Sorry to hear about your woes, Machka. Very discouraging, but at the same time, perhaps the randonneuring experience of overcoming the mental "down times" can help you to overcome this obstacle.

There's a lot of good advice in this thread. My main suggestion would be to consider riding a tandem with Rowan. You can both work "as hard as you can" and you'll be going the same speed together, be able to chat, and, if you're the stoker then you can spend even more time looking at lambs, eagles, etc. My wife started riding her bike to work about two years ago, and we trained to ride a century together on the tandem that fall. We rode a 200Km together in November and have ridden an SR series since then, and at least a 200Km every month. She's been gradually getting stronger and faster. I never feel like she isn't "doing her share" because I know that she's working hard and I'm working hard, and that's all that matters. Since you haven't been riding the tandem before, you won't be comparing how you do now with how you did before, because you weren't on the tandem before.

Best,

Nick