Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s?

Be careful of the stories you tell yourself because they will eventually become true.

Tried any sports? I am almost 50 and started learning kitesurf... it is frightning, but I know I need to expose myself to some level of controlled risk, I was always too cautious, never did sports, and I want to get old with some health, so I have chosen something that I always wanted but never had the courage to do.

About being too late for wife... kids... its never late... the problem is if you visualize this girl as someone young, without prior kids or life baggage. I am pretty sure there are women around, with failed relationships, that would like to connect. Part of the process of loving yourself is accepting your age and everything you lived as a good thing. every bad decision also made what you are, be happy that you learned from them.

People may get angry by this next opinion, but relax, its just an opinion, I can change my mind about it by just reading your answers, but I particularly think that going back to US will not help you, because even if you want to be in a different mindset than the last time, to enjoy better the life there, everybody else there dont have this mindset (with very rare exceptions), so you will not have company for your "carpe diem" moments.

This is a long shot, but you should read about AHDH and see if you correlate. There is a difference between beeing depressed and being irritated all the time and mad about the things. If this is the case, lots of therapy and medicine. Takes a long time, but the medicine is modern and very effective.

Focus in feeling better with yourself and the rest will come.

There are some excellent suggestion in this thread, but the above comment seems inadequately addressed. The absence of adequate mental health facilities is a serious barrier. Virtual, remote and phone-based mental health interventions are useful tools, but often ineffective on their own. In-person support nourishes our need for connection. I say this from experience. My father, who lived in a rural setting and suffered from alcoholism, died unexpectedly after his in-person addictions support ceased during the pandemic and was replaced with phone-based counseling. Your situation differs in many important ways, but it is important to be realistic about interventions and their effectiveness.

In the absence of mental health facilities, I would encourage you to consider religious groups in your area. It's important to recognize that organized religion provides many social goods even if we may find their claims questionable. If organized religion is anathema to you, I would encourage you to approach it in a secular manner. Not as a source of truth but instead as a collection of myth, practice and wisdom that has nourished the souls of many before you.

I know this can be hard for some people to seriously consider, but I would encourage you to at least give it a try. I have never found a human settlement that had no religious group and often there are many to choose from. Consider finding the group with the most beautiful building or greatest reverence for particular human endeavor (art, music, meditation, etc). Once you find one you can tolerate best, then commit to it for a fixed period of time and take its rituals seriously. This means attending weekly sessions (all of them - you have the time), volunteering (build those connections), and ideally finding people you enjoy being with. And think seriously about the foundational document or creed that the group considers. Ancient creeds may be dressed up in religious wording but these sacred resources have guided humanity long before us and will do so for a very long time. You may find yourself enlightened when you consider that some of these ancient prophets and religious thinkers were struggling at the forefront of human thought to write down ideas for which words did not exist. At the very least ask "What are these authors trying to say?". Consider being charitable given billions of humans have found these religious ideas worthy of preservation over thousands of years. You never know, you might even come to value them too.

For example, one thing you will almost always learn from these ancient, sacred texts is that the good things of life such as a wife, children, home and meaningful work were attainable to men much, much older than you. These blessings of life can be yours as well.

You are never as alone as you think you are, and thing are never as hopeless as they seem. Getting started will be hard I am sure. Breaking the chain of negative thought will require effort. Life contains suffering and pain, yes. But the good things you desire are worth the struggle. If you can find nothing good in yourself to admire, then simply begin with admiring your desire for a wife, children, a home and meaningful work. These are admirable things and admirable is the man that desires them. My hope is you will admire yourself as I admire you.

Godspeed!

Poor people generally avoid discussing issues in public and then discuss them with family.

But far more frequently violence and alcohol are the default "therapy".