@southamptonsteve1959 - I know you feel strongly about paying for any form of dietary support, but, and it is a huge but, everything you say, about not knoiwing what to do, not really knowing which food choices to make, about being preparation time poor, and potentially finding a dietician input to be useful, is almost like a tick box menu for the Low Carb Programme.
That is is currently on a massive discouts - at £21 for a year's membership, with support from mentors, behavioural change coaches, exercise folks and a dietician - who is fully on-side with the Low Carb way of eating.
At £21, it's almost a drop in the ocean to what it could cost to flounder for some time.
However, on an overall basis, by suggestion to you would be to concentrate on the things you can have, rather than those which would seem like less good ideas these days.
Reduced Carb eating, like many other things, is a matter of habit. Once those habits become a little more engrained, it gets easier.
OK, I've been eating that way for several years, butI never even pause in the caakes and biccies isle, unless my OH needs something. His current favourite is a particular brand of dark chocolate covered stem ginger cookie. He can have that. I'm not bothered.
All the best with it, because one thing is for sure, you deserve better than a life littered with health issues and likely complications further down the line. You cite losing a partner, and a feeling of little prospect of finding another, but the picture of someone whose life is limited (in terms of what you can do, rather than necessarily time), is hardly the biggest draw for someone looking for love.
At the beginning, and from time to time, my OH has commented some frustration over my way of eating (I happen to also need to be gluten-free, but that's zero to do with my T2), but he does appreciate that I am fit, energetic and have a massive desire to live a good and long life, and that's important to us both.
Life and relationships are aboiut compromises. I prefer to compromise for the best outcome I can manage.