I (35M) need help communicating how I feel to my ex-partner (35F), current friend, that I love her but am not in love with her, without hurting her?

Apologies for grammer and punctuation, writing on my phone and I’m tired and needed to get this out there.

Background: My ex who I will refer to as Sarah and I were together 3.5 years from 2019-2022. We get along amazing, barely fought (when we did it was my bullshit). She’s an amazing, giving, supportive and a beautiful person, inside and out. Initially when we started dating, I fell in love with her, felt like maybe she was someone I could see a future with. For me that was big having some major attachment issues, I’d only allowed myself 1 relationship prior to this. However around the 1 year mark of the relationship, I started feeling less attraction. She didn’t change but for some reason I just wasn’t feeling it. I pushed through that for another two years before finally deciding I had to end things for her and I. Reason it took so long was because I wanted to be sure it wasn’t something wrong with me because everything else in the relationship was so good, like hanging with your best friend. I had been in a MVA that left me with some permanent damage, which was and still is hard to accept at times and affects me negatively. We were renting her parents suite at the time so the breakup was extremely tough mentally on me, I broke up with the whole family. (I’m an ex foster kid and she has an amazing family) I got through that, we maintained friendship and it’s come up to about the year mark since we split. Problem is is through this injury I pushed a lot of people away and she kind of became my person. Since breaking up but with the odd exception, she has almost been over every weekend since the breakup. A lot due to the codependency we had created through pandemic. She was really lonely & missed my dog when we split (who wouldn’t he’s a gem 🙂 ) so I encouraged her to adopt a pooch (if that’s what she wanted) which she asked for my help to train since I’m quite proficient and experienced. Now our dogs are bonded and I love her little pup Gracie may as much as I love my boy. Further complicating things 🙁

Now I have maintained the fact that I just want to be friends, had conversations about it multiple times & given no signals in any other direction. Sarah’s been respectful & nothing intimate has happened in that year. And she has said she understands but I can’t help but feel she’s just waiting for me to change my mind. When she sleeps over she will still change in front of me, make sure she shows up looking great and while I am a dumb male, I’m pretty sure that’s not a normal happening in friend scenario. There’s other small cues I pick up on as well.

The reasons I gave for breakup were as follows:

1. She wants children where as I don’t, I don’t want her to sacrifice her dreams for me. -True

2. Their family life was very close and I felt overwhelmed a lot, coming from a dysfunctional childhood with portions in foster care, I feel very uncomfortable around healthy family environments, with major imposter syndrome- True (although this is something I’m working on) ideally for me maybe a partner that also doesn’t have as much family involvement.

3. I needed space – Also true and tied to the family issues.

The reasons I left out:

1. I left out the not having the mental & physical attraction anymore because she is a beautiful girl and come hell or high water I don’t want to say something that could be so hurtful and I know she has confidence issues. – she believed after the baby talk I didn’t want to chance it.

2. As much as I love her as person and friend I don’t believe she’s quite my intellectual match. I mean this as nicely as possible. Its hard for me to articulate this properly, but I just know she’s not the one for me, I’m looking for some different traits in a potential partner. I was someone who is as passionate as I am, challenges me on the things I need to be challenged on. (Beliefs, behavioral issues, whatever it is)

I love Sarah but it feels like platonic love. I would give her the shirt off my back if she needed it and I will always be there for her. If she called me and said she needed me I would be there and I know she would too.

I thought that she might have taken the signs up to this point but I can still feel her there. I’m very intuitive and this I know.

I don’t like that feeling, At this juncture in my life I need to be free, I am working on healing myself and trying to find how to be happy. Something I have never been able to sustain, even since I was young.

I get a lot of anxiety over hurting people, that I think I can only have this conversation one more time with her before I get frustrated and I really really want to prevent saying something I don’t mean.

MY QUESTION IS THIS:

How can I let her know that there’s absolutely no chance of a future romantic relationship between us while still letting her know how much I DO care still and not hurting her confidence or feelings.

Might be a good idea to develop some further ground rules to help with the codependancy.

Kind knowledgeable fine folks of Reddit, I come to you in my hour of need and humby beg for your advice.

Yours truly,

A work in progress

TLDR – I am still good friends with my ex and I have moved on but she still hasn’t. I want to be able to keep the friendship but need her to fully understand we are not going to date again, in a way that preserves her confidence and self worth.