GM It is such a hard tightrope to walk - honouring our past and our love for the spouse, keeping going in the present, and moving into an unknown future.
I am glad that I continued to honour my feelings of love for my xh, because of who it makes me today, if that makes sense? It was hard to recognise that I still loved him - some spouses actually do cease to love the ex spouse, and I absolutely understand that, but there isn't a 'one size fits all'.
Clearly there are people who are stuck, but that is different. The point I was trying to make on my own thread, is that we move to a different place without outraging our feelings. It takes time, but it is an organic process of healing, with love for what we had, so that our past is integrated into who we are and are becoming.
So I do not say the past is over. you are intelligent enough to know that your xh is another place, but the feelings that bound you together will not go away quickly, and probably never fully.
I am pleased that I still love my xh. Not in a devoted 'I am simply sitting waiting for you to come back' way. Truthfully I think he may never do that, and I OK with that, now.
We have to get to another place in our way, at our own pace, and I spent a lot of time feeling guilty because i cherished feelings of love for my xh 'after all he had done' as friends used to say.
I kept the feelings to myself, but I want you to know that I believe what you are feeling is normal, and actually emotionally healthy. There is someting very wrong with your xh, and he wasn't always like this. If he had been you either would never have married him in the first place, or you would have headed for the hills.
