Getting over someone you still love can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few years. While those are extremes, it typically takes 6 – 12 months, with the average being around 8 months.
Most dumpees notice significant emotional improvement around the 8th month, as that’s when they regain their emotional independence, rebuild their self-love, make permanent changes, and enjoy the life they built.
They no longer crave their ex’s recognition and expect their ex to solve their problems for them. They simply enjoy the moment and feel okay with not getting back together with their ex.
That’s what it means to be over an ex-partner.
How long it takes to get over someone you still love depends on many factors, including your self-esteem, perception of your ex, coping mechanisms, ability to let go, how busy you are, support system, stress management techniques, goals, independence, upbringing, your ex’s behavior, the intensity of the relationship, your attachment to your ex, experiences with breakups (first heartbreaks tend to be the hardest), and how you handle the breakup.
If you stay friends with your ex and see your ex dating other people, you’ll likely feel anxious and need much longer to process the feelings you need to process. Every time you see your ex happy, you’ll compare the new person to you and feel insecure.
This will reopen your wounds and restart your healing.
Therefore, the time it takes to recover from a breakup varies from person to person. Some people find healthy replacements for their ex and recover very quickly, whereas others engage in unproductive activities, blame themselves, and relive the breakup over and over again.
Those who have previously gone through a painful breakup often know that dwelling in misery, pity, and self-hatred won’t help them and that they should try to accept the breakup and get the most out of it.
Such dumpees have already learned to cope with rejection and have improved their self-esteem. They’ve become stronger and more resistant to personal rejections. Others, however, are still in the process of learning valuable breakup lessons, so it may take them a bit longer to stop taking rejection personally, let go of hope, heal, rebuild their confidence, and let go of the past.
No matter how long it takes, every dumpee can get over an ex-partner. It doesn’t matter if the dumpee was codependent, abusive/abused, manipulative, offensive, neglectful, unloving, or unwilling to change and evolve.
As long as the dumpee understands the importance of accepting the breakup and moving on, and wants to be happy again, the dumpee avoids making breakup mistakes and detaches more and more as time goes by.
Usually, dumpees move on relatively quickly. It’s primarily those who refuse to consider the relationship over, shower their ex with letters and gifts, and beg their ex for another chance who stay hooked on their ex for years.
Such dumpees constantly gain and lose hope and experience emotional rollercoasters of emotions that make it impossible to heal. They find it hard to let go because they believe they must fight for what they believe in.
Unhealthy convictions like this, followed by desperate actions, significantly lower their self-esteem and delay their detachment.
So if you’ve been broken up and want to know how long it takes to get over someone you still love, remember that it mainly depends on the life you lived until now. If you grew up in healthy family dynamics and developed healthy self-love and beliefs, you’ll recover much quicker than someone who was abandoned, mistreated, or forced to please his or her parents and developed a people-pleasing personality.
People-pleasers seek recognition from their partners, and, as a result, get devastated when the person they love rejects them. They stop feeling empowered by their ex and do everything in their power to reconcile.
The same goes for those who financially, physically, or in some other way depended on their ex for survival and happiness. If they’re not ready to live independent lives, they suffer immensely and need extra time to become independent and wean off their ex.
Detachment also depends on the dumper. If he or she constantly reaches out, rejects you, shares unpleasant information, blames you, or starts fights, your ex won’t let you move on peacefully.
Instead of allowing you to get used to a life without your ex, your ex will remind you what you’re missing out on and trigger your unmet needs.
That’s why it’s super important to cease all contact with your ex. The sooner you start putting yourself first, the sooner you can expect to stop obsessing over your dumper ex. You’ll heal quicker if you find ways to be happy without your ex.
Most dumpees’ healing accelerates when they get busy with their life. Busy means doing things that distract them and give their life meaning. Things like hanging out with friends, enjoying their hobbies, improving their shortcomings, exercising, and living as if their ex was never a part of their life.
Every person has different hobbies and ways of keeping themselves busy. You must find activities that not only occupy your time but also bring you joy and fulfillment.
Whether it’s through physical exercise, social interactions, education, or occupation, you must stay busy and focus on your goals. If you don’t know what you want and stay at home alone all the time, you’re bound to stay unhappy and consider your ex your savior.
So keep in mind that your post-breakup purpose is to rely on yourself for all the things you relied on your ex or did with your ex. Figure out how you can be as happy or even happier so that you can detach and forget about your ex.
It won’t be easy to leave your ex behind, but it will get much easier with time if you treat the breakup as a final ending rather than something temporary. That’s because you’ll see that your ex wasn’t perfect and that he or she made mistakes. Such observations will encourage you to lose hope and allow you to see the relationship from a rational perspective.
Today, we’re addressing one of the most common questions I get from dumpees: ‘How long does it take to get over someone you still love?’
How long does it take to get over someone you still love?
It’s impossible to predict how long it will take to get over an ex you still love. Since you lived a unique life and learned to deal with rejection differently than other dumpees, a big part of your healing process is shaped by your childhood and pre-breakup, breakup, and post-breakup experience.
If your ex cheated on you and replaced you with someone new, you’ve likely suffered a shock and need to first process the betrayal. You need to learn that your ex’s cheating had nothing to do with who you are as a person and that you mustn’t think poorly of yourself.
You didn’t choose the breakup. Your ex forced it on you, destroyed your self-esteem, and made you reliant on your ex for healing. Until you’ve stopped punishing yourself for your ex’s misdeeds and thinking highly of your ex, you shouldn’t expect to get over your ex.
You should expect to stay obsessed and incapable of seeing your own worth.
How long you stay obsessed depends on the intensity of the relationship and your attachment to your ex. If your relationship was filled with constant chaos, instability, or high levels of stress, you’ve probably become emotionally hooked on your ex.
You now crave the emotional intensity your relationship created and need to find a way to stop craving it. You can do this by realizing that your relationship wasn’t healthy and that you miss it for the wrong reasons.
Moreover, the detachment period increases when dumpees and dumpers interact with one another. Post-breakup texting, calling, or meeting up connects exes, makes them nostalgic, and tells them they could have what they lost if they do their best to stay patient.
This kind of thinking empowers them with false hope and makes their healing much more difficult. It’s hard to heal when they constantly feel abandoned, unwanted, or replaced.
To heal, dumpees must want to heal. They must understand that chatting with their ex is unlikely to recreate the spark necessary for changing their ex’s mind about the breakup.
Most of the time, communication with an ex is extremely counterproductive. Their ex’s unreceptiveness, impatience, or disinterest only hurts their feelings and makes them want their ex’s love and validation even more.
Communication keeps them anxious, depressed, and obsessed—and complicates their already complicated healing process.
Personality matters too. If they’re confident, strong-willed, and able to bounce back from challenges, they tend to recover quicker than dumpees who get angry and seek revenge.
Every person is different, so every dumpee needs a different amount of time to pull through the breakup. Their recovery rate depends on what they expect and how they deal with denial, hope, and feelings.
If they look for hope on the internet and convince themselves they’ll get their ex back by staying in their ex’s life and annoying their ex, they get rejected and pushed away. In other words, they suffer a blow to their self-esteem and have no choice but to deal with pain.
Dumpees must keep their expectations low as doing so helps them stay in reality and focused on the present moment. They must remind themselves that breakups happen for a reason and that they shouldn’t oppose their ex’s decision. Refusing to accept the breakup just makes them look weak and unattractive.
It sends the message that they are in denial and more of a burden than a benefit.
Another factor that determines how long it takes to get over someone you love is whether you’re following the rules of no contact and avoiding triggers that make you miss your ex.
If you’ve kept pictures of your ex on your walls and continue going to places that bring back memories, you’ve allowed your ex to remain a constant presence in your life. You’ve let your ex mess with your mind and prevented yourself from letting go.
Hence, it’s in your best interest to throw away your ex’s gifts and pictures, delete texting conversations, unfollow your ex on social media, avoid your ex’s favorite songs and movies, and stay away from places that stop you from running into your ex or being reminded of him or her.
Your ex’s presence, whether online, in person, or in your head, is the biggest hindrance to your recovery. That’s because it constantly reminds you about the breakup and compels you to try to impress your ex instead of focusing on moving on.
You need to eliminate the temptation to present yourself in a positive light. Once you do, your healing process will become much more straightforward.
So if you’re wondering how long it takes to get your ex out of your system, it takes quite a bit of time. However, you can shorten this period by adhering to no contact rules and understanding that certain factors, like childhood traumas and post-breakup stalking, can complicate and delay your healing.
Having said that, here are 13 things that are likely to increase the time it takes to get over someone you love.
Focus on things you can control
You’ll get over the person you love much quicker if you stop trying to control the uncontrollable situation. Instead of trying to obtain your ex’s approval, focus on yourself and the people who love you. By doing so, you will gradually convince yourself that your ex isn’t your go-to person anymore and that you have better people and things to dedicate your time and energy to.
One of the biggest mistakes dumpees make is that they try to change their ex’s thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. They’re so hurt, scared, and nostalgic that they want their ex to make them feel better. They don’t understand that their ex isn’t responsible for their feelings and that they must fend for themselves. The breakup left them with no choice but to start relying on themselves for self-love and other basic needs.
If you want to get over the person you love, you must essentially learn to love yourself. Do this by reminding yourself of your ex’s negative traits and gradually decreasing your love for your ex. At the moment, you love your ex more than yourself. Rationally, you may have a negative view of your ex, but emotionally, you can’t seem to disconnect.
You keep holding on to your ex and hoping for things to change.
The thing that stops you from loving yourself is separation anxiety and emotional attachment. You once felt safe with your ex and couldn’t imagine life without your ex. Now that the breakup happened, that sense of security is gone. You’re left alone, without the emotional foundation you’d built around the relationship.
Fortunately, times of distress are also opportunities for growth. They help you learn things about yourself you wouldn’t have learned if you hadn’t gotten dumped. This self-awareness will enable you to make permanent changes and improvements and have better relationships because of it.
Don’t be afraid of being alone. Soon, you’ll fall back in love with yourself and realize that the breakup, as difficult as it was, helped you become the best version of yourself.
Are you still wondering how long it takes to get over someone you still love? Share your breakup experience, including your emotions, in the comments below. We’ll get back to you shortly.
However, if you want our help analyzing your breakup and gaining insight into how long it might take you to recover from heartbreak, feel free to reach out directly to us. We’re here to support you with personalized guidance, so you can heal with clarity, confidence, and self-respect.
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.
