How Long It REALLY Takes Your Ex To Get Over You According To Science

One of the biggest fears people have after a breakup is that their ex is going to quickly move on and leave them in the dust.

But-despite how it might appear-this basically never happens overnight.

New research shows it takes as long as 8 years for your ex to truly move on and lose that emotional connection to you.

This is something that I’ve seen proven again and again in my work as a breakup coach. I’ve helped people win back their exes after many months and even years apart. Most people don’t believe me… until it happens to them. But now we have an actual scientific study that confirms what I’ve been saying all along.

It comes from a new study published in the Journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science. Experts in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois looked at over 300 people who had experienced breakups.

And they found that it takes over 4 years for the emotional connection between ex partners to be even half dissolved. 4.18 years to be exact. And remember, that’s only halfway there. For the connection to be completely dissolved it typically took 8 years, or even longer.

RELATED: Why Your Ex’s Drama Is A Good Sign

That may seem crazy if your ex seemed to be over you immediately after the breakup. So then why do so many people get this impression? Well let’s talk about why it often feels like your ex seems to get over you right away, and why you stay stuck on them for so long.

I’ll also tell you what you can do with this information and how to proceed if you want another chance with your ex.

Why Your Ex Seems To Move On So Quickly

There’s a reason that it seems like your ex is over you, even though this study shows it’s going to take them YEARS to truly move on. And that’s because they have some strong incentives to PRETEND that they’re moving on and hide their true emotions from you.

The more you drill down into human psychology, the more you come to learn that we can’t change our feelings through sheer force of will. But we can control what we show to other people. And we’re always going to take this path when we have a good reason to do so.

And here are your ex’s reasons for hiding their feelings:

#1. They want to save face

One of the reasons that a breakup is hard is because it’s embarrassing. There’s no way to end a relationship without admitting–on some level–that you made a mistake.

You chose the wrong person, or you acted in a way that pushed them away, or you changed your mind about what you wanted.

In any case, for a lot of people, this kind of exposure is going to bring about shame and embarrassment. Of course, most people won’t really care about your breakup, but being heartbroken makes us feel very vulnerable and so we fear the judgement of others.

So for some people, appearing cold after a breakup is an attempt to save face and look better both to their exes and to the outside world. They’re trying to say “I don’t even care, I’m moving on, and none of this is affecting me.”

#2. They want space from you

One of the biggest reasons that we end a relationship is simply to get space from this other person.

If we act in ways that show how much we still care and love them, then they’re less likely to give us this space we’re looking for. So that means no more hugs, lingering looks, good conversations or other signals of affection and connection.

They’re afraid that if they DON’T get this space from you, it could create issues for both of you down the road so they’ll act really distant to send you the message “leave me alone.”

#3. They don’t want to give you the wrong idea

If your ex was to be really honest and open about their feelings for you right now, you would start to think that they still wanted to be with you. It would be like the whole breakup had just been a bad dream. So they’re going to be ice cold to you to avoid risking giving you the wrong idea about your future together.

#4. They’re afraid that you’ll convince them to give you another chance

This is another common thing I see with exes. It’s like quitting smoking. Even though you may not be strong in your conviction to give it up, you know that the first step is going to be throwing away your pack and your lighter.

Until you do that, you can’t even pretend that you’re serious about kicking the habit.

Because you know that just seeing those cigarettes on your table is going to convince you to smoke just one more. So they know that they have to act like they’re not interested to push you away or they’ll slip up and end up back at your door.

#5. They’re angry and want to hurt your feelings

Most exes aren’t going to be actively trying to hurt you after the breakup, but some will. If you hurt your ex in a major way by lying, cheating or otherwise betraying their trust, they won’t risk giving you even a tiny shred of evidence that they still care about you, regardless of their feelings.

In fact, they’ll often want to hurt you as much as possible to make up for what you did to them.

#6. They want to show other people that they’re available

The final reason that your ex is going to pretend to be over you after a breakup is so that they can signal to other people that they’re single and looking. It’s kind of funny.

The more they’re still hooked on you, the more they’ll want to find someone to take your place so that they can take their mind off you, and so the colder and more distant they’re going to be from you. This is the ENTIRE reason that rebound relationships exist.

So with all these reasons that your ex has to move on and forget about you, the question is: why can’t they? And why can’t you for that matter?

Why People Can’t Move On

So knowing that it takes 8 years to move on after a breakup can be really disheartening and scary. Because, obviously, this number is true of us as well as our exes. So what gives?

Well the truth is that relationships leave a mark on us. Even ones we’re only in for a short time. And the reason for this is vulnerability.

To let someone into our lives in any real way, we have to open ourselves up to them. We have to allow them to see a side of us that no one else really has access to. We’re giving them our heart, essentially…and with that comes the ability to touch us deeply, make us happy, or—as you’re experiencing now—to hurt us badly.

That’s why there’s this intensity to romantic love that rivals little else.

Because opening up allows us to create stronger connections. We start building these little bridges between ourselves and this other person: emotional bridges, sexual bridges, intellectual bridges, and a million other little connections that you aren’t even aware of.

Now the breakup is an attempt to sever all these connections in an instant. But no matter how complete the breakup is, we find that traces of these connections remain.

This is similar to phantom limb syndrome—a well-documented and incredibly common condition affecting those who have lost an arm or a leg.

Phantom limb sufferers will still feel sensations in their lost limb like pain, discomfort or itching. And they’ll feel these feelings for the rest of their lives. So while they know that the limb is gone, they can’t stop feeling the itch, even though they want to.

What Your Connection With Your Ex Means

So I’m sure that knowing that your ex isn’t over you and isn’t going to be for a good long time is going to be pretty heartening. But maybe you don’t know exactly what it means for you. Well here are the facts.

Fact #1: Just because your ex is over you doesn’t mean they want you back

When I tell people that their ex hasn’t moved on, they think this means that the light is green and all they have to do is ask and they can pick back up right where they left off.

But this isn’t how it works, and if you try to do this, not only is your ex most likely going to turn you down, you’re actually going to help them move on and leave you behind much faster than they would otherwise.

Because unfortunately having a lingering emotional attachment is not the same as wanting to get back together.

I’m sure that we all still have people from our past that we think about from time to time—even fantasize about what our life would be like if we never broke up—but that doesn’t mean that we’d give them another chance if they asked us out of the blue.

In fact, if they did, it would probably snap us out of our fantasy because we’d start to remember all the reasons we broke up in the first place.

You see, fantasy and reality are NOT the same thing. We can think all day about what life might be like with this other person but when things become real, it’s another matter entirely.

So look at your ex’s feelings towards you as a cracked window, rather than an open door. You aren’t going to be able to barge in there and make them take you back.

But—after some time has passed—you will be able to communicate with them, and—with even more time—you’ll be able to slowly reattract them so that they feel good about the idea of giving you another shot.

Fact #2: Giving your ex space isn’t going to break the bond

It’s been shown that you need to give your ex space after a breakup—a LOT of space—if you want to have any hope of getting them back. Remember, they have all this incentive to stay away from you, to give you the cold shoulder and to resist any pressure you put on them to get back together.

And the more you put pressure on your ex, the more you’re going to create a situation where they have to put up walls to keep you out… and then it’s going to be more difficult to even get in touch with them.

But many people know this and simply can’t resist because they fear if they give their ex space, they’re going to move on and leave them alone.

So knowing that your ex will still have feelings for you years later, tells you that your absence is not enough for these feelings to disappear. This is THE biggest lesson of this study. In fact, giving your ex space is actually going to INCREASE their interest.

RELATED: Using The No Contact Strategy To Get Your Ex Back

Because—as we talked about—continuing to put pressure on your ex is only going to make your ex withdraw further from you.

They may still have feelings for you, but they’ll think of you as a nuisance who is coming around trying to get them to do something that they don’t want.

But when you give them space, you’re not creating this new, negative relationship. Instead, you’re giving them a chance to miss you.

The negative feelings around the breakup will fade quickly the less you draw things out. Pretty soon, all that will remain will be the positive feelings that you created in your relationship together, and these are going to remain in their memories for much longer than you think, drawing them back to you.

Fact #3: Complacency is still dangerous

Though you should give your ex space at first, that doesn’t mean that you can just wait and they’re guaranteed to come back. Because while your ex’s feelings are going to last a long time, they’ll still wane and eventually fade beyond to the point where you’re going to have trouble reconnecting.

But at the same time as your ex’s positive feelings fade, the negative feelings of the breakup are going to fade as well, just at a much faster rate.

Based on my own experience helping tens of thousands of clients in different situations, I found that roughly a month is the sweet spot to start to reconnect with your ex. This gives them a chance to process the breakup and leave their anger behind, while not giving them much time to actually get over you emotionally.

Once a month or two has passed, their feelings will start to fade, so unless you have a good reason, it’s better not to wait longer than this before reaching out to them and beginning the reattraction process.

Fact #4: Your ex’s feelings from you are complex

Your ex still has a connection to you, but that doesn’t mean that their only feelings for you are positive ones. There’s a lot going on in their head right now.

That’s why I created my free quiz that you can take right now. It can help you determine exactly what your ex is thinking and this will be vital in figuring out your next move to win them back.

Fact #5: You can’t just turn off your feelings

The big takeaway in this research is that, while you may think you’re over your ex, and they may think the same thing… the two of you probably still have a powerful connection, and that connection is going to survive for a lot longer than you’d expect.

So while it may be advantageous to ACT like you’re over your ex—in fact, I encourage you to do so early on—it’s not true that you can just will these feelings away and move on with your life like nothing happened.

Remember that this person touched you deeply. The longer we are with a romantic partner, the more they change who we are and these changes—both good and bad—are long lasting.

This is what makes loving someone else so scary and also so exciting. You’re letting them change and affect you and that’s something that you need to accept, whatever you decide to do moving forward.

Brad Browning

Brad Browning is widely regarded as the world's most trusted breakup experts, boasting over 12 years of experience working with clients from around the world. Brad's #1 best-selling breakup reversal guide, The Ex Factor, has helped more than 130,000 people from 131 countries to re-unite with an ex. Brad is also the author of Mend The Marriage, a comprehensive self-help guide that teaches married couples how to save their dying marriage and prevent divorce. Brad’s YouTube channel has over 400,000 subscribers and 50 million views, and he has been featured in a number of well-known media outlets and industry journals.