I'm glad you at least listened to some of the advice. It may have been put harshly, but it wasn't wrong.
You are mistaking, "moving forward" and "moving on", as giving up. You seem to think that if you acknowledge that you will more than likely (yes, more than likely) never be with your XW again that it will happen; that somehow if you keep wishing and hoping for it to happen that it gives you a better chance. No one said to give up hope or give up. What was said to you is that you have to move forward. You do. If your wife was dead, would you lay down and die also? Yes, grieve this loss, but don't make the mistake of not using this opportunity to better yourself. Look at the things you did wrong in the relationship. Look at how you communicated poorly. Look at how your life currently is. Isn't there room for improvement? Isn't there more that you want out of life? You know, DMW, that moving on doesn't mean you can't ever be together again. It means that you are going to take this time to be complete on your own. Your wife never had the ability to complete you/make you whole. You need to be satisfied with your own life without her and then be willing to share your wonderful life with her, if she later wants to, and if you still want her. There are people that pine away for years and years after divorce and just waste those years that could have been spent on more meaningful and fulfilling pursuits, like bettering who you are or enjoying life a little more. Life is good DMW. Take the time to discover it. I know you think you'd make the ideal partner for your wife, but you're wrong. You aren't ready for a relationship with her....because you haven't done the things you need to do to have a fulfilling life without her. If she came back now, she'd be driven away again because nothing has changed.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years. Abraham Lincoln
It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. Theodore Roosevelt
