@Neizvestnaya Thanks for the kind words. Moving on is certainly the best thing for both of us, and I’m trying now to make new connections and start over with someone new, though I suspect it’s going to be a long time before I can bring myself to enter another real, long term relationship again. It just seems better to make new friends and see where it takes me.
The funny thing is that through all this, yesterday, she actually decided to contact me, and we spoke for a couple hours, and for the first time in six months. It was painful, yet amicable. I was so relieved to know that I could still make her laugh. Everyone who told me to wait was right, but what I didn’t reveal was that it had already been a long time since she has considered us broken up, even if I didn’t get it until a couple weeks ago. It turned out that she was done with crying and feeling hurt, and wanted to be able to move on happily as much as I do, not forgetting the past, but learning from it and putting those lessons into our new lives. Hopefully the groundwork is there to be meaningful friends, moving forward. I’m still not sure how well that will work in the long term after so many broken dreams and pain, but I’m feeling a lot better, and I’m sure she’s just a bit happier too.
Thanks again to everyone for the support.