Believe in love again

I had a loveless marriage that lasted 7 years. After I found the courage to take control of my life again, I pushed my divorce through and found independence. I also found love in my best friend. It began as a friendship then blossomed into a best friend beyond expectation. Sometime after that we found that we were truly soulmates and love bursted from us both. We lived our lives in the blissful dream of making a life together, until one day he decided that the chemistry we had as lovers somehow disappeared. My soul had completely evaporated. For almost 6 months I couldn’t even think of him without breaking down in tears. So, I erased him from my life and broke all contact with him. I had lost my best friend and a love that exceeded all boundaries in one smooth blink of an eye. It was though he did not exist, I cut all ties. However he was trying and trying to contact me, to talk, to email to.. anything at all. Eventually I gave in and accepted his phone call one day. He had not ‘changed his mind’ but missed me, his best friend, more than ever. Slowly, and I mean VERY slowly, I let him back into my life as my best friend and we are back to that level of friendship again. I have no idea how we made it through all that drama, but we did. However… it has changed my idea on “love”, or at least my perception of it. And afterall, perception is reality isn’t it? I am not sure if I don’t trust “love” or if I don’t trust my perception of it. Either way I find it VERY hard to make a commitment to someone. I am seeing a gentleman now, who is very kind and loving at heart but I just can’t say the words “I love you”, nor can I stand to hear them. I just think they are empty and misused. I’d like to change my ‘perception’...but I don’t know how to or where to begin doing so.