[andresgaitan]

I empathize with you. You conned yourself into academia.

If you regret not having enough partners. Don't regret, probably, you wouldn't have much anyway. Top 20% gets 80% of the action. You aren't in the top 20%.

Academia is awful. Again top 20% of the students get 80% of the attention and opportunities. Seems you aren't in the top 20%.

So what to do from here? First stop digging. If you don't want to marry the girl you are with, Cut the relation, don't be a moron, don't make her loose time. Go to a church and set your life in order. Hear Jordan Peterson on YouTube. Get an entry level job in tech. Go for data analyst or systems administrator. If you are able to land a developer job, great. Currently you are worth close to 0 to the market. You are useless, but you are smart and you can learn. Swallow your pride and get some useful skills.

[openknot]

>If you don't want to marry the girl you are with, Cut the relation, don't be a moron, don't make her loose time.

Another option, though the usefulness depends on the intimate details of the relationship: work on the relationship and address the parts that aren't working so well, versus being quick to break up (exceptions are for abusive relationships). The user's objection to the relationship is "I can't stop thinking about the opportunities that I missed with girls when I was younger," with no other information on the relationship.

>Currently you are worth close to 0 to the market. You are useless, but you are smart and you can learn.

This is not necessarily true, especially as the user is a PhD student. Previous programming, research, and part-time work experience may directly qualify the person for jobs above the entry level. That said, it is a good idea for increasing work opportunities to rely on deliberately developing valuable, preferably technical skills.

[andresgaitan]

I understand your first point. However, the true question is if the OP actually loves the person he's with, or if instead he is just using her. First case, work on the relationship, second case stop.

Concerning the second point, it depends on many things. Probably if you had already a CS background and are pursuing a PhD in CS, your situation could be different. But if you pursued a PhD in the humanities (including economics) there are a lot of things you need to learn to be useful in tech.