My typically overly intellectual thoughts on all this:

I think the essence of this, is that some people think of "love" as a thing. An independent sort of condition, or even a mode of existence that humans "contract" like a benevolent disease.

So they talk about "trying to get love back" or "trying to keep love alive" or "putting in the effort to make love work," as though it's a matter of adjusting the timing of the spark, and cleaning the fuel filter.

But I don't think love IS a "thing," in any way shape or form. In this particular case,I wouldn't say that one person was "deeply" in love with the other at the wrong time. Actually, I think that especially in this case, "deeply in love" actually means "self-blinded by delusions and desires." Or maybe "ready to buy a ticket on the happily ever after cartoon train ride."

From what I've seen and been through, I know that love IS real, but not in the way that too many people try to deal with it. It's not a crop that you can plant at the right time, or properly feed and water. It's independent of all that, which is why I can and do love all sorts of people and non-people in many different ways.

The thing about relationships with love, is that we have to live in a world, and we have to live ever evolving and changing lives, in an uncooperative environment. We can love someone, but be on such different paths, that no life together is feasible. We can have the opposite too, where we can live with the other person and get along famously, but not have any particular love for them. Or at least not the kind of love that makes for passion and all that fun fantasy stuff.

And too, the kind of passionate love many of us want, requires the same element of FAITH, that goes in to religious beliefs of any kind. Once you lose that faith, there's no way to artificially bring it back.