I think it really was MLC. For the first time in my life I couldn't do denial anymore. Anger, check. As for replay, I never met anyone I could run away with, what if I had? Also, I really didn't want to loose my H or my kids or my marriage, so that would have held me back. Fog, check. Memory loss, check. Changes in appearance, career, independance, check, check, and check. Withdrawal, check. Depression, check. Acceptance - confronting parents and what I now read about as crisis children, check and check. I had no idea until now what those angry outbursts were to my parents, or to everyone around me.
I truley believe now that MLC is a real thing, and different from WAS. I also think it's got a biochemical basis (thus the depression, cycling). I believe that one's psychology and biology are intertwinned (mind and body) and so it's the mental and life-time dissonance that leads to the body's biology to change, to the mania and depressive type behaviors, and importantly, to the fog and lack of memory. It would take a change in life to a more simple existence and a movement away from the stress triggers to allow it to slowly wind down.
Thus the only way they could come back is if 1) they didn't want to go in the first place and held onto you in the back of their minds AND you were there once everything wound down, or 2) everything wound down on it's own and they realized you were stil there and that you were a good thing for them all along.
My WH still needs space and time, to bring him back now would probably just lead to cake eating, but boy do I ever need to detach for my own good. I wish he hadn't left the home, and created a sitch where the kids and I were forced into developing a new life mostly independant of him.
How do I NOT date him, because I know he needs more time and space, and move on with my life, while still... what is that expression... keeping the candle in the window (maybe)?
