Now I understand what she felt, when things went platonic, and the love went away. I guess it just took me 6 months to stop cycling and resisting the acceptance of it from how I remembered her before BD. Is this what "dropping the rope" feels like? Acceptance? Just starting to have a realization of how women, especially WAW'S live in the present, and how much some men LBS can be stuck in the past with feelings of history of who they thought they knew. Takes em a while to catch up.
Yes, acceptance is definitely the key word. It doesn't mean you'll never feel sadness or melancholy at what once was, but it does mean it won't wreck your day when you remember "the good ol' days". You'll come to accept that whatever you had before really is gone and will never come back, and you'll accept that it probably happened for reasons beyond your control and that you have to move on and let her move on. And most importantly- you are OK with that. Not great with it, not ecstatic, just OK. You accept it.
For me at some point I realized that my marriage was destined to change substantially anyway. What I loved about my old life wasn't specifically my W (although I did love her), but was the whole package. Being a dad, going to school events, being relied on by my kids and W, being an important part of their lives as they were in mine, being "intertwined" with W, the kids, my in-laws, our extended family. It really was wonderful. BUT IT WAS DESTINED TO CHANGE NO MATTER WHAT. 2 of my 3 kids have grown up, graduated college, moved out, taken on jobs. And the 3rd is 16 now and very independent. Much of our extended family on both sides has passed away. I cried when I sent my D's off to college. Cried like a baby. Cried because I missed putting them to bed at night and talking about when Santa would come and holding them when they got scared and coming home from work to ask how their day was and staying with them when they were sick. I miss that so much, and I will until the day I die. Heck I can't even type it without getting teary-eyed. I still have a wonderful relationship with my kids but it's very different than it was back then. The same could be said about my XW, we have a great relationship but it's not the same as it used to be. I'm no longer a father to little kids or husband to a young woman. And even had we stayed married I still wouldn't be that.
Life is constantly changing and evolving and we don't control it. We roll with it and make the best of it, because it's all we can do.
