[Dessesaf]

I think you overestimate how strongly those ties bind people to their current situations. I don't know your situation, so don't take this the wrong way. Maybe your ties truly do bind you. And maybe that's perfectly fine.

But I think for the vast majority of people, simply having a pet or a partner or a kid does not really tie them to their current situation. It's just about what you value more. Of course all of these ties change the tradeoffs of your choices. But every circumstance in life is a constraint on your choices. And large scale changes are possible even with all those things, should you desire it. There are plenty of people that take impulse vacations, change careers, countries, friends, partners, while having all of the dependents you list.

And if you consider all those tradeoffs and decide change isn't worth it, that's perfectly fine. But I see people use this to state that they had no choice in the matter. No, you had a choice and you chose from a constrained but still massive set of potential life situations. This is simply the one you prefer.

To bring this back to the article:

Take this and keep asking the same question. You’ll get to the root of it soon enough. In this instance, your feeling of being stuck is less about the external circumstances and more about internal barriers—fears, beliefs, and assumptions that keep you tethered to the familiar, however unsatisfying it may be.

If you keep asking the question, but your underlying answer is "It is actually more about the external circumstances than internal barriers", then that's your answer. You're not really stuck, you just made your choices and are where you wanted to be.