I'm hearing normal stuff from you. Still following along, but trying not to interrupt your thinking with responses.
I've got one great big word for you - honesty.
Be honest with yourself. No matter what is inside there, be honest with yourself about it and embrace it. There is no series of steps, no right thinking or wrong thinking per se.
One of the best gifts I gave myself as a result of my divorce was the right to be honest about everything possible, and to stop responding to things the way I thought others wanted or needed me to.
The whole debate about whether you loved your wife or your relationship is a little too backwards looking for me. And all of us have difficulty with not coloring our looks back through the lenses of what we've experienced.
Good marriages collapse. All the time. Many times never to recover; other times they pass through their empty season and eventually are reborn. It's way too soon for you to even be worrying about deciding which yours will be.
It seems to me there is still love for your wife inside of you. For now you are mentally putting it aside, in what seems to be an effort to forge your new life. It makes sense. But resist, if you can, the need to finalize where your heart really is. Time is the best tool for that happening, and when we force an outcome because we think we need to, it generally just comes back to us at a later time.
I submit to you that the ending of your story is not yet written. But I do think that this reflective time is good for you. Just don't fall in to the trap of thinking that you need to figure it all out.
Just be honest with yourself.
Feel what you feel, whatever it is. Let it wash over you, embrace it and own it.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
