You’ve probably heard this before, men take 8 weeks to get over a breakup and get back on the horse. It has been repeated so many times, that it has become a popular belief. But is it true? Does it take men 8 weeks to get over a breakup? That’s what we’ll try to answer today.
We browsed through a lot of online forums about relationships and dating, and we found many real stories about how exes started dating again after 8 weeks. Assumptions are often based on truth and that could be the case in this situation.
To understand how it could be true that it takes men 8 weeks to get over a breakup, let’s analyze the entire process they go through since the breakup week and week by week after that.
Why sometimes it takes men eight weeks to get over a breakup:
1. First two weeks after the breakup:
From the day of the breakup to week number two, men seem to feel a little numb but at the same time sensitive. No matter how tough men may be or how successful they are at hiding or controlling their emotions, breakups are always sad, painful, and stressful. Because breakups often hit us slowly and they feel like a grey cloud over our heads, when time starts to pass it could provide some relief.
However, they may feel insecure about whether or not losing or letting go of the relationship was the right move. As a result, they will try to convince themselves they don’t feel affected at all and they don’t need you. In other words, they may avoid feeling the full scope of emotions and try to brush them off, during this period. They adopt the “It’s no big deal” kind of attitude.
2. From week two to week four:
Over a couple of weeks after that, it seems like men start experiencing mixed emotions. As the days go by, it will start to sink in that the relationship is indeed over and they will start to feel the breakup a lot more. At this point, denial is no longer effective and they will start to look back on the relationship with regret or even guilt.
But, this doesn’t mean that they’ll want to go back to their ex-partner, they may secretly want to enjoy their newfound freedom or single life. Plus, they won’t be sure yet whether they actually regret the breakup or are just feeling lonely and realizing the loss of a relationship.
Memories will start to pop up and men will go from “this is fine” to remembering old moments or reading through old conversations. In other words, they will go from feeling strong to feeling nostalgic and maybe even sad. So far, it seems like men work through the breakup process in reverse compared to women, who start with feeling sad and missing their ex immediately after the breakup.
3. From week four to week eight:
During this period, men may start to miss their ex because they have fully realized and accepted that they’re not there for them anymore. They’re no longer toughing it out and acting like everything’s fine, they’re actively missing what they had and everything they shared together with their ex. It’s not uncommon for men to try to pop back up in their ex’s life at this stage or try to reconnect.
We recommend you shut it down if your ex tries to hola at you weeks after the breakup, especially if the relationship was not healthy. When they see that you’re not available, they will finally start to feel intense emotions and, hopefully, work through them.
They might feel anger at your rejection but, mostly, they will feel sadness and longing before they decide they need to move on. So, they will start dating again, which will likely lead to a rebound relationship, if the two of you were serious.
So, is it true?
If you’ve been dating for a while and you’ve had a few relationships, you may have already noticed that men process things differently. They rarely seem to be sad right when the relationship ends. Women, on the other hand, often feel devastated.
Women cry, they listen to sad songs to process what happened, they look through old photos and conversations, and they dwell on the relationship for a while. The more they sit with the heartache, the more things start to make sense. Eventually, they start to see that perhaps the breakup was for the best. Maybe the relationship wasn’t going anywhere or maybe you met each other at the wrong time.
The difference is that most women feel their emotions right after the breakup and they work through them instead of resorting to denial or acting like they’re so tough that it doesn’t even matter. Men do that and it often makes them look like they’re perfectly fine right after, but they will eventually have to face the truth and realize that they’re not as unbothered as they wish to show.
Granted, not all men are the same. Some men will process things differently, but it seems as if most men go through the grieving process we explained earlier. That’s why we can say it’s true that some men take around 8 weeks to work through the breakup.
But, then again this entire process could stretch through time and take longer than 8 weeks. Sometimes the same process could take months or up to a year, depending on the individual and on the strength of the relationship that was lost.
Some people believe that only insecure guys move on so quickly or faster than that. Others think that it takes men 6-8 weeks to even realize the loss of a relationship and not to move on. In the end, every guy is different, and depending on the circumstances and people involved things could differ greatly. Breakups are painful for sure, but this doesn’t always mean that breaking up was the wrong thing to do.
In the end, the assumption about men taking 8 weeks to get over someone started because women have been sharing their experiences and noticing a pattern. Looking back on your past relationships, have you ever had an ex that took exactly 8 weeks to move on? If yes, are you sure he didn’t just jump into a rebound relationship to numb the pain?