To ask how long you was heartbroken for after split?

[Roastpotatoess]

Just that really? How many weeks/months did you spend crying/moping and any tips to come out of the other side. Did you just randomly have a lightbulb moment which helped you move on?

About a month. I did take steps to deal with my emotions post breakup right away though. I had 6 sessions of counselling and I worked through Conscious Uncoupling book independently on top of that. I still very occasionally get teary but I was pretty much in full on acceptance after the first month.

2 months and still counting…

ExH - about ten minutes. I did all my grieving during the marriage.

First BF after the marriage - I was sad and shouldn't have been in a relationship for a good two years.

It all depends.

I didn't cry and mope so much as feel a bit angry and kept running over the ridiculous level of pain all of it caused for about a year. I think I was maybe more upset due to a miscarriage and his lack of care thereafter than previous relationships. I won't be having a relationship with a man again, so I suppose people might say it still affects me, but it's a cumulative of all of the twatty men over 30 odd years. You can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.

29 years and counting.

Literally no time at all for anyone UNTIL the last guy I dated - he has properly screwed me up and I'm 18 months and counting.

It's been three years and I think although I'm now over the heartbreak aspect of it that I will always love and miss him.

Four years , until I met my new partner

Usually a couple weeks.

I'm really good at breakups. I cut all contact immediately, chuck away photos/mementos, and get busy doing new things, meeting new people, hanging with friends, and lean on music. Obviously there are still feelings for a little while but I don't stoke the fire by reminiscing or reading old messages or going on about it. I just keep my eyes forward.

The worst bit of it, probably 3-4 months. After that I notice that while I can still be sad about it, I am starting to move on.

It depends so much on the relationship and on you as a person. My last break up it took around 6 months I’d say?

Pretty much this. He lives in my head.

2 years and counting. It was a 20 year relationship. Abusive for the last 4 years. Has completely screwed me up. I don't cry or mope but he'll always be in my head one way or another. I'll always have the scars.

It was several years for me. Eventually I realised that I was not letting myself heal, I was continually going over what had happened and I think I did that because if I was to let myself heal I would be "off guard" and risk the same happening again.
Eventually I met a great bloke and let him sweep me off my feet. We've been married for 17 years.

Probably a year or more to feel fully OK and safe to commit again.

In hindsight do you think it was the best thing?

Zero seconds. I think half the train heard my exclaims of oh thank fuck for that, when he rang to tell me that if I didn't change my ways our marriage was over. The marriage was dead long before that anyway I was just too withdrawn into myself from years of abuse to leave.

It doesn't matter. It happened. The more time you spend analysing whether it was the best thing, the longer it will take to get over it.

I love this, you've got it right.

Can't be sure. It blurs with time and I think it depends on how long you've been with them, whether you lived together, had dcs etc. Also depends on the reason you split up. Also your individual resolve or strength as a person to move on.
Sorry that's not what you wanted to hear. I very very occasionally think of my ex which surprises me and then I remind myself of one particular financially shit thing I found out about after he left and realised that he wasn't all that after all. Don't remember them as they first were but the person they've become.

No time, just felt relief. He wasn't worthy of any more of my mental space. He took enough of it whilst we were married.

Probably, but I'll never know how it would have turned out I suppose. I've only been broken up with once. I guess he love-bombed me hard, so 6 months in I was way more attached than I should have been and he had painted a fantasy about my future so vividly that I believed in it. Then it was all swept away in an instant, like it had never happened.

The acute stage of feeling like I would never stop crying lasted maybe a month.
The depression and longing for him to come back about 6 months.
It was a couple of years before I could trust anyone again.

Long time with my exH (20 years). It went from shock to sadness but I was feeling okay after about a year.

With my first boyfriend it was at least 3 or 4 months. I was utterly bereft (not helped by him moving on to my best friend!).

An ex partner probably a 2/3 weeks until I realised how much of a step I’d taken to un-fuck my life by leaving him, as trying as the current circumstances were.

I’m a chronic over thinker so I’m sure I could make it a lot easier for myself though.

Sometimes I think you can say that a choice you make is the best thing, but a lot of the time I think that a choice is just a choice. You don't know if the other choice would have been better or not as you didn't go down that path. There is no point agonizing over choices not made. It is what it is and what has happened has happened.

I would however say that the best choice is rarely based purely on what gives us least personal emotional pain. It is in the nature of endings that they are painful, otherwise they wouldn't be ending. That doesn't mean they should be avoided.