How to Get Over a Breakup: A Week-by-Week Plan for Guys

To get over a breakup, stop contacting her, get her off your phone screen, and fill the hours you used to spend together with people and plans, starting this weekend. Then give it time you can't speed up. Expect the first two weeks to be the worst, expect a bad day to ambush you around month two, and wait to get back on dating apps until you can write a message to a stranger without thinking about your ex. For most guys that takes a few months. After a long relationship, longer. Below is the plan, week by week.

The first 48 hours

You don't need a plan for the first two days. You need to get through them without doing anything you'll have to apologize for later.

A few things that help more than they should:

• Eat something real. A breakfast burrito counts. Six beers and a sleeve of crackers does not.
• Tell one person. Not a group chat, not a post. One friend or a sibling.
• Put your phone on the charger in another room at night. Most of the bad texts get sent between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m.

If you don't know what to say to that one person, you can keep it short:

Hey, Megan and I broke up last night. I'm okay-ish. Mostly just didn't want to sit with it alone. You around this week?

Rough news, we split up. Not looking for advice yet, just wanted you to know. Beers Thursday?

That last line matters. Asking for a specific night gives your friend something to do besides send a sad emoji.

What to do the first weekend

The first weekend is the hard one, because Saturday used to belong to the two of you and now it's just a big empty block. Your job is to break it into smaller pieces so it never feels empty all at once.

Plan something for Saturday morning, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. They don't have to be good plans. They have to exist.

• Saturday morning: something physical. A long run, open gym basketball at the Y, a hike if you're somewhere with trails. Something that leaves you tired in your legs instead of your head.
• Saturday night: people. Watch college football at a friend's place, go to a cousin's birthday you'd been planning to skip, sit at a bar with your roommate. You're allowed to be quiet company.
• Sunday afternoon: a chore you've been avoiding. Clean the car, return the Amazon package that's been by the door for three weeks, do laundry. Finishing something small feels better than you'd expect.

What I'd skip: a big night out designed to "get back out there." It tends to end with you three drinks deep, telling a stranger about your ex, or texting her from an Uber. There's plenty of time for that version of Saturday later.

Week one: the logistics

Breakups come with paperwork. Do it this week, all at once, so it stops leaking into the next month.

Swap her stuff

If she has things at your place, box them up and arrange one handoff. Keep the message boring and practical:

Hi, I've got your stuff boxed up (the blue hoodie, your chargers, the cast iron). I can drop it at your place Saturday around 11, or leave it with Jess if that's easier. Whatever works for you.

No "I hope you're doing okay," no "can we talk when I drop it off." She'll see through it and so will you.

Untangle the shared accounts

Shared Netflix, Spotify family plan, the Venmo you two used to split rent, your name on her phone plan or hers on yours. Make a list and close them out. If money's involved, settle it cleanly and quickly. Arguing over $40 of groceries keeps you in a conversation you're trying to leave.

Muting vs. unfollowing vs. blocking

This is the question everyone asks in week one, and most guys overthink it. A rough guide:

• Mute if the breakup was mutual and calm, you share a lot of friends, and an unfollow would start drama in your circle. On Instagram you can mute someone's posts and stories without unfollowing, and she won't be notified. You stop seeing her, and nobody has to have a conversation about it.
• Unfollow if seeing her name in your followers list still makes you check her page. Unfollowing is a normal thing people do after a breakup, and she probably expects it.
• Block if she's been cruel, if things are messy, or if you honestly can't stop yourself from looking. Blocking to protect your own head is fine. Blocking to make a point keeps the whole thing about her, which is the opposite of what you want.

Whatever you pick, also archive the old photos so they stop showing up in your "On this day" memories. Your phone will cheerfully remind you of a beach trip with her at the worst possible moment unless you stop it.

And stop checking her profile through a mutual friend's account. You know who you are.

Don't text her

Of all the advice here, this is the one that does the most work. Stop texting her.

Not as a strategy. There's a whole corner of the internet that sells "no contact" as a trick to make her miss you and come back. Skip that framing entirely. The reason you stop texting her is that she ended it (or you both did), and she gets to have her own space to deal with it. The second reason is selfish in a good way: every text reopens the thing you're trying to close. You send "hope you're good," you stare at the screen for two hours, she replies "you too," and now you're back at day one.

The breakup is the answer. It's a no, even if it was a kind one, even if part of you thinks she'll change her mind. Accepting it means you don't send the 1 a.m. paragraph, you don't "accidentally" show up at her gym, and you don't ask a mutual friend to pass along a message. If she has blocked you anywhere, that's a clear request, and you don't go around it with a new number or a different app.

When you feel the pull to text her, write the message in your Notes app instead. Read it the next morning. Delete it. This sounds dumb and works surprisingly often.

If she texts you

Sometimes she reaches out. A birthday message, a question about a jacket, a "saw this and thought of you." You can be polite without reopening anything:

Thanks, that's kind of you. Hope your week's going well.

I think I've got it, I'll check and drop it with Jess if so.

If she wants to talk about getting back together, that's a real conversation and it deserves a clear head and daylight. "I'd want to think about that, can we talk this weekend?" is a fine answer. If you already know your answer is no, say so kindly and keep it short.

Weeks two to four: build the new routine

Somewhere in week two the adrenaline wears off and things get flat. You're not crying in the car anymore, you're just bored and a little sad, and the evenings drag. This is the stretch where a lot of guys slide into six hours of YouTube a night.

The fix is boring. Give your weeks a shape:

1. One fixed thing every week that involves other people. A Wednesday bowling league, a climbing gym, a rec soccer league, a standing call with your brother.
2. One thing you dropped while you were together. The guitar in the closet. The friend who lives forty minutes away you stopped visiting. Cooking for real, instead of whatever she liked.
3. Sleep at roughly the same time. Heartbreak and 3 a.m. are bad roommates.

You don't need a glow-up montage. You're not training for anything. You're just making the days fuller than the gap she left.

What to say when people ask

Coworkers, your mom, the guy at the barbershop. Have one sentence ready so you're not explaining it from scratch every time:

We broke up a few weeks ago. I'm doing alright, thanks for asking.

Yeah, we split. It was the right call, still kind of weird.

Nobody's owed the full story. And repeating it ten times in a week keeps the wound fresh.

Month two: the ambush

Month two has a trick. Things will be going fine. You'll have had a good week. Then you'll hear her favorite song in a Target, or see someone with her exact coat on the L, and it'll knock you flat for an afternoon.

That's normal, and it doesn't mean you're back at the start. Getting over someone doesn't run in a straight line. It's more like the bad days get further apart and shorter. If you used to have one every day and now you have one every ten days, you're doing great, even if that tenth day feels terrible.

This is also when a lot of guys get tempted to "check in." It's been a while, things feel calmer, surely a friendly text is harmless. Ask yourself what you actually want back from it. If the honest answer is "to know if she's sad too," don't send it.

Month three and after: getting back on the apps

When you're ready to date again

There's no date on the calendar, but there are signs. You're probably ready when:

• You can go a full day without checking anything about her.
• You want to meet someone new for her own sake, not to prove something or fill a Friday.
• You could tell a date "I got out of a relationship this spring" without your voice doing anything strange.

You're probably not ready if your main reason is that you heard your ex is seeing someone. That's a scoreboard, and it's unfair to the woman across the table, who showed up to meet you, with her own week and her own reasons for being there.

Easing back in

Rebuild your profile instead of reactivating the old one. New photos, especially if your best pictures were cropped out of couple shots (people can tell, there's always a stray shoulder). Our Hinge prompt answers for guys has examples if your old answers were written for a version of you that had a girlfriend to go home to.

Go slow at first. Swipe for twenty minutes, not two hours. If it feels awful, most apps let you pause or hide your profile instead of deleting it (Bumble calls this Snooze), so you can step away without starting over.

And expect some no's. Matches that never reply, dates that don't lead anywhere. Right after a breakup those can land harder than usual. Read how to handle rejection on dating apps before the first one, not after.

What to say about the ex

On a first date, she might ask about your last relationship. Keep it short and don't trash her:

I was with someone for about two years. It ended in the spring. We wanted different things, and I'm in a good place about it now.

Then turn the conversation somewhere else. Talking about your ex for twenty minutes tells her you're not done.

How long does it take to get over a breakup?

Honestly, it depends, and anyone who gives you a precise number is guessing. You'll see rules like "half the length of the relationship." There's no real basis for it, and if you dated someone for eight years, it's a depressing thing to read.

What actually moves the timeline:

• How long you were together and how tangled your lives got. Shared apartment, shared dog and shared friends take longer than four months of dating.
• Whether you keep contact going. Every check-in resets the clock a little.
• Who ended it, and whether you saw it coming.
• How much of your life was built around her. If she was your whole weekend social calendar, you have more to rebuild.

A rough honest answer: many people feel noticeably better within a couple of months and mostly fine within six to twelve months, with exceptions both ways. That's my judgment from how these things tend to go. I don't have a study to back it. If you were married, it's a different situation, and dating after divorce for men goes into it.

When it's more than a rough patch

Most breakup sadness is just sadness. It's heavy and it passes. But sometimes it settles into something heavier: you can't sleep for weeks, you've stopped eating, you're drinking every night to get through it, you can't work, or you're having thoughts that the people around you would be better off without you.

If that's where you are, talking to a therapist is a real and pretty ordinary option. Lots of guys see one after a breakup. Your workplace may have an employee assistance program with a few free sessions, and your health insurance plan's website will usually list in-network providers.

If things feel urgent, you can call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or chat at 988lifeline.org. It's free, confidential and available 24/7, and it covers emotional distress in general, so you don't have to be in an immediate crisis to call. You don't need the right words. "I just went through a breakup and I'm not doing well" is enough.

FAQ

Is it okay to stay friends with my ex?

Eventually, maybe. Right away, almost never. Trying to be friends in the first few months usually means one of you is hoping for more. If you both want it, give it real time apart first, and be honest with yourself about why you want it.

Should I delete our photos?

I'd archive them. You may want them in five years, and you definitely don't want them in your feed right now. Most photo apps and Instagram let you hide or archive without losing anything.

Is a rebound a bad idea?

Not automatically. The trouble starts when you pretend it's more serious than it is. If you're not ready for anything serious, be upfront about that with whoever you're seeing. She gets to decide whether that works for her.

For more on rebuilding after a rough stretch, the confidence section is where we put it.