Been there and its tough. You say she has drifted, okay accept it. It is hard I know but you cannot make someone love you. You want to stay friends but you will have to put some distance in between you and her before that can happen. In the mean time embrace the opportunity for change. Work out, buy some new duds, make your place nice, clean your car or try something new, maybe go on a trip somewhere. First the big rule in any relationship is, how can you expect your partner to fancy you if no one else does.
You seem like a nice guy and yes there will be other women out there who will love that. I know its too soon at the moment but call it a work in progress. Alcohol is a good short term emotional anesthetic and good mates to share it with can help but its not a long term solution. Try and make yourself a better man. If nothing else, when you meet your ex, do you want her to see a sad sack still grieving for her or a smart dressed, interesting, fit fellow who has moved on? Which one do you think she would want to talk to?

You survived before her, you’ll live after. It’s painful to lose one you love, but do your grieving time and move on. I am one that thinks it’s a bad idea to remain friends IF one or both partners are still wanting more. I think you should cut all ties so that you can focus on you and moving forward.

If you are lost without her, you are dependent on her, which is not a good thing.

It's not healthy to share time with an ex partner if you're both splitting but one party is still in love with the other. This is masochistic.

You need severance, to be alone and away from this person so that you can heal and find yourself again and perhaps find the person you were before you met her.

The only way through this is to split and to grieve. If your ex partner knows you're still in love with her but she continues to maintain a relationship with you - she's selfish.

I hope you have some good friends. It is wise to cultivate and nurture your interests, passions and hobbies.

You got some really good advice here. For my 2 cents, I want to add the caveat that this is me talking to myself after a somewhat similar situation happened to me after a 13 year relationship. This is the me to me honest conversation afterwards; use anything that is helpful and ignore anything that isn't.

<exercise>
Your attachment is a conditioned response to hide your fear. Stop cowering like a child and own this: she is gone. The honest brutal truth is that you are alone and no one will save you: all life is fleeting and everyone is transient if only because we all die. Lose your illusion. Your doting is appeasement because you are afraid of being alone and that keeps your strength, boldness, and honesty shackled. It makes you boring, mechanistic, conquerable, and pathetic. Stand up and stop being a piece of shit. Grow a spine and find someone that is a partner. You have value, so behave appropriately and don't waste energy appeasing or spending time with people that don't want to spend time with you. She doesn't want to be with me? Good. She will know the loss of not having me in her life because I will build a life and soul enviable by anyone. If I live it right, she will want some part of me back and I won't care either way. Get off your fat fucking ass, tend the wounds, grab this life by the lapel and command it to be what you want. You have this until you die. The clock is ticking. Move, you pussy!
</ exercise>

I had to go find this writing for you and copy out here. Reading it is tough because I remember those tears well. I feel a little naked posting it, but that's ok. As you can tell, I tend to be somewhat harsh inwardly. Still, I was right and my current life demonstrates this.

This is hard, but you will be fine if you know the value of your life. You don't know it yet, but you are on the verge of becoming who you really are. Go get it, man!

All the best!

Separation is a shock to the system. It takes time to adjust. Every case is different, but once I adjusted, I learned to love the freedom. I still crave that closeness with someone, but do so now in a context that also gives me some (plenty) of my own space.

You need some distractions right now. Start going to the cinema. Find a hobby. Find something decent to watch on Netflix. See if you can rekindle friendships that you've inevitably neglected while in a relationship.

This is a bereavement, it hurts like hell. Worse in some ways because they are still alive. My ex remarried and I was trully devastated. You simply have no choice, hold on tight it won't be fun but you can find fun in your memories and in a new single life. You will eventually come to terms with this loss and you will move on. Be super super gentle with yourself, cry when you need, stay around friends, do nice things for yourself and keep your heart open. You will get through this and you will smile again. My love goes out to you...I genuinely mean that xxx

You are about to bea single guy in an age group with not very many good men in it. Fasten your seatbelt, sweetie, a year from now you will be Happy, I promise! Just do yourself a favor & watch some Judge Judy to learn the pitfalls, like golddiggers & needy users.
You are now a prime commodity, act like it & be picky!

Time to cut ties and move on. Time will heal you.

It's sad. No doubt. You're not alone. It happens and can happen to all of us. The folks on here are giving you good advise. A lot of it is hard to do, because it's happening to you, personally. but you need to move on. You don't want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with you. That's worse than being alone. Like with AA, one day at a time. There are stages of grief as with a death. It is a death. The death of your relationship. It's hard to imagine but one day you'll get over it.

Soon after my divorce and I am living at my friends. Bitterness and anger were my drinking companions. The stereo was in loop, as the morning light came though the window this song awoke/helped me move on. That was 25 years, 3 great loves and a beautiful daughter ago. There is light at the end of this tunnel. You just have to open your eyes enough.

Hmm..that's a bad situation. I can only offer the advice in the book "The Rules"; detach yourself completely immediately. Don't contact her in ANY way, for any reason, and if she contacts YOU, don't reply for at least a day, each time.
Seem too busy and happy with your new life to even notice her. When you do talk to her, seem distracted and leave as soon as possible. She'll wonder if you're meeting a new woman.

Make sure you actually are meeting up with other people, going out with them, etc..

Delete the ex immediately from all social media, join community groups that do activites you're interested in. Travel. Do outdoor hobbies you like that your wife might not have approved, such as rock climbing and kayaking. You are sure to meet women who are fellow enthusiasts.

Learn to dance..there's always a man shortage at ballroom dance classes and even the homeliest men are besieged by women at dances, if they learn to dance well.

Learn to do foot massages, and when word gets out, women will line up around the block!

Sounds like you may need to force yourself to keep some emotional and physical distance between the two of you. It's not easy, I know, but until you can be with her or even think of her without the expectation of reciprocated love you have to make some space to recreate you. Remember she has made it clear that she is done and you can't compel someone to love you. @NicoleCadmium had an excellent suggestion to find some distractions. If you have decent health insurance I would recommend finding a quality therapist: it may take a couple of tries before you find the right one for you. Also plenty of self-help groups out there. I go to EA but once again: what works for you. I am going through something similar and based on my experience get ready for some failures in this process: some may even be epic but you CAN recover and make progress. You are not alone no matter how bleak this may seem. Peace.

Time to move on, face your reality. Never the love of one person is enough for the two of you.

Get out there and live.. Everyone has said it all.. Distractions of a positive nature. No easy answers to these ones! time is your friend .. much hugs fella.

Hey man, I sympathise but would like to throw a few thoughts you way.
I hope you and you wife can stay friends, but it will be hard quite often seeing someone you want to be with, who does not want to be with you, part of the reason I left a great job was so that I didn't have to keep seeing an ex at work every day, 19 years later we are still friends.

That people no longer feel the same about us does not make us or them bad people, we do all change so much in our lives, more and more in each generation, the chances of both changing and both staying compatible are slim.

Back before you got together, you could not make her want to be with you, that was something inside her, just as now you cannot make her want to stay with you.

My exwife and I were not in love, but things were ok for a long time, she changed badly to the point I took the kids and left, she is the only ex that hates me. I find it is often easier to let the other person find someone new first, there is a lot of pain when that happens. I found someone first so she is bitter. The fact that my new relationship only lasted 3 months mattered not at all.

Life goes on, you may find someone more suited for you at this time, you may not but humans adapt and after some pain and grief, life gets going again and becomes more positive.

I wish you well into the future.

I was in a similar circumstance, man. By the end, though, I didn’t want to be with her any more either. Actually, we’re still married but separated. You gotta move on. It might not be the wisest choice to try to stay friends after such a relationship. I think the first step, and the hardest one, is learning to be comfortable alone. Start doing the things you want to do in life, what makes you happy. Relationships make this more difficult because you have to accommodate someone else, but now you don’t have to. Enjoy it. Learn to love yourself like you loved her, and you won’t be lost any more.

There is lots of good advice here. Move on. Live. You can’t enjoy your present freedom if you’re stuck in a prison-like time capsule set in the past. Going over the same thoughts or emotions over and over again wasn’t sufficient to maintain your soon to be ex’s interest and will keep you from discovering all the other amazing things that are out there.

Well as A man who has been there, Done That, Has the hat, Tee Shirt, and all the banners. I can tell you Let her go! you can forever hold her close in your heart even if the feelings from her is not the same. I have held a deep love for someone for over fifty years. But Knowing she is happy makes loving her even better.
Remember the good, lock it away and move on with your life, You To should Be Happy!

King Peep, loss is hard to get over. The love of my life dumped me. I had moved and expected her to join me, but she dumped me after I moved. In winter. I really struggled. But what I ended up doing is making a list of everything I liked doing and making sure I did 3-5 of them every week. Outside hikes in the woods, play racketball, hear live music. And everytime I thought of her, I imagined taking her essence and putting it away in a lockbox. I imagined the box getting smaller and smaller. It took time, and a change of seasons, but a new rythym of life emerged, annd ultimately its toxic to want to be with someone who doesnt value you.

Its now been 30 years. I can't say I ever forgot her totally, but years have gone by when I didnt think of her.

You know the adage, "Make yourself interesting because it's the person you'll spend the most time with."

I find it fascinating that with 4 billion people on the planet that every one of them is different!

Yep. I agree with @birdingnut. I'm 1 week into my new life in my new state- our situations are incredibly similar. I've typed out full paragraphs and deleted them 3 times and started over. It's still too new for me and I just slip into a little fit of anger and sadness. As much as I would like too help, I'm having enough time pushing myself through mine.
But, I'm mostly in the "it is what it is, what can ya do?" mode... for the most part. It took me quite awhile to get here. You need to sever connections with her since the feelings are not mutual or equal. And see a pro. Really.

Im in a very similar if not the same boat my friend and it sucks big time, I've been exercising every day after work and it actually helps to feel like you're looking after yourself and taking your mind off things for a little bit, other than that I'm living alone and all my friends and family are miles and miles away, but there is still the phone when it gets too heavy, talking helps, even crying helps a bit, but I certainly don't think trying to be friends is helping you, if you can still be friends that will come later but you need to take time for you and rip the bandage off .

It's tough loving someone who doesn't feel the same way about you. As time goes on you might find that her emotional distance towards you will erode whatever love you might have felt for her but with these kinds of situations there's no guarantees. My advice is to keep your heart open, and don't only focus on the moon when there are other stars twinkling around you vying for your gaze. Who knows, maybe someone else will come along and help you forget about your soon-to-be ex wife.

After my first divorce I just dove back in... Found other great relationships and eventually my wife of nearly twenty years. You know what they say....

If at first you don't succeed...

My heart knows what you are feeling. The number of similar comments below speak the truth. You can cherish the past and you can come to cherish the future. Wish you the best.