It’s been months. Shouldn’t I be over this by now?
You’ve probably heard the rules. Half the length of the relationship. A month for every year you were together. Just give it time.
So you wait. And wait.
Has it worked? If you’re reading this, probably not. Here’s what my research found. It isn’t what most people expect.
A splinter doesn’t heal with time
Imagine you get a splinter in your hand. It hurts, so you leave it alone and wait for it to heal.
A week goes by. Then a month. The skin around it is red. It throbs every time you pick something up. Time is passing, just like it’s supposed to.
But the splinter is still in there. And as long as it’s in there, time can’t do its job. Time heals a clean cut. It doesn’t heal a cut with something stuck in it.
A breakup works the same way. If something is keeping the wound open, waiting won’t close it.
What my research found
I studied 255 people who had broken up in the previous 12 months, and compared 31 different factors side by side. One of them was how long ago the breakup happened.
Time since the breakup wasn’t associated with how much breakup grief people felt. It was associated with depression and anxiety at first. But once I added what people were thinking and doing, that association disappeared too.
What was associated with the grief? Wanting them back. Going over anger-provoking situations. Thoughts and memories that pop in uninvited. Pushing away anything that reminded them.
Those are the splinters.
Still stuck, years later
In 2021 I looked at the answers of 109 people who took my quiz Why Can’t You Get Over Your Breakup?
More than a third had broken up over two years before. Two years. And they were still looking for a way out.
Were they not waiting long enough? No. Time was never the thing that was missing.
So how long does it take?
Honestly? There’s no number. It depends far less on the calendar than on what’s holding you back.
Some people move on in a few months. Others carry it for years. The difference usually isn’t luck, and it isn’t weakness. It’s one or two stuck points that nobody has spotted yet.
Try this
- Stop counting months. Ask a different question instead: What am I doing that keeps this wound open?
- Look for your splinters. Do you check their profile? Replay the arguments? Hope they’ll come back? Avoid the places that remind you of them?
- Pick one. Just one. Work on that first, and notice what changes.
Not sure where your splinter is? That’s exactly what my quiz is for. It takes 3 to 4 minutes, and your report shows you which stuck points are affecting you.
