Loving, Listening, and Letting Go..

[aeolianchaos]

I'm struggling with something.

I want to be the best A.C. That I can be. I really do. I want to be the strong, powerful, resolved, empathic, joyful, light, funny, compassionate, intelligent, good natured, confident, well balanced, charismatic, philosophical, nurturing, soulful person that I know I'm capable of being. I want to speak and act from the place that sees my own worth and doesn't need to make other people believe it for it to be real. The part that looks at myself and sees my value and potential.

But I am stuck on an issue that is really buggin me:

WAW has every right to make her life the way she wants it.

I have every right to make mine the way I want it.

She has chosen (at this point) to make her life without me in it as her husband. This is within her rights.
- She talks about her fear of losing me as her best friend. As the person who knows her better than anyone in the world. The person who she grew up with for the past decade.

But I have every right to choose not to have her in my life as a friend. This is within my rights.

But I don't know which choice I would respect myself more by making.

Certainly, a big part of this is the feeling that she gets to have it both ways. She never has to experience really missing me from her life if she knows I'll still be there as her friend.

If I'm friendly now, it is kind of weird to just disconnect completely if and when the D is final. If she is sincere about her fears of losing me as her friend, this will probably hurt her some.

If I'm friendly now and remain friendly, I'm probably in for a world of pain if and when the D is final and if and when she gets a new man in her life. It isn't as if the legal document actually changes the fact that I love this woman and want to be with her. And that we were together for a long time.

If I'm not friendly now, what good will it do me? It doesn't reflect who I am. It doesn't make me happy to be that way with anyone. It doesn't reflect the kind of person I want to be.

I can be friendly/warm/kind but it kind of makes completely dropping out of her life a little weird, doesn't it?

But I have to protect my own heart. Am I wrong to want to dodge the pain of being connected to her when I still love her and she just moves on in her life? Am I selling myself out by choosing to dodge something I could confront? Isn't this what I kvetch about her doing? I'm a hypocrite, if this is the case.

Am I setting up a situation with firm walls where it needs to be ambiguous? Am I solidifying something to my disadvantage when to leave it malleable and unstable could be the better path, potentially?