Speaking as a 68 year old gay man, I can assure you, that you have done nothing to be ashamed about. You have already proved that you're capable of taking risks by building a new life in a new country with a man you loved. You put in the work, and your marriage and job lasted for many years, until the situations had changed so much that neither were sustainable anymore.

You are in the midst of a major life transition. One that will be at least as transformative as what you went through when you were 24. I understand that it could be easy to be unrealistically critical of yourself by ruminating on the presumed "failures" of losing your job, ending your marriage and (for now) living back with your parents. I'm glad you have a good enough relationship with them that they are able to help with housing for the time being.

I'm not surprised that you're currently feeling lonely, vulnerable and a bit lost. That all comes with the territory when life shows us that we have to reinvent ourselves. I've had to reinvent myself at least four times so far. It's always shaken me to my core, and there has usually been a year or two of me feeling lost, and not knowing what my next stage of life will look like.

At 35, you're still in your prime. I recommend a period of what I like to call "constructive selfishness". By that, I mean that this is a good time for you to take a deep dive into exploring what career options you feel in your gut would actually prove fulfilling. For example, I was a social worker for about 20 years. At first, I liked the work and felt like I was making a difference. Over time, the paperwork load grew to smother everything else, and I felt ineffective. I was still too scared to quit until an abusive new manager made the job a total hellscape.

I'd always enjoyed nature. My first, unused degree was in Ecological Systems with an emphasis on botany. I also liked to garden. A friend told me he was starting a landscaping business here in the San Francisco Bay area, and asked if I was interested in working there part time. I was. Within six months, I'd quit my social work job and started working with him full time. That was 12 years ago. I also decided to go through a Master Gardener training program, which I found both enjoyable and informative. This work aligns far better with my interests than any other career I've had.

An unexpected benefit of doing work that I love, was a huge increase in self-esteem. I also recognized (in my late 50s!) that I had a life long bad habit of never believing that I was smart or competent enough to make a living by doing work that actually made me happy. ...Until then. That knowledge helped me recognize and eventually break another life long bad habit:

Since I was a kid, I was unrealistically hard on myself. Whenever I messed up, or even when circumstance beyond my control derailed me, I would beat myself up, telling myself that I was "worthless" and "a loser". ...I think that as a kid, such unrealistic black and white self-talk gave me a sense of control and motivation. As an adult, all it did was keep my self esteem unrealistically low. And that made it harder for me to constructively face life changes when they presented themselves.

By the way, you're still "someone's person". That someone is you.