How long did it take until you really didnt want to hear from the dumper at all?

[Ordinaryday]

with a lot of the women I have been dumped by, I went through the same stages of grieving process as a lot of people here.

 

there is the denial stage, which is the real killer - you lie to yourself and convince yourself that any minute now your ex is gonna contact you and ask for you back - every time you get a text message on your phone for one deluded second you are convinced that it is from them, saying they want you back. it never is.

 

finally you reach the acceptance stage. Maybe the acceptance stage is different for some people because a lot of what I have read indicates that in the acceptance stage you will feel totally awesome without them in your life, totally happy and content, while secretly chuckling at their misfortune they put on themselves by letting an awesome person like you slip away.

 

that was never the acceptance stage for me. what it was was just realising that they are never ever coming back and accepting it. I still did not feel happy about how things left, was not happy they were gone or content with anything, I just had come to accept that they were gone and not coming back and there was nothing i could do about it except move on.

 

it took me about two years to reach this stage. for about two years after the dumping I still thought about them heaps, played fake conversations in my head about what I would say if I bumped into them in the street, how I would respond if they reached out, and so on.

 

after about two years I finally accepted that they were never going to reach out and I moved on with my life. it got to the stage that I Dont want to hear from them - I have my life now without them, they are not a part of it, and if I was to hypothetically get a breadcrumb from them now I would be annoyed because they are no longer a part of my life, i have moved on, and I would just be annoyed at them for dragging up the past for no good reason.

 

And yes, I took active steps to prevent them from contacting me - changed my mobile number, blocked them at facebook, stopped hanging out at shopping malls/gyms/etc that I know they visit and changed my routine. I suppose they could theoretically still find me if they tried really hard (like staking out my workplace) but it wouldnt be easy!

 

I know every dumpee is different and some dumpees find another partner almost a week after breaking up and go straight back into the game while others take years to recover but how long did it take you to reach the stage of never wanting to hear from them ever again?

[marky00]

Yes im with you on this one.

 

Looks like its gonna take me 2 years to realise she never coming back.

 

makes you wonder if NC for people like us makes any difference or in fact if it is the best way. For some personalities maybe limited contact makes sense.

 

I play up the little scenarios like u in my head too.

[Blanco]

makes you wonder if NC for people like us makes any difference or in fact if it is the best way. For some personalities maybe limited contact makes sense

 

NC is tough, but LC when you're still not really over them just means that it's going to take even longer to heal. Took me two years to get over a breakup, and I'm convinced now that had I just gone NC and really accepted that we were done for good, I probably could've cut that recovery time in half.

 

So no, I don't think LC is good for the people who still take a long time to heal even with NC. For those people, NC just cuts down the recovery time from a daunting amount of time to a somewhat less daunting amount of time.

[erklat]

Just about the same it took you. Breakup was in Sep 2013 and just recently I noticed days that I don't think about her at all. I had such conversations preplaned. I don't remember them any longer because I don't care.

[Lostdreams]

I'm 18 months out after break up - 7 years together and strict NC. If I'm totally honest I would still like to hear from him and still get the odd dream where we actually talk.

 

Life is moving forward and I'm feeling really good but it takes time to fall out of love especially when you weren't expecting to break up in the first place.

 

Maybe the speed of moving on and not wanting them to contact you anymore is down to the self perception of the "quality" in that broken relationship and the nostalgia of what you miss. On the other side as time stretches you also realize you have no place in their life anymore and that the person has now in fact become a stranger. It's an internal balancing act and a very personal route which each of us has to go through at our own pace.

[mightycpa]

I notice the "active" voice in what you're saying. You don't want her to contact you.

 

I'm going to tell you there's one more stage to go - where you don't care whether she contacts you or not, where you'd wonder "why is she reaching out"

[Erik30]

It usually takes me a year (sometimes 2) to get over it completely.

I've never been able to do strict NC from the start. I'm usually doing LC, with me probably always initiating, until at some point it unconsciously turns into NC, because I simply stop caring.

 

The "need" to text her, and all the thoughts like "this is the only girl I ever want" disappear. It's funny that you never notice when it exactly happens. One day you just realize you haven't contacted them in months, and you've stopped keeping track of it. You just finally get it, and see that they're not making any effort for you at all, not trying to reach out, so why should you care and keep wasting your time on someone who isn't worth it?

[Chronotrgr]

I'm only 2 weeks out of the relationship but have been no contact since day 1, I didn't want to hear from her from the very start, I feel like most people would kill to hear from their ex and genuinely go no contact in the hope of that their ex might start to pine and want them back.

 

My case was different, I do not feel my ex has genuinely cared for me for a very long time, she hasn't fought for me and I don't expect her to start now (it wouldn't make a difference either way), since the start of the year I became less and less of a priority in her life, I may as well have not existed in her mind, she had all the time to text, call, and spend time with others, but not with me.

[BC1980]

Yes im with you on this one.

 

Looks like its gonna take me 2 years to realise she never coming back.

 

makes you wonder if NC for people like us makes any difference or in fact if it is the best way. For some personalities maybe limited contact makes sense.

 

I play up the little scenarios like u in my head too.

 

I really and truly think that LC is used as a reason to get a second chance one day. I think it's ego driven and a possible way to make yourself relevant to your ex. I think people don't even want to admit that to themselves, so the go LC under the guise of maturity or something like that. I did LC with my last breakup, and it turned out to be an awful idea. I had always gone NC with previous breakups, and I was able to get over them much faster.

[ASG]

Many years ago, my ex dumped me out of the blue. Well... it wasn't really out of the blue, things hadn't been right for a while, but we never discussed it, so I was fooling myself that it would all be fine.

 

It was a shock and I didn't cope well at all. But we kept seeing each other, and talking, and, eventually, sleeping together. Which was terrible for me and my healing. I kept hoping he'd come back, knowing full well he wasn't going to.

 

Anyway, after about 7 months I ended up sleeping with someone else and that broke the spell. The next time I met up with my ex was the last time we slept together. We still hung out, but I no longer wanted to be with him. I was over it.

 

Another more recent ex, it took me about 3 months to be over it (but the break up was mutual). Most recent one also didn't take long, as I could see it happening a mile off and prepared myself and detached.

 

And I find that a good rebound works wonders! Sleeping with someone else always takes me out of the haze.

[Itspointless]

I feel good again, but I haven't felt totally awesome since. Thank man, this message really spoke to me.

[BelleSkye]

Many years ago, my ex dumped me out of the blue. Well... it wasn't really out of the blue, things hadn't been right for a while, but we never discussed it, so I was fooling myself that it would all be fine.

 

It was a shock and I didn't cope well at all. But we kept seeing each other, and talking, and, eventually, sleeping together. Which was terrible for me and my healing. I kept hoping he'd come back, knowing full well he wasn't going to.

 

Anyway, after about 7 months I ended up sleeping with someone else and that broke the spell. The next time I met up with my ex was the last time we slept together. We still hung out, but I no longer wanted to be with him. I was over it.

 

Another more recent ex, it took me about 3 months to be over it (but the break up was mutual). Most recent one also didn't take long, as I could see it happening a mile off and prepared myself and detached.

 

And I find that a good rebound works wonders! Sleeping with someone else always takes me out of the haze.

 

 

Not necessarily. Sleeping with a few rebounds made me miss my ex even more. There is such a thing as bad sex out there:o

[Blanco]

I notice the "active" voice in what you're saying. You don't want her to contact you.

 

I'm going to tell you there's one more stage to go - where you don't care whether she contacts you or not, where you'd wonder "why is she reaching out"

 

This. So much this. I've hurt from all of my breakups, but I can't say I've dealt with anyone truly awful or had something dastardly be the root of the breakup. Because of that, I've known real healing has happened when I no longer care if they reach out or not. For me, actively not wanting them to tells me that I'm still invested in that person. What I strive for after breakups is getting to a place where the idea of them contacting me occupies as little space in my head as the idea of some random Facebook friend from high school contacting me does: None.

[Meli22]

I don't know about not WANTING them to, I didn't want them to after we broke up because I was hurt. I think not CARING whether he does either way, I'm not sure when that happened. It's been about 9 months and I've very recently met someone who I like a lot. That confirms (for me) I'm very close (or maybe even at) indifference. The ex doesn't cross my mind as much anymore.

[GENOS]

2 years is really scary.. How long did the relationship last ? I broke up 15 days ago from a relationship that lasted two months and I feel like crap, and it doesn't seem like it'll change anytime soon

[erklat]

I was with her for three months but that breakup

triggered some other underlying and abandonment

issues that broke me in half.

[Itspointless]

I was with her for three months but that breakup

triggered some other underlying and abandonment

issues that broke me in half.

Same here, just one month more. Life can get you in a nasty way, even when you have the idea that you already worked on those themes. Often the past is alive in kicking within ourselves. Noticed this again last week when I suddenly dreamt about her, can't remember the last time to be honest. What I felt was a reminder why I am NC

[diamondgirl]

I was with my ex-boyfriend for over 7 years. We broke up about 15 months ago. I was completely devastated - couldn't eat or sleep for weeks, obsessed about it for months. I was horrible with NC and the first 6 months of our breakup I couldn't go more than a few weeks at a time without reaching out. I felt like no one in the world had ever been as heartbroken as me. My ex broke up with me because we dated from 15-23 and he felt like he needed other experiences. He started dating someone else about only 2 months after the breakup. It last a while but I heard they aren't together anymore.

 

I met my current boyfriend about 8 months after the breakup. I was a little guarded and it took me a while to truly open up, but now that I have, I have never been more in love. It took me completely by surprise. I never thought I would love someone else again, but my new boyfriend has so many better qualities and treats me and appreciates me so much more than my ex already did. I would have killed for my ex to contact me for months, but to be honest, I don't care now. We ran into each other a few weeks ago and I was happy to see him - we chatted for a little. We are NC now excluding him reaching out to me earlier in the year during a family emergency. I really am indifferent to hearing from him now. I would never go back because I see how much better relationships can be, but we spent 7 years together and I am still happy to catch up with him time to time. I feel no more romantic connection, but he knows me so well and it's comfortable.

 

It took me probably about a year to feel this indifferent and I think it only came with being so in love and moving in with my new boyfriend.