Oldtimers: Return or not..what finally happened?

[WCW]

IMO people stop posting after years of waiting on a wayward spouse to return because it gets tiring and causes pain when other people here openly criticize people for staying in a M.
Is a timeline important?
How do you know how long to wait?
If you had power of attorney and a high school friend was laying in a coma on life support, when do you decide to pull the plug?
The next day? the next week? in a year? in 4 years?

Who can decide to pull the plug on a M except the 2 people involved? Live and tolerate until you can't, then change what you have to. That change is different for each of us.

Guidelines are great, it does help to have some kind of timeline to compare too. We have to remember that it is just exactly that - a guideline - not a textbook that every sitch adheres too.