how long does it take to be completely over someone?

[lady_a]

Just curious, for all those who have successfully and completely gotten over someone who dumped you, how long did it take to truly have no feelings left and no desire for reconciliation whatsoever?

[Altair0770]

Well, do feelings of hatred and anger count?

 

For me, about 4-6 months. I don't desire reconciliation, but am not really at the point I'd want to jump into a new relationship because I still think of her daily, but it's more just thinking about me cussing her out.

 

Answer: it's different for everyone.

[SevenCity]

There is no time table. It depends how much you loved them and when you find another person who is better.

 

A RL of a year took two years to get over. My ex wife total RL was 10 years and I got over that in a few months.

 

Anger doesn't count. Apathy is what you want.

[jamili]

Just curious, for all those who have successfully and completely gotten over someone who dumped you, how long did it take to truly have no feelings left and no desire for reconciliation whatsoever?

 

I was a dumper once, in a previous LTR of almost a decade. Took me one year to get over her and start dating again. I never desired reconciliation though because she chose a lifestyle that was directly in conflict with my morals and beliefs, which is why I had to end the relationship. But I loved her deeply and I didn't really feel "normal" again for about a year.. even then, I didn't COMPLETELY purge my mind of her until I met another woman that I fell in love with (who ultimately dumped me and how I ended up here).

[darkbloom]

Two years.

[Pete2304]

I've said it before on here and will again although I know a lot of regular contributors think it's bad advice...... You might never get over it. I still miss the girl I split up with 12 years ago. However over time you get to the stage where you can smile about the good times. I even talk to her regularly now and can do that without it hurting me even though I'd have her back in a heartbeat.

 

Even when I'm old and grey I will have a place in my heart for her but it's about accepting it's happened. You don't have to forget but eventually you do have to move on.

[DarrenB]

Anger doesn't count. Apathy is what you want.

 

Re-posted for emphasis.

[Pete2304]

I bet there's not a single person who has signed up to this site who wasn't looking for apathy to an extent. I know I was and I found it. A virtual cuddle basically.

 

Sometimes there just isn't a solution and no matter how much of the positive thoughts and all the other clichés are trotted out things hurt and for a long time. Emotionally, some scars never heal but you can learn from the past or so I've found anyway.

[Logo]

It varies on the circumstances, I would say.

 

And sometimes if you meet someone that you're really into from the get go, a few months after the breakup, you will quickly feel apathy.

 

 

A grieving period is needed after every breakup. But sometimes if we get into depression we start hanging onto the past, the good times and memories we had with our ex before things went south. And that's what I think what prolongs the process.

 

That's when developing new memories helps in replacing the old ones.

[EmilyJane]

The general rule of thumb is it takes about half the length of the time you were together if it's a committed long term relationship.

 

But with traumatic stuff or cheating or prolonged contact after it can be longer.

 

Conversely if you've basically stayed in the relationship perhaps too long trying everything to make it work and it's ended when you've realised it just isn't going to and have done most of your grieving in the relationship already it might not take all that long

Edited April 16, 2017 by EmilyJane

[PLT]

There is no time table. It depends how much you loved them and when you find another person who is better.

 

A RL of a year took two years to get over. My ex wife total RL was 10 years and I got over that in a few months.

 

Anger doesn't count. Apathy is what you want.

 

This.

 

I had a relationship / marriage for 12 years and got over it in about 6-8 months. My recent ex was a 3-4 year relationship, she was an abusive bully and it has stuck with me and made me extremely angry and bitter so 8 months on from break up I'm not really close to being "over it", even though I don't want reconciliation.

[whatnot]

Two years.

this has been my experience

[BC1980]

Two years of NC. And by that I mean no feelings of ill will towards him anymore either. No anger. Just no deep feelings at all. Maybe a passing feeling when I remember something but nothing deep.

[Raena]

3 years exactly and the realization he was with someone new and it didn't bother me.

 

The thing is, I don't think I'll ever truly be over it. I have anxiety now and find it really difficult to socialize or trust others. He will never be totally gone from my life because we have a child together. I've managed to deal with that pretty well, but it caused problems in a new relationship. Sometimes it feels like I will be paying for the mistake of getting involved with him for the rest of my life.

[fairyfloff]

I broke up about a year ago but it's been 5 months now of no contact (+4 months of travelling to force myself to get away). I can say I am over it, I wouldn't care if he was dating someone else, but I would not acknowledge him if I ever met him again. He was emotionally abusive and just the worst person I've ever personally known. At times I get flashbacks and still get anxiety from remembering how he treated me and how I allowed myself to be treated.

 

It's different for everyone, hang in there. I thought I was never going to get over it, it was the hardest breakup I've had.

[Southern Sun]

I think it has more to do with how attached and invested you were, and with how things were when they ended (was it a sudden, traumatic end, or a slow, tortuous death). Similar to what EmilyJane said in her last paragraph.

 

If there was a sudden or unexpected end, with a person you were very attached to, I think it can take much longer to get over. But if the end was a slow build, then perhaps one can move on a little faster (if the acceptance phase started before the actual 'end').

 

Often, in the latter situation, at least one of the partners is already starting to detach.

 

Interestingly...I think two people enduring the same break-up can experience it differently. One is more attached therefore recovery is longer or may not have seen it coming, while for the other it was a slow build.

[FastHands]

It's funny when you break up and your beating yourself emotionally, you get the courage to go out-maybe after a week, and there she is at the bar. Your like struggling even to step foot anywhere and there she is smiling, talking and touching guys.

[RocketQueen]

For me it was two years and three weeks. I can pin point it because it was NYE 2016, I was at a party with my sister, surrounded by friends- some I had only met that evening and after the hugs and celebrations of midnight I felt calm, content and happy and I said to my sister "I will not spend another year unhappy because of him". It sounds profound and very simplistic...it wasn't.

 

The two years before it had been hell. I didn't follow the no contact rule in the conventional sense and at times tortured myself through my own stupidity.

 

It had been the hardest two years of my life. There were times it was plain ugly. I reflected a lot, stared my flaws in the face. Regretted every short word said when I was preoccupied with life. I scrutinised myself.

 

I believed his confused declarations and avoided conversations that should have been had out of fear.

 

Had I followed no contact I might have recovered sooner but I don't think I would have learned the lessons I did on the journey.

 

I faced rejection from the one person I truly believed would be there for me forever and it almost broke me.

 

Now, I am happy. I feel a freedom and peace that I don't think I have ever felt. My life right now is wonderfully boring. I am not looking to date anyone but know one day someone will just come along. It's just not on my mind at the moment.

 

Ironically, in the two years it has taken me to heal my ex has decided he made a mistake. He said all the words I had been longing to hear and I felt nothing. No flutters, no what ifs. I didn't feel a sense of jubilation, just annoyed that he was expressing this because I didn't want to have to be put in the position to be unkind and say the words he had said to me over two years ago.

 

It may take months or years to get over someone, and that's fine. It's your journey but however long it takes the end destination is worth it.

 

Take care.

[SixxChick]

For me it was two years and three weeks. I can pin point it because it was NYE 2016, I was at a party with my sister, surrounded by friends- some I had only met that evening and after the hugs and celebrations of midnight I felt calm, content and happy and I said to my sister "I will not spend another year unhappy because of him". It sounds profound and very simplistic...it wasn't.

 

The two years before it had been hell. I didn't follow the no contact rule in the conventional sense and at times tortured myself through my own stupidity.

 

It had been the hardest two years of my life. There were times it was plain ugly. I reflected a lot, stared my flaws in the face. Regretted every short word said when I was preoccupied with life. I scrutinised myself.

 

I believed his confused declarations and avoided conversations that should have been had out of fear.

 

Had I followed no contact I might have recovered sooner but I don't think I would have learned the lessons I did on the journey.

 

I faced rejection from the one person I truly believed would be there for me forever and it almost broke me.

 

Now, I am happy. I feel a freedom and peace that I don't think I have ever felt. My life right now is wonderfully boring. I am not looking to date anyone but know one day someone will just come along. It's just not on my mind at the moment.

 

Ironically, in the two years it has taken me to heal my ex has decided he made a mistake. He said all the words I had been longing to hear and I felt nothing. No flutters, no what ifs. I didn't feel a sense of jubilation, just annoyed that he was expressing this because I didn't want to have to be put in the position to be unkind and say the words he had said to me over two years ago.

 

It may take months or years to get over someone, and that's fine. It's your journey but however long it takes the end destination is worth it.

 

Take care.

 

Thank you. Just, thank you so incredibly much for this.

[4x4storm]

I posted this somewhere else last night but legit i'm still trying to get over a girl I only dated for 2 months we split up 3 months ago. She moved on without an issue and is already dating someone else this caused me to have a mental break down last night.

 

The thing is I dated my first girlfriend for longer and and experienced everything with her but when we broke up I felt like crap for a week but a month later I was completely over her. You know my first girlfriend was a cool chick and all but I loved everything about my last ex down to the smallest detail so when I caught on to her fooling around behind my back my world and everything I belived in came crashing down.

 

So for me it's experience because every partner will be differnet. But at the end of the day it comes down how you deal with it so while i'm still crying myself to sleep every night about this girl i'm still pushing forwards in my day to day life and not have it affect me.

[Glhx]

That was very inspiring.

[GeekLover]

As far as LTRs are concerned:

 

In one LTR (3.5 years) - took 1 year before I was able to have any interest in another relationship-we were NC. We are currently back in contact after 17 years of NC. I can say with confidence that I'm over it, though I will also admit if he wasn't on the other side of the country, I would possibly consider pursuing more...but it's certainly not a priority. I'm not losing sleep over it.

 

In another (1 year) - I had just started to reach the acceptance stage after almost 1 year - we were in contact almost every day...then we got back together for another 3.5 years. We split 5 months ago and have been NC since...still working on getting over him...currently at the anger stage with glimmers of acceptance, but I don't believe you're necessarily "over it" once you get to acceptance.

 

I anticipate AT LEAST a year before I try anything serious again, probably longer. This one has left quite the mark. .

Edited April 23, 2017 by GeekLover

[Cora]

Well I was with him for only a short six months. He just up and left. No goodbye, no reason, no closure, no nothing. It's been two years now and I'm still not over him fully. Sometimes I think I never will be. I sometimes wonder if the lack of closure is what keeps me hung up on him...unable to move forward? I wonder if it would have been easier if he were to have told me to my face he was done with me? Or if I had caught him cheating? Would I be over him by now if that were the case? Or did he just have such a profound impact on me in those short six months that I can't bear to get over him? Maybe it will just take me meeting someone new to finally be over him for good.

 

I think it's different for everyone and every circumstance. Just because you were together for 20 years doesn't mean it's going to take you forever to get over that person and just because you were only together for 6 months doesn't mean you'll be over them in no time.

[Logo]

I take back what I wrote earlier.

 

This last relationship has left me jolted. I no longer compare women I meet to my ex, but I still think about all the things that I considered as positives, like how far or how close she lived, her overall care-free personality. When I meet a new person, and I get her contact information, I think to myself, "Now, let's see if she gave me a fake number" or "Let's see how long this will last, I bet we're not going to get to date number 2 let alone get past date number 1".

 

 

I've become cynical because women I meet seem to be flakey. I don't know what it is. I'm losing confidence. Maybe they can smell desperation.

 

 

Dating wise, things were much better a couple of months after the breakup. I was still alive on the inside, my heart was still red, filled with passion.

 

 

Now it's gray and I feel like a piece of cardboard with no color in my life, just shades of gray.

 

 

 

 

And I keep thinking about my ex, thinking about that turning point, when it all started going downhill.

 

 

I feel stuck, lost and I feel so hopeless and broken that I keep telling myself, "Oh, trust me, it's going to be years before you meet someone you click with and enjoy being with like you did with her".

Edited April 23, 2017 by Logo

[LOSINGHOPE113]

I hold onto people for too long, my first love was from 17-18, I met my second from 20-23, during my second I absolutely loved her more than anything, but I knew that I wasn't fully over the first love, I didn't want her back but I knew I still had feelings especially when I saw her however it is only now that I am trying to get over the second lovely lady that I am 100% over the first, I feel this process is going to repeat itself (if I do meet anyone else) over and over again. It's just the way I am, I can't let go of love, I cannot accept that it is over.