If you made it to 6 months of no contact with your ex, you’ve done pretty well. You’ve endured the hardest days of no contact and learned to resist the temptation to contact your ex and make your ex feel uncomfortable. No contact has returned some of your lost power and showed you that you can be happy or perhaps even beh happier without your ex.
It may not have brought your ex back or healed you fully just yet, but it’s put you on the right path. As long as you’re adhering to the rules of no contact every dumpee should follow, you’re giving your ex the space he or she badly needs to enjoy the breakup, You’re also allowing yourself to detach and mind your own business, which is what no contact is all about.
Most dumpees initially start no contact to get back with their ex. But when they realize they feel safer in no contact than they do by interacting with their ex, they don’t want to go back to talking to their ex and trying to impress their ex. They’d rather feel in control of their emotions than risk getting rejected again.
I don’t blame them. After what they’ve been through, I’m not surprised they consider their ex a threat to their well-being. They’ve suffered enough to understand that chasing their ex’s recognition is unhealthy and the wrong thing to do.
6 months of no contact might feel like a long time without hearing from your ex, but it’s not enough to go back to talking to your ex and pretending you want to be friends. Not only is it too early for you to act like nothing happened, but it’s also too early for your ex. If your ex is like most dumpers, your ex associates negative beliefs with your persona and feels uncomfortable at the thought of speaking with you.
We could say, your ex self-victimizes and uses bad memories and negative emotions to justify his or her abandonment or behavior.
While your ex feels victimized and sees no reason to talk and improve things, you don’t have a choice but to stay in no contact. You must stay committed to it whether it’s been 6 months or 6 years. Time in no contact is irrelevant when you, your ex, or both feel emotions you don’t want to feel.
Your priority is to get yourself back. Once you’ve done that, you can figure out if you want to get back together or move forward with your life. But for now (6 months into no contact), your top priority is to fully detach from your ex and find the enthusiasm to invest in yourself and in relationships with people who share mutual desires and values.
Your ex has no place in your daily life. Not while you still want to be with your ex.
So if you’ve managed to make it to the 6th month of no contact, bear in mind that you’ve made it through the storm. You’ve taken no contact seriously and dealt with self-doubts, insecurities, and fears of the unknown. Despite feeling tempted to reach out and try to fix things with love and willpower, you trusted the no-contact process and stayed committed to it.
Your actions proved that you’re capable of handling the breakup confidently when emotions run high. You’re capable of leaving your ex alone and focusing on things or people who deserve you.
Now that you’ve been in no contact for 6 months, bear in mind that things are going to keep getting better. You’re going to feel more detached and stronger and need your ex less as time goes by. Your strength, happiness, achievements, and goals will prove that you’re handling the breakup well and that full recovery is only a matter of time.
Many dumpers reach out between the 4th and 6th month of no contact. They reach out when they enjoy their space for a while and start feeling guilty, nostalgic, bored, or curious. Usually, they feel some unwanted emotion or need something from their ex. If you don’t hear from your ex soon, it doesn’t mean you never will. Your ex might also reach out a year or two after the breakup/into no contact.
It’s hard to predict if or when your ex will reach out because it depends on how things ended and your ex’s post-breakup experiences and ways of dealing with them.
Just keep in mind that you could hear from your ex when your ex stops blaming you for the breakup and admits to having played a role in the breakup. When that happens, your ex could check up on you and directly or indirectly try to forgive himself or herself for all the problems he or she has caused you.
In this article, we discuss what 6 months of no contact mean and what you can expect going forward.
What do 6 months of no contact mean for you and your ex?
For a dumpee, 6 months of no contact is a milestone that indicates strength and perseverance. The dumpee usually sees that he or she doesn’t need the dumper to enjoy life and that life keeps improving without the dumper. It’s certainly not the end of the world as it first seemed, but rather, an opportunity to take life in a new direction.
If the dumpee takes the breakup seriously, he or she should notice some personal improvements 6 months into no contact. The dumpee should see that as much as the breakup sucked, it helped him or her mature and prepare for a new serious relationship. 6 months of self-investment should start to pay off and become evident to the dumpee and others.
Besides noticing your growth, you should also feel much better. You should still miss your ex (at least occasionally) and want your ex to validate you. Half a year of no contact is usually not enough to completely disconnect from the dumper and want nothing to do with him or her. It’s enough just to regain focus and see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Your ex, on the other hand, must also be doing much better. He or she doesn’t feel trapped, pressured, and annoyed anymore. Since you’ve left him or her alone for half a year, you’ve allowed your ex to process the hardest breakup emotions and think more positively about you. Don’t get me wrong, your ex probably still has negative feelings and reservations, but your ex doesn’t despise you and feel as overwhelmed as he or she did during or after the breakup.
Space has allowed your ex to focus on him/herself and feel happy and relieved.
Just as you think about your ex, your ex also thinks about you. It may not be as often as you’d like it to be, but your ex is probably curious about you, checks your social media from time to time, and tries to learn new things about you. The things your ex learns about you help your ex satisfy his or her curiosity and alleviate his or her guilty conscience.
Clearly, your ex hasn’t become regretful yet otherwise your ex would have reached out and asked for another chance. But your ex has made some emotional improvements. He or she has processed parts of the breakup and stopped feeling bothered by you. It will take time for your ex to fully process everything, but time is on your side.
The longer you focus on yourself and the things that matter, the better you’ll feel and the more you’ll grow.
All in all, 6 months of no contact is a big achievement. Since you’ve managed to make it this far, you can make it to the end of the recovery process as well. Whether it takes a few months or another half a year, you’ll eventually get your ex out of your system and fall back in love with yourself. When that happens, you’ll stop caring how your ex thinks about you and care more about how you think about yourself.
Give it time and you’ll get through the breakup.
As for your ex, your ex will keep moving forward. If your ex doesn’t encounter any major problems, your ex probably won’t come back. It’s unlikely that your ex will miss you romantically and want you back without a reason. Dumpers come back when they experience pain and lack the tools to deal with it. They don’t come back just because they had a decent relationship with their ex and miss the fun times.
If it were that easy, most dumpers would come back. It wouldn’t even take them a few weeks to realize what a mistake they made.
So keep in mind that your ex needs a good reason to come back. Your ex must get hurt and learn that the life he or she abandoned was more fulfilling, safe, or convenient than the life he or she lives now. Such a realization could incentivize your ex to come back 6 months into no contact or years later.
I couldn’t tell you when or if your ex comes back because I don’t know what kind of problems your ex will face without you and how he or she will deal with them. If your ex has good coping mechanisms and support systems, your ex might not need your help. He or she might rely on him/herself or others and continue to think negatively about you.
How your ex thinks about you depends on how the relationship was/ended and what your ex is like as a person. If your ex tends to despise his or her exes, your ex probably has a victim mentality and can’t recognize his or her own flaws. An ex like that is likely to get hurt but unlikely to admit it was his or her fault.
It takes a certain amount of self-awareness to take accountability and think positively about the dumpee. The dumper must respect the dumpee and return the stolen power.
Having said that, here’s what 6 months of no contact mean for you and your ex.
Aim for 1 year of no contact
No contact is indefinite, which means you must stay in it until you’re ready for friendship or until your ex wants you back. Don’t break no contact prematurely and hope that your ex will take you back. If you reach out to your ex, chances are your ex will treat you poorly, reject you, or both. Your ex won’t make you feel how you want to feel because your ex isn’t waiting for you to reach out and get back together.
Your ex is focusing on himself or herself and living on his or her terms.
So don’t pin your hopes on your ex. You’ve been in no contact for 6 months and built up your self-esteem. The last thing you want is for your ex to ruin it again and disorient you. It wasn’t easy to start no contact, but it’s getting easier. You don’t have as many and as painful setback days as you used to have.
This shows no contact is working and that you should stay in it until you’re fully healed.
Your next milestone is 1 year of not talking to your ex. You’ll feel even stronger mentally and emotionally when you don’t see or hear from your ex for a year. Not only will you miss your ex less, but you’ll also be preoccupied with things that empower you and give you meaning.
To stay committed to no contact past the 6-month mark, remember that your ex left you with no choice but to cut him or her off and that no contact is essential for your healing. Without no contact, you’ll need much longer to detox from your ex and find purpose outside of the relationship with your ex.
It’s not impossible to get over the breakup without no contact, but it is significantly harder. Hence, I strongly urge you to remind yourself about the benefits of no contact and the consequences of not giving your ex space. When you understand that no contact is the best solution to your problems, you’ll stay loyal to it even when you feel sad and nostalgic.
If you want your ex back, keep in mind that your ex needs tons of space and that your ex must find a reason to reconnect romantically. He or she may not be looking for it directly, but that doesn’t mean your ex can’t find it indirectly – by chance. If something goes wrong, your ex could get hurt, reflect, and want you back for validation purposes.
I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but do remember that exes come back years later as well. There’s no set timeframe for when that might happen, so it’s best to keep moving forward with your life and act as if your ex isn’t coming back. That way, you’ll consider your ex a person from the past and invest your time and feelings in more deserving people and things.
How do you feel 6 months into no contact? What are you struggling with the most? Share your post-breakup experience below the post.
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My name is Zan and I’m the founder of Magnet of Success. I enjoy writing realistic relationship and breakup articles and helping readers heal and grow. With more than 5 years of experience in the self-improvement, relationship, and breakup sphere, my goal is to provide advice that fosters positivity and success and avoids preventable mistakes and pain. Buy me a coffee, learn more about me, or get in touch today.
