How long does it take to move on? Part 1
It’s been over a year since your last breakup and you still get upset by the mere mention of your ex-boyfriend’s name and still get torn to pieces at the sight of him with his new squeeze.
And now you start to wonder if it’s normal for you to still be feeling this crappy even after so much time has passed, and everyone—particularly your ex—seems to have moved on. You start to worry about why it seems to be taking you so long to forgive and forget.
How long does it really take women to completely—and truthfully—move on from a break up? Love experts can give answers and countless self-help books can give you tips on how to speed up the recovery process. Yet nothing beats real-life survivor stories of Filipino women who have been to break up hell and back. Real Filipino women of different ages and backgrounds give the full account of how long it took them to recover, and more importantly, how they were able to do it—several times over for some. If they were able to do it, you certainly could—in no time.
It depends on the relationship you had
For some women, the speed of recovery and how well they move on depends on how serious the relationship was and how long it lasted in the first place. Recounts Frances, 27, “If we only consider the really serious ones, it usually takes me close to a year to fully recover and move on—by fully I mean actually being able to talk to the guy face to face without being too uncomfortable and without referring too much to the previous relationship.” Frances recently got married to her boyfriend of three years, a relationship which she only entered a year and half after her last break up.
According to Vicki, 23, who also recently got hitched, it is easy to move on if the relationship shouldn’t have existed to begin with. “I once ended a relationship because I thought I entered it for all the wrong reasons, which spared me from having to endure a long, painful ‘getting over’ process. In fact, I was ready to move one the same day we broke it off,” she says.
‘The speed of recovery and how well they move on sometimes depends on how serious the relationship was and how long it lasted in the first place’
It takes Anna, 34, an average of two years to recover. She is now happily going steady with a boyfriend, yet she recalls with mortification, “The longest time it took me to move on was in fact three years. Gosh, can you believe, it took me that long? What was I thinking?”
But maybe the relationship was indeed remarkable enough to take such a long time to recover from. “It was a five-year relationship wherein we practically matured together,” says Anna. “In fact, I didn’t enter into another relationship until five years after the break up, which was bad, I must say.”
It’s how you split up
In some cases, how soon women move on from a break up depends on the manner of the break up. Vicki shares, “My last serious relationship took me six months to recover, which even had me shedding the occasional tear up to the fifth month, I think. What helped me snap out of it are some very unpleasant circumstances involving my ex: hurtful words were exchanged and there was emotional blackmail involved, which led me to totally abandon the thought of ever getting back together with him.”
Frances believes it usually takes longer to recover from a break up if there was so much anger. This happened in one relationship that lasted for three years before they called it quits. “We were too comfortable with each other, we tend to express ourselves too much when there’s conflict, we say nasty things,” Frances says. It was the break up she recovered the longest from, which took her a year.
And now you start to wonder if it’s normal for you to still be feeling this crappy even after so much time has passed, and everyone—particularly your ex—seems to have moved on. You start to worry about why it seems to be taking you so long to forgive and forget.
How long does it really take women to completely—and truthfully—move on from a break up? Love experts can give answers and countless self-help books can give you tips on how to speed up the recovery process. Yet nothing beats real-life survivor stories of Filipino women who have been to break up hell and back. Real Filipino women of different ages and backgrounds give the full account of how long it took them to recover, and more importantly, how they were able to do it—several times over for some. If they were able to do it, you certainly could—in no time.
It depends on the relationship you had
For some women, the speed of recovery and how well they move on depends on how serious the relationship was and how long it lasted in the first place. Recounts Frances, 27, “If we only consider the really serious ones, it usually takes me close to a year to fully recover and move on—by fully I mean actually being able to talk to the guy face to face without being too uncomfortable and without referring too much to the previous relationship.” Frances recently got married to her boyfriend of three years, a relationship which she only entered a year and half after her last break up.
According to Vicki, 23, who also recently got hitched, it is easy to move on if the relationship shouldn’t have existed to begin with. “I once ended a relationship because I thought I entered it for all the wrong reasons, which spared me from having to endure a long, painful ‘getting over’ process. In fact, I was ready to move one the same day we broke it off,” she says.
‘The speed of recovery and how well they move on sometimes depends on how serious the relationship was and how long it lasted in the first place’
It takes Anna, 34, an average of two years to recover. She is now happily going steady with a boyfriend, yet she recalls with mortification, “The longest time it took me to move on was in fact three years. Gosh, can you believe, it took me that long? What was I thinking?”
But maybe the relationship was indeed remarkable enough to take such a long time to recover from. “It was a five-year relationship wherein we practically matured together,” says Anna. “In fact, I didn’t enter into another relationship until five years after the break up, which was bad, I must say.”
It’s how you split up
In some cases, how soon women move on from a break up depends on the manner of the break up. Vicki shares, “My last serious relationship took me six months to recover, which even had me shedding the occasional tear up to the fifth month, I think. What helped me snap out of it are some very unpleasant circumstances involving my ex: hurtful words were exchanged and there was emotional blackmail involved, which led me to totally abandon the thought of ever getting back together with him.”
Frances believes it usually takes longer to recover from a break up if there was so much anger. This happened in one relationship that lasted for three years before they called it quits. “We were too comfortable with each other, we tend to express ourselves too much when there’s conflict, we say nasty things,” Frances says. It was the break up she recovered the longest from, which took her a year.
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