How do you get over an ex?

You get over an ex by cutting contact, removing the triggers that pull you back, and giving the feeling somewhere to go every day. Block or mute, clear the photos and the playlist, name your mood once a day, walk 20 minutes, rebuild one routine that is yours, tell one person the truth, and set a date 30 days out to compare your numbers.

How long does it take to get over an ex?

There is no fixed number, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. The NHS describes grief as becoming less intense over time rather than ending on a date. What you can track is behavior: days since contact, how many times a day you check his profile, and how long a single urge lasts. Those move in weeks.

Does no contact help you get over an ex?

Cutting contact removes the new material you would otherwise spend the day interpreting: the reply, the story, the mutual friend's update. Without fresh input, the urge peaks and passes instead of restarting. It does not tell you what to do with the feeling, so pair it with a daily check-in and something physical.

Should I stay friends with my ex?

Staying friends keeps the planned future alive in your head, which is the part you are trying to let go of. It is a reasonable decision later, once you can hear his name without reaching for your phone, and a necessary one if you co-parent or share a lease. In the first weeks it tends to slow everything down.

Is it normal to still miss someone after months?

Missing someone months later is common, and it says nothing about whether the breakup was right. What matters is the trend: fewer profile checks, shorter urges, a story you are bored of telling. If a low mood has lasted more than two weeks, or sleep and appetite have not returned, the NHS and NIMH both advise talking to a doctor.

How to Get Over an Ex: A 7-Step Plan

His hoodie is still on the back of your chair, the playlist still autoplays in the car, and at eleven at night you are four months deep in his profile again. You have already typed how to get over an ex into your phone, and every answer told you to give it time. Here is the concrete version of how to get over a breakup: seven steps, a way to measure them, and the part nobody warns you about.

Why getting over an ex takes longer than you expect

Getting over an ex takes longer than you expect because a relationship is wired into your ordinary day, not stored in one place you can delete. Your commute, your Sunday, your lock screen, the person you text when something funny happens: all partly him. Removing one does little; removing all of them takes weeks.

The NHS lists the end of a relationship as a cause of grief, alongside job loss and moving house. You are grieving, and grief does not respond to a well-argued list of his flaws.

The two things you are letting go of

Two losses sit inside one breakup: the person, and the future you had planned with them. The person is the smaller half. You also booked a holiday in your head, named a dog, pictured a kitchen.

The future is what wakes you at 3 in the morning. Missing him often turns out to be missing the version of your life where the plan was still on. Name which one is loud today: company for the person, a new plan for the future.

Two pillows on a made bed, one of them still dented.

How to get over an ex, step by step

Getting over an ex, step by step, means seven small things done in order instead of waiting for the feeling to change first. Every step is small enough to start tonight, and step one makes the rest possible.

Cut contact. Block or mute his number, his socials, and the account of the friend who reports back on him. The no-contact rule works because it stops feeding you new material to interpret. One reply puts you back on day one.
Strip the triggers. Archive the photos, delete the shared playlist, bag the hoodie, remove his contact photo. You are not erasing him; you are removing the ambushes.
Name the feeling once a day. Pick a fixed minute, say before you brush your teeth, rate the day on a simple scale, then write two lines about why. A rating ends. A replay does not.
Move your body. CDC guidance for adults is 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, and NIMH says 30 minutes of walking a day can boost your mood. Walk the first ten minutes with no headphones.
Rebuild one routine that is yours. Take back one slot he occupied: Sunday morning, the gym at seven, Thursday dinner. Fill it with something you chose before him, or never tried.
Tell one person the truth. Say the unflattering version out loud to one friend: that you checked his profile eleven times, that you would take him back today. Saying it shrinks it, and it lets someone check on you.
Give it a date to check back. Put a date 30 days out in your calendar and write down today's numbers: days since contact, profile checks yesterday, hours of sleep. On that date you compare instead of guessing.

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The step people skip

Step two, stripping the triggers, is the one people skip, because it is boring. Blocking is one decisive tap; archiving 400 photos is an evening of admin, so it waits. Then the triggers break the streak at eleven at night.

One 20-minute pass covers it: archive, unfollow, delete the playlist, bag the hoodie. Anything you cannot bear to delete goes into one folder you never open.

Three ways people try to move on

Three approaches cover most of what people try after a breakup: full no contact, staying friends, or a rebound. A fourth, closing the loop alone, does the work the other three avoid. Each one trades speed for something else.

Approach	How it works	Best for	The limit	How fast it helps
Full no contact	Block every channel for a fixed stretch so the urge peaks and passes with no new input	Anyone who still checks, texts or negotiates	Says nothing about what you do with the feeling; the hard hours still arrive	Rough for 3 to 10 days, then noticeably easier
Staying friends	Keep talking, downgrade the label, see each other in groups	Co-parents, a shared lease, a real friendship once the grief has passed	Keeps the planned future alive and hands you fresh material every week	Easier on day one, stalls for months
A rebound	Date or sleep with someone new to break the exclusivity	Anyone whose confidence took the biggest hit	Borrows the relief; the comparing starts the moment they leave	Hours of relief, no change to the baseline
Closing the loop alone	Write the unsent message, say the last thing on paper, then stop	Anyone waiting for an apology or an explanation that is not coming	Needs honesty, and one sitting is rarely enough	One evening, and repeatable

Which one to pick

Full no contact plus closing the loop alone is the pairing that fits most people in the first weeks. No contact removes the input. The unsent message handles the words you still want to say, without handing him a reply to write.

A rebound is not a plan, and it is not a crime either. If you want company, have company; notice whether you chose the person or borrowed them to fill a slot.

Habits that make it stick

Four habits carry the weeks between the decision and the day his name stops landing: sleep, movement, breath, and a written record. None are impressive, and all four are measurable. Pick times, not intentions.

Sleep goes first and comes back last. CDC guidance for adults aged 18 to 60 is 7 or more hours a night. Set a window rather than a bedtime: in bed by 11:30, up at 7, phone charging in another room.

Breath is the tool for the hour you cannot walk off. The NHS calming breathing exercise asks you to breathe in gently through the nose to a count of five, out through the mouth to a count of five, and repeat for at least five minutes. That is longer than it sounds and shorter than the urge.

The written record is one prompt, answered daily: what did I feel today, and what did I do about it. NIMH also recommends naming something specific you are grateful for. Two honest lines beat three pages you abandon by Thursday.

The 20-minute rule

Twenty minutes is the unit that survives a bad week, when anything bigger feels impossible. A 20-minute walk, a 20-minute sweep of the triggers, 20 minutes of the thing you did before him. Three walks in a calendar beat a resolution about the gym.

The rule has a second half. When an urge hits, you owe it 20 minutes before you act on it: set a timer, do one grounding exercise, then decide. The urge looks different at minute 20, and the text you would have sent tends to read worse.

How to measure progress

Progress after a breakup shows up in numbers you can count, and not in how you feel on a Tuesday afternoon. Feelings swing by the hour; the counts move in one direction over weeks. Write them down on day one and read them on your 30-day date.

Days since contact. Count from the last message you sent or answered, not from the breakup. A reset to zero is data, and not a verdict on you.
Profile checks per day. Count the times you opened his profile yesterday. Going from eleven to three is the win; zero can wait.
Minutes an urge lasts. Time one urge from the moment you reach for your phone to the moment it fades. Forty minutes in week one and eight in week five is the shape you want.
How often you tell the story. Count how many times a week you narrate the breakup. When the story gets boring to tell, something has moved.
Hours of sleep. Track a weekly average against the 7-hour floor. Sleep is the easiest of these to measure and the hardest to fake.

A workable test

One test tells you where you are: can you hear his name, or see a car like his, without touching your phone? Run it out loud in the mirror if you need to. The answer changes over weeks, and it beats asking yourself whether you are over him.

A second test belongs to later: could you be glad about good news for him? It arrives on its own, after the counts have already moved.

Common mistakes and edge cases

Five mistakes undo more no-contact streaks than willpower ever repairs. Each has a cheap replacement. Read them before your next bad night, not during it.

Mistake: one last conversation. The final talk restarts every question it was meant to end, and you lose the days you banked. Write the unsent message instead, and leave it unsent.
Mistake: keeping one channel open. A muted account you check in a private tab is contact with extra steps. Block it, and block the friend's account that mirrors it.
Mistake: waiting to feel ready. Readiness arrives after the behavior changes, so the block comes first and the calm later. Do the no-contact rule badly rather than not at all.
Mistake: making the glow up about him. A haircut aimed at his timeline is still a message to him. Point a glow up at the person who lives in your body on a Tuesday.
Mistake: drinking through the hard hours. The NHS advises against using alcohol, cigarettes, gambling or drugs to relieve grief, because the feeling comes back with interest. Use the 20-minute rule instead.

A pair of running shoes by a door with morning light across the floor.

When to get help instead

Some symptoms need a person, not a plan. The NHS advises seeing a doctor if a low mood has lasted more than two weeks, if stress or anxiety is not shifting, or if your own coping is not working. NIMH names the same two-week mark for sleep problems, appetite changes, trouble concentrating, and losing interest in what you enjoyed.

A licensed therapist can work on this properly, and your doctor is the shortest route to one. If you are thinking about hurting yourself, that is the moment to reach someone now: in the US you can call or text 988, free and confidential, around the clock.

Icky is not a crisis service, and it does not treat anything. It is an app for the ordinary hard hours: the urge to text, the late scroll, the day you cannot name what you feel.

Your get-over-an-ex checklist

Six items make up the checklist, and the first four fit into tonight.

Block and mute every channel. His number, his socials, and the friend who reports back.
Run a 20-minute trigger sweep. Photos archived, playlist deleted, hoodie bagged, contact photo cleared.
Pick your daily minute. One fixed time to rate the day and write two lines about it.
Book the movement. Three walks in this week's calendar, 20 to 30 minutes each.
Write the unsent message. Say the last thing on paper, then leave it where it is.
Set the 30-day date. Today's numbers written down, and a reminder to compare them.

Icky keeps the counting out of your head: a no-contact streak with milestones, a Panic Button for the urge to text, a daily mood check-in on a six-level scale, grounding exercises, and the unsent message, on iPhone and Android in 33 languages. It is free to download. If the urge to text is the loudest part, read should you text your ex next; if you keep replaying one small moment, the ick explains it.

How to get over an ex when you still miss them

Key takeaways