It’s Just A Word I spent most of my adult life not knowing what the hell “romance” means on a fundamental level. I can (and did) enact the romance tropes of buying flowers, lighting candles, getting dressed up and taking a woman out. Proposing over hot chocolate after a sleigh ride in a ski resort’s yurt-thingy by playing the podcast episode I knew she wouldn’t have had time to listen to yet, wherein I proposed in the intro. But all of it was LARPing. It’s what you do because you know it makes the other person happy.
It's been my experience that women care whether I do romantic actions/gestures, and they care that those actions come from a place of genuine love and desire. And they care that those actions aren't things they have to ask for individually (ie, if she asks "will you do something romantic" and I do X, that might or might not count depending on the woman and situation. But if she asks "Will you do X romantic thing?" Then doing X almost never counts as romantic. You have to come up with X yourself.)
But it's also been my experience that women don't care so much whether the actions come from a genuine NRE emotional state. It's the actions, and the fact that they come from a place of love and desire (and from a desire to maintain and cultivate that love and desire) that are the important things. Women aren't stupid and they know relationships don't stay new and exciting forever. But the action is important because it is a way of putting effort in to show you still care. It's a form of costly signalling, which uses actions that would spontaneously result from NRE as a medium. But the NRE stuff is the medium, not the message. The message is: "I love you and desire you. I want to keep being with you. You are special to me and I don't take you for granted." And if you can honestly say all those things, then it's not a lie, romantic feelings or not!
It might be more helpful to think of romantic gestures as a LARP, or a mutual relationship improv show. Everyone is aware that you're doing the thing because it's romantic, just like improvvers are aware they are saying things because they are funny. Since everyone knows that, neither improvvers nor romancers are lying. And that doesn't make improv unfunny, or make romantic acts unromantic.
It sounds like your ex-wife was not like my experience, and she really cared about the nuances of your internal emotional state. Bummer. But your current relationship person might be okay with just some romantic behaviors plus the knowledge that they come from a place of genuine love of whichever kind is typical for you. (This seems especially likely if you two have talked about you being aromantic before.) Big and much better than lying, if true.
It's been my experience that women care whether I do romantic actions/gestures, and they care that those actions come from a place of genuine love and desire. And they care that those actions aren't things they have to ask for individually (ie, if she asks "will you do something romantic" and I do X, that might or might not count depending on the woman and situation. But if she asks "Will you do X romantic thing?" Then doing X almost never counts as romantic. You have to come up with X yourself.)
But it's also been my experience that women don't care so much whether the actions come from a genuine NRE emotional state. It's the actions, and the fact that they come from a place of love and desire (and from a desire to maintain and cultivate that love and desire) that are the important things. Women aren't stupid and they know relationships don't stay new and exciting forever. But the action is important because it is a way of putting effort in to show you still care. It's a form of costly signalling, which uses actions that would spontaneously result from NRE as a medium. But the NRE stuff is the medium, not the message. The message is: "I love you and desire you. I want to keep being with you. You are special to me and I don't take you for granted." And if you can honestly say all those things, then it's not a lie, romantic feelings or not!
It might be more helpful to think of romantic gestures as a LARP, or a mutual relationship improv show. Everyone is aware that you're doing the thing because it's romantic, just like improvvers are aware they are saying things because they are funny. Since everyone knows that, neither improvvers nor romancers are lying. And that doesn't make improv unfunny, or make romantic acts unromantic.
It sounds like your ex-wife was not like my experience, and she really cared about the nuances of your internal emotional state. Bummer. But your current relationship person might be okay with just some romantic behaviors plus the knowledge that they come from a place of genuine love of whichever kind is typical for you. (This seems especially likely if you two have talked about you being aromantic before.) Big and much better than lying, if true.