I notice that you didn't tell her that you aren't willing to be just friends with her. Does she already know this? At some point, she may need to hear it, or be reminded of it.
When we going through some rocky patches during our MR, I definitely mentioned to her that if we did end up splitting, from my perspective we'd likely never speak again. I said that not from a place of anger, but from a place of pragmatism: at that point, she would represent a very painful chapter of my life and a sad reminder of an assumed future lost.
Since the BD and S, we've seen each other a few times, including the helping-with-the-webpage that Steve85's 2x4ed me about. It's been very cordial and friendly; we fell into our usual rapport and it was pleasant despite the elephant in the background. But you are correct that right now I have a very hard time imagining a world where I could be emotionally comfortable with a platonic friendship. I don't know if really ever could, to be honest with you. I'm sure she knows this, but if you think it's worth reiterating, that'd be good to know. I guess by making it clear, it would take an option off the table: the easy option to get the best of both worlds, to keep my friendship and the years together, without the romantic component.
My ambivalence here comes from talking to a close friend who went through a similar situation and ended up reconciling with his WAW by resetting things, being her close friend, and then courting her and demonstrating that while he would OK without her, he was choosing to extend his hand to try again. That feels in opposition to some of the lessons I'm learning from veterans here. Is it just a function of when my friend hit the reset button and decided that he'd start again just as a friend, he had detached and thus had no ulterior motive to wanting to be her friend? In talking to him about it, he didn't really strike me as being detached from her. Or did he simply beat the odds?
