hiya mate, i dont really know if anything like this can be specifically defined, as everyone is different and has individual feelings. All i can tell you is my experience on the subject.
My bf finished with me in february, he said he was fed up in the relationship and didnt love me anymore. I was heartbroken. But i stayed away from him completely and made absolutely no contact with him at all, i got a new job and threw myself into that, made lots of new friends and eventually got myself a new boyfriend.
During this time I lost touch with friends that were mutual between me and my ex, simply because i wanted to stay away from him.
Around July, i saw these mutual friends and my ex in a club in my local town but i didnt go over at all. I got home later that night and my ex rang me for a chat and eventually i ended up seeing him and our mates once or twice a week, on a purely friendship basis (i was with another bloke) and i thought he had no more interest in me at all.
After about a month of this my ex confessed everything. How bad he felt finishing with me, how much he missed me, that life wasnt the same and he didnt want anyone else, he wanted me back. I told him it was dificult because he had told me he didnt love me anymore.
He told me he never stopped loving me. He thought he had because we were going through a rough patch at the time and he was fed up, but he realised what he had lost when i was gone and that he hadnt fallen out of love with me. He fought hard to get me back and since then things have never been better.
Sorry for the long story but what im trying to demonstrate is in my opinion, once you stop loving someone that is it, i dont think you can ever love someone again. I think what happens is people think they have stopped loving thier partner because they are fed up in the relationship and can only see the bad, so they think the love has gone. What happens then is once the split has happened and they have had time on thier own and without you that they then have the chance to realise they do still love you.
Doesnt happen with everyone that splits, but in my eyes i think that a split or break is sometimes what it takes for people to realise what they had, whether the split is a 2 months or 5 years.
Hope this helps mate, good luck xxx
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