what you'll end up doing is waste more time that you could've spent enjoying yourself or working towards a more supportive situation, doing things that you enjoy, meeting people who's company you will enjoy.