The Important Factor of Getting Over a Breakup

If you’re really striving for a healthy and potentially long-term future relationship with your ex, then it’s only reasonable that you’ll need to give each other enough space and time to heal and recover from the breakup.

Just as you need to heal, get a new perspective, and make significant improvements to the person you were before the breakup, it’s only natural to expect somewhat the same from your ex.

You cannot afford the periods after the breakup to have a one-sided positive effect on just you and nothing positive happening to your ex.

It always takes two to tango in any love relationship condition even in a breakup situation.

Why Getting Over Your Breakup is Vitally Important!

Your ability to get over the failed relationship is a critical factor in determining exactly how long to do the no contact rule. The reason for this should be apparent by now.

You need to get over the breakup and detach yourself from it before you can start thinking rationally about it.

It’s your detachment from it that allows to truly see the relationship from a new perspective. Getting over the breakup helps to remove any rose-colored glasses you might have been wearing all along.

It also helps to remove unnecessary sentiments and possible nostalgia that might have erstwhile clouded your views about the relationship.

Getting over the breakup is when you know you’ve healed. At this point, thinking about the relationship no longer causes you the pain and anger you initial felt about it.

This is when you can clearly think about the relationship and properly appraise it for what it actually was.

It’s when you’ve truly gotten over the breakup that you can really see what the problems in the relationship were.

You’ll also be able to clearly see what your possible roles in the lead up to the breakup were.

Without effectively reaching the point of fully healing and detaching yourself from the failed breakup, the chances of getting back together with your ex and creating a “truly” healthy long-term loving relationship are extremely limited.

It’s also important to reach this point after a breakup even if you finally decide to completely break free from your ex and move on with your life.

You cannot afford to take the pain and hurt of the failed relationship into a new one. It’s vitally important that you leave the baggage of the failed relationship completely behind you before attempting a new one.

Dual Appraisal of a Relationship Breakup

If there’s any chance of you dispassionately reconciling with your ex, it has to be through the no contact rule. It’s what allows both you and your ex sufficient time to heal and recover from the effects of the breakup.

This is irrespective of who did the dumping. Both the dumper and dumpee need to get over the breakup and take a serious appraisal of it.

The appraisal has to be thorough and from both sides as no relationship ends totally because of one person.

Part of the reason why any relationship goes bad has to do with the “dance” between the partners.

How much have you personally developed thus far since you initiated the no contact rule? How is your understanding of yourself and the ways you observe, act, and assess yourself and your ex?

Developing yourself in effectively doing this allows you to bring a new emotionally intelligent version of you into your relationship.

And you should expect and demand same from your ex if there’s ever to be a successful future relationship together.

There’s no need to sugar-coat the true situation of the relationship just because you don’t want to be alone. Who does an “on” and “off” relationship benefit in the long run?

Research and Survey Facts About Getting Over a Breakup

In the sections below are reports from some researches and surveys trying to estimate how long it takes to get over a breakup.

The data provided should give you a fair understanding of how long it might take to get over your breakup.

As you’ll discover, the researches and surveys all amplify the fact that the time to get over a breakup is not something that’s set-in stone. The variability of the results amply attests to this.

Yet, one thing stands out – getting over a breakup is difficult and it takes time.

Understanding these averages will greatly help you in knowing how long to do the no contact rule for taking your particular situation into consideration.

The Half the Duration of the Relationship Principle

A lot of people have attempted to calculate an average of the amount of time it takes to get over a breakup.

The most popularized theory by various media sources is that the average time it takes to recover from a breakup is about half the amount of time the relationship lasted.

For those who have only been dating for a couple of weeks or months, that might sound a bit fair. However, it’s an awful piece of news for those who have been together for years.

This principle is more of a way of making people feel like their pain has a solid end point. The idea is such that they have at least a end point they can look forward to.

But as have been repeatedly highlighted above, it’s quite complicated trying to set a specific time frame of when one can successfully get over a breakup.

Some relationships can last for just a few months but take some individuals a long time to get over.

Conversely, some might have lasted for several months or years but getting over them can take just a few months to achieve.

The possible reasons for these different scenarios may be as a result of how much an individual has invested in the relationship as well as the causes of the breakup – such as infidelity. These and several other issues can make any breakup recovery process more difficult.

Poll on Breakup Recovery

Scientists have carried out several surveys in an attempt to nail down the actual time it takes for one to get over a breakup.

One of the most common online polls about the time frame for recovering from a breakup is the one commissioned by Yelp Eat24.^[6] The January, 2017 survey involved some 2,000 US adults.

Results from the survey suggests that the process of healing can last for over six months for a serious relationship.

The survey also made the following interesting assertions:

While the majority – 65 percent – claim they never contact former exes or flames after a big break-up, one in four admit that they get in touch with at least two previous loves following a split.

Scientific Study About Breakup Recovery

Researchers in a 2007 study surveyed 155 undergraduates who had gone through a relationship breakup in the past six months. On average, the students had experienced the breakup within the past 11 weeks.

The average length of the participant’s relationship prior to the breakup was 77 weeks. While some were as short as 4 weeks, others were as long as 236 weeks.

85.2% of the students in the study were in exclusive relationships while 27.9 were involved in new relationships.

Of the student participants, 45.2% had initiated the breakup themselves. While 25.8% of the breakups were initiated by their partner, 29% were by both partners.

According to the researchers, majority of the students – 71% – reported increased positive emotions and growth following the breakup.

The positive emotions included self-expansion and rediscovery of self, as well as general coping strategies.

Since the students experienced the breakup an average of 11 weeks before the study period, the findings suggest that people generally recover from a breakup after about 11 weeks.

Another Poll Result

A survey of 4,000 divorces found that the average divorcee takes almost 18 months to get over the split.

The research carried out by www.fifties.com claims that it takes about 17 months and 26 days to get over a divorce once it’s finalized.

However, it’s important to note that most people are often already separated for a while before the finalization of their divorce. Thus, the period for the divorcee to get over the split could actually take years.

The above findings clearly show that there’s not much consistency in the overall results.

Yet, to a large degree, we can suppose that the average period to get over a normal breakup is around the 10.5 weeks period.

This 10.5-week average is probably why the 30 and 60 Day No Contact Rule time frames have such high recommendations for their usage for the no contact rule.

In a nutshell, all of these show that the time it takes to heal and recover from a breakup is a significant determinant of when you can safely stop using the no contact rule.

Thus, how long to do the no contact rule is largely a function of how long it will take you to get over your breakup.

Further Considerations About How Long to Do the No contact Rule

All things being equal, the more distance and less communication between you and your ex, the easier it will be to implement this rule.

Thus, you’ll make better progress when you don’t see your ex at all for quite some time. This makes the process faster than when you unfortunately have to see them every other day and out of politeness have to exchange greetings.

There are times your ex may want to test if you’re serious about your decision of not communicating with them. As a result, they may attempt resuming normal communication with you.

They may even open new communication channels in cases where you’ve blocked or closed the ones they had before.

When this happens too early into the no contact rule implementation, it’s best for you to stand your ground. Kindly reaffirm your decision and reinforce healthy boundaries between both of you going forward.

Using the no contact rule takes time to properly implement. In fact, there’s no need attempting to rush through it if you’ve truly understood all that we’ve discussed so far.

Conclusion

There are times when you’ll experience serious contemplation about your reasons for maintaining the no contact rule.

Yet, there are situations where you strongly believe your relationship still stands a good chance of becoming a healthy one.

In such a case, you may start feeling that not responding to your ex’s attempts at contacting you after the breakup may harm your chances of getting back together with them.

However, the reverse might actually be the case “IF” they’re actually still interested in getting back together with you.

In most cases, the fear of losing you might make them to start checking up on you despite your stance. This is often because to some extent the no contact rule has started to affect them in a positive way.

If the attempts are made towards the end of the no contact rule, and you feel that you’re emotionally strong enough to embark on reconnecting with your ex, then you can break the no contact rule and proceed to reconnect.

You’ll know you’re ready to discontinue the no contact rule when you get to a certain point in the process.

This is when not talking to your ex no longer hurts you during the course of your normal day. However, it would be much better if you can get to the point where you can go for days without having to think about your ex at all.

Getting to this point allows you to be in a very good frame of mind. By then, you’ll have renewed energy and the self-confidence to either move on with your life or get back together with your ex.