It’s been weeks, or perhaps just a few days, since the breakup, and you’re already over your ex.
You moved on, you’re done with them!
And, you’re thinking about jumping into a new relationship, if you’re not already bathing in the dating pool.
Is this normal? More importantly, is it good for you?
Well, did you love your ex? Did you cry your eyes out when the relationship ended? Did you spend some time alone, processing your feelings before getting involved with anyone new?
Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to do any of these things. You can jump from one bed to another straight away, and no one can judge you.
However, there are things that you can’t avoid, and actions have consequences.
While moving on quickly might seem great at first, it’s often just a lie. You really do need time to process everything. It is strongly advised to get over one relationship before starting another. This will allow you to form a healthy relationship while avoiding complications.
You’re not going to get back at your ex by moving on quickly, especially if this is your motivation. You also can’t escape your thoughts and feelings; people need time to move on entirely.
How much time? Everyone moves on at their own pace, but there’s a theory that you need half the time you were with the person to get over them entirely. So, if you were together for a year, you would need 6 months to completely heal.
This is just a theory, and it’s not written in stone, but what it indicates is that you need a few months to move on from a long-term relationship.
So, why do you move on so quickly?
10 Reasons Why You Move On So Quickly
1. You’re just pretending that you’ve moved on.
You could be lying to yourself, to others, or both. You desperately want to move on as soon as possible, so you pretend as if you did, when, in reality, you’re still hurting.
You could be showing off on social media and to all your friends, but secretly you are hoping that they’ll send the message across to your ex.
This behavior could be for one of many reasons, but the point is that you’re just pretending you’ve moved on, when there is in fact a long road ahead of you.
You didn’t go through the grieving process, and you’re probably still harboring some very negative feelings toward your ex. Don’t just pretend it’s nothing by ignoring your feelings. Give yourself a break and take some time to heal.
You might even want to consider blocking your ex to remove the temptation of trying to shove your “happiness” in their face via your social feeds.
2. You have truly moved on by going through the grieving process.
You wanted your ex back, you cried because you couldn’t get them back, you watched romcoms while devouring a tub of ice cream, and you cut your ex’s head out of all your pictures together…
There are no exact steps to take after you break up with someone. You did what you felt was right for you, went through all the emotions, and processed them. This takes time.
Maybe you loved your ex, then felt anger toward them, followed by sadness that the relationship ended. And now you’re in a place where you can honestly say that you’re indifferent toward them.
You’re not crying anymore, and you certainly don’t want to get back together. You have entirely moved on from the relationship.
There is a chance that there’s nothing wrong with moving on quickly in your case, but this depends on your specific circumstances.
3. You want to avoid dealing with the breakup.
Avoiding a problem is similar to pretending that it’s not there, but you go way beyond that to hide your true feelings. You build a wall around your heart and prevent yourself from dwelling on the breakup while the emotions build up inside you. It feels like you could burst at any point.
Don’t avoid dealing with the breakup. Don’t go on with your life like nothing happened—something did happen, and it was an important event. Don’t take breakups lightly. The pain of a breakup, and the healing process, are very real, and very serious.
It’s okay to find a shoulder to cry on. It’s okay to feel sad when a relationship ends. Throwing yourself into your job or a hobby might be a good thing, but you need to grieve first. Allow yourself to mourn the end of a relationship.
4. You are afraid of being single.
The reason you moved on so quickly might simply be because you’ve found someone new. This will be discussed later, but it’s important to point out that it’s one of the symptoms of the fear of being single.
You’re rarely single because you jump from one relationship to the next. Or you pretend you’ve moved on, when deep down you really haven’t yet.
Learn to be okay with being alone, and wait for the right person to come along. Accept the possibility that things aren’t happening according to plan. Don’t expect the perfect person to come along and save you from your life.
Work on yourself while you’re single, and enjoy your own company.
5. You met someone new while you were in a relationship.
Maybe you move on quickly because you cheat. You might have cheated on your ex by sleeping with someone else or you had an emotional affair. Maybe you simply met someone new and felt a spark despite already being in a relationship.
Now that you’ve broken up, there’s nothing standing in the way of you being with this new person. So, you rush into a new relationship. But did you allow yourself the time required to truly move on from your previous relationship?
There may still be some unresolved issues and negative feelings troubling you until the time comes to let go. So, consider whether you really don’t care about your ex anymore.
6. You ended your last relationship before telling your ex about it.
You could break up with someone in your head before actually breaking up with them.
Sometimes you both know that it’s over, but you keep pretending that there’s still hope for a while. Maybe you and your ex were incompatible, there were intimacy and/or communication issues, or your goals for the future and core values didn’t align.
This is a good enough reason as any to end a relationship. And sometimes, when you know that a relationship needs to end for your own good, you move on faster.
On the other hand, maybe your ex treated you with disrespect or withheld love. Even if you’ve moved on quickly, you might be left with some trauma that you need to process.
7. You encountered problems that you could not tolerate.
If your ex was abusive or had problems that you could no longer tolerate, you may have ended the relationship with no regrets. You moved on quickly because you knew that you had done the right thing for your future. It could be as simple as that.
However, you should note that it takes time to heal from the problems you had in your last relationship and to overcome the negative emotions that you might still be harboring toward your ex.
So, consider talking to a therapist and taking the breakup seriously, even if you are sure that it was the right thing to do. If your ex was a jerk, you might still be angry at them or want to seek revenge, which is not healthy for you and certainly means that you haven’t yet moved on.
8. You never really loved them.
You were never really into your ex to begin with. You’re not experiencing intense emotions now that your relationship is ending because you didn’t experience them when it was beginning. The truth is you never really loved your ex.
This can be tricky because you might tell yourself that you never loved them even though you did. However, it is possible that you settled for them even though you were never attracted to them enough to want something long-term.
On the other hand, maybe you stopped loving them during your relationship. Maybe they did something, or you did something, which you consider to be unforgivable. In any case, if you don’t love your ex, or you never loved them to begin with, it’s likely why you’re moving on so quickly.
9. You always jump from one relationship to another and consider it moving on.
You did not move on if you just ended a relationship and started a new one right away. If you always do this, and can’t recall when you were last single, then this is a problem, especially if you’re not single for very long.
You should learn to love yourself and enjoy your own company. Appreciate the benefits of being single, but not by hooking up with the first person you see right after your ex “exits the building.” It’s not moving on if you simply “replace” them.
Moving on means taking some time to remind yourself of who you are and who you were before the relationship. It’s time to plan what lies ahead and what you can do to improve all aspects of your life.
Being single doesn’t have to mean crying alone in your bedroom. So, don’t be afraid of being single. Wait for a while until you get into a new relationship after ending one.
10. You want your ex to think that you’ve moved on.
Do you want your ex to think that you’ve moved on? Is this all about wanting your ex back? You haven’t moved on if you still want to be with your ex—that’s the opposite of moving on. And you can’t fake it until you make it, at least not in front of your ex.
Don’t manipulate someone into loving you. If you want your ex back, sure, try talking to them and winning them over again. But if they have moved on, don’t pretend that you’ve moved on too just so they’re not the only one. You are in no way worse off than them if you feel you need more time, so give yourself some grace when moving on from a breakup.
The 5 Dangers Of Moving On Too Fast After A Breakup
What are the consequences of moving on too quickly? Will you ever really get over your ex? Let’s try to answer these questions by giving you a list of the dangers of moving on too fast after a breakup.
1. Your sad feelings will come out if you don’t process them.
Maybe you are pretending to be strong and totally over your ex by hitting the bar with your friends with the intention of flirting with hot strangers to boost your self-esteem. Sounds like a plan, but what really ends up happening is you drunk-dial your ex to tell them how much you love and miss them.
If a newly single person gets drunk, they are likely to realize that they haven’t moved on at all. So don’t drown your sorrows in booze. You don’t have to drink to get your feelings to pop up.
If you do bottle them up, they will pop up in the form of angry or jealous outbursts, sad and desperate messages, or dramatic scenes.
So, take some time to really process your feelings and let them go. Don’t rush the process or build a wall around yourself to hide how you truly feel.
2. You will make things more complicated by getting involved with someone new too soon.
Maybe you’re not going to jump into a new relationship with anyone any time soon, but what’s wrong with a casual hookup to get your thoughts off the breakup? While we do not recommend this, in reality, a lot of people hook up with someone new just for the sex.
Should you do this? Well, no one can or should judge you for it, but it’s not the wisest of ideas. You are likely to make things more complicated, delay your grieving process, and cause complications in your life, your lover’s life, and the life of your ex-partner.
Don’t create a dramatic love triangle out of something that could be two normal relationships with a pause for self-reflection in between. If you like someone new, and they are really into you as well, they’ll still be there when you are ready. Otherwise, casual hookups will likely just make things more complicated, and you will be confused and emotional.
3. It’s not a good idea to jump from one relationship to another right away.
You don’t want to build a new relationship on the foundations of a fallen one. As already mentioned, it’s best to wait a bit before getting involved with anyone new, and this applies both to hookups and relationships.
However, some people are serial monogamists. A serial monogamist is someone who fears being single, so they jump from one relationship to another. These relationships tend to be serious ones that last much longer than they should; they are not just casual hookups.
So, a person could get married to their rebound boyfriend/girlfriend just because they’re a serial monogamist!
If this is you, you probably don’t even know who you are outside of a relationship with someone. You don’t feel complete without a partner. While this might sound romantic, it’s not, it’s a serious issue, and you should discuss it with a therapist to form better relationships in the future.
4. You don’t take time to heal from the breakup.
You’re not going to heal completely if you rush moving on after a breakup. This means that you’ll still have unresolved issues, which might cause problems in your future relationship or potentially dictate who you choose as your partner as well as when you choose to start something new.
After a breakup, take some time off from everything that you can reschedule—including your love life. Cry if you feel like you need to. Being strong means surviving your negative emotions, not hiding or suppressing them. Feel what you’re feeling.
If this makes no sense to you, try to imagine a breakup as any kind of common illness such as the flu. You will need to lie in bed and feel sick for a while before it passes. Give yourself time to stop harboring resentment toward your ex. Get to the point where the breakup feels mutual and reasonable, even if you didn’t think that way before.
Give yourself enough time to remind yourself of who you were before and outside of the relationship, and consider investing some time into self-improvement. Keep your mind occupied by doing more of the things that you love.
5. You still think about your ex.
What if you still think about your ex even though you feel like you’ve moved on? Well, how often do you think about them, and, more importantly, how do you feel about them? At the ideal end of the post-breakup healing process, you want to feel almost indifferent toward your ex, and this should be a consistent feeling, not a temporary one.
Reaching that phase after loving someone to the core takes a lot of time, especially if you’re not the one who called it quits. If you still think about your ex in the sense that you want them, love them, hate them, or feel any intense and strong emotions toward them, you are not over them.
It might feel like you’ll never be over them, so that is why you’re rushing the process. Don’t do this. Let time do its thing.
Is It Okay To Move On Quickly?
Anything you decide to do is okay with the rest of the world. However, there are things that can benefit you or cause you harm.
Moving on too quickly is not just okay, it is great, IF you have truly moved on and processed your feelings. However, this is rarely the case.
Based on the reasons and dangers of moving on too quickly that you’ve read about so far, consider whether what you’re doing is okay or if you need more time to get over your ex.
It’s alright if you need time, even if they don’t. You need to think about what’s best for you. Take as much time as you need, don’t pressure yourself, and don’t let anyone else rush you either.
After a breakup, the best thing that you can do is live your single lifestyle for a while and be perfectly okay with it. That’s better revenge on your ex than hooking up with someone new right away.
However, if you were never that into your ex, and you’re crazy about someone new, it could work out for you! Consider whether you’re a serial monogamist though, and try not to rush anything in your new relationship.
If you’re healing from a breakup, talk to someone about how to best handle your specific situation. You might not move on quickly, but you will move on properly and fully, with time.
