i don’t know if this is the answer you’re looking for, but heraclitus once said that you can never step into the same river twice; not because the river is gone, but because both the water and you are always in constant motion. love is never just a single act directed at a fixed target, but something more akin to the continuous choosing of a moving [person]. i think the gentlest thing you can ask yourself right now is whether you are choosing them today, or the version of them you’ve memorized from before.

you mentioned that one is meant to love without expecting to receive, and while i do think mature love is an active practice of giving, it is never /ever/ supposed to be self-erasure. giving should come from a place of abundance, not from the terror of being unloved back or losing someone. so please know that 'loving without expecting' does not mean you have to forfeit your right to feel the painful distance between you two. you are so allowed to feel that gap :(

if the love they are expressing has become entirely private—legible only to them, but invisible to you—then you aren't just dealing with a communication issue, sweetheart. you might be facing a shared reality problem. a language only one person can verify isn't really a language at all, as meaning requires a shared framework... two people can love each other sincerely and still inhabit such entirely different inner worlds that the love just fails to land anywhere between them. and i want you to know that is not a moral failure on your part, or theirs.

how do you ease yourself in the midst of all this? i think you have to gently acknowledge what is actually making your heart feel so heavy right now... maybe it isn't the absence of their love at all, but rather the loss of a shared language between you two. and that is its own very valid grief. you have to give yourself the exact same charity you are giving them. you are changing too, and you are so so allowed to need a love that reaches you in a form you can actually feel and receive. the inability to verify their love does not mean you are the error in the equation. your worth is still entirely whole and untainted.

love isn't just a feeling we project outward, it’s a condition we have to live inside of. you are allowed to ask if the condition you are living in right now is one that actually lets you breathe. i hope you find your breath again soon... i am holding your hand through this <3