That is what I am struggling with most, that thought that he has lost the love, and what are the chances that he will get it back?
This is normal I think. I, and several others are struggling with questions like this right now.
I think it is entirely possible to get the "love" back, although it very well may look different than before, because both parties have changed. If the MLC'er has processed their demons, and also the LBS, then what "was" can be restored if even in a different flavor, with new understanding, etc.
I fear that my W will do what her Dad did, emotionally "check-out" for 20 years, but not "leave" leave, only to "return" when diagnosed with cancer. There is a family history there that nibbles at my mind. The thought of that and no intimacy for 20 years scares, and discourages, me. Many, many times I have thought "This is my chance to get away from this, the problems and issues, I have "full justification", why don't I take it and start over?"
But, I think of my best friend through teenage years and through early married days, we are in different parts of the country, rarely communicate, but when we do, that old connection and trust comes right back, though we are different people now. In matters of the heart, time doesn't seem to exist the same way as it does in "normal" time.
I think this is why the reconnection "stage" is so hard, you see the real person again, but they aren't quite all there consistently. You see the possibility, yet, we know now that possibility doesn't mean it will be.
Possible, but not guaranteed. Like most, if not al, things in life. And this is the big life lesson for us right there, reality, versus social programming.
As Snodderly says, sit quietly, go about your business, the answers will come...
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus
Uncertainty is the very condition which impels people to unfold their powers.-Eric Fromm
