How Long Should I Go No Contact After a Breakup?

If the prospect of going no contact after a breakup sounds daunting, you’re not alone. Humans are wired to bond and to connect. And disconnection, especially when it’s disconnection from a primary relationship can be incredibly painful and disorienting.

In ancient hunter gatherer societies, to be expelled from the tribe meant certain death. Humans are pack animals. We need one another to survive. Today, we don’t have tribes, but we often have close relationships, and for far too many of us, our relationships constitute our primary bonds. It’s no wonder then, that a breakup can bring up feelings of deep insecurity, lack of safety, and even existential dread. A breakup involves the dissolution of our tribe of two.

If you’re wondering how long you should go no contact after a breakup, and are doubting your ability to maintain no contact, you’re not alone. No contact is hard to do. It runs contrary to our evolution, our biology, and our innate drive to connect. And yet, successfully going no contact after a breakup can help us heal from the breakup and give us the space we need to move forward.

What is No Contact After a Breakup?

When we go no contact, we disconnect entirely from a former partner by taking some time away from them. This means we don’t see them, don’t call them, don’t answer the phone, don’t respond to text messages, and we block them on our social media feeds. This process isn’t meant to be cruel. If your relationship is truly over, going no contact can be a compassionate decision that two people make to give themselves time and space to heal from the relationship. Even if you still hope to be friends with your ex, it’s still a good idea to go no contact for a while. This gives you both time to establish your lives outside your relationship, creating a stronger foundation for friendship—if that’s something you decide you ultimately want after taking some time away.

When you make space after a breakup by going no contact, you give yourself and your former partner the gift of time—time for clarity, time for healing, and time for growth. Sometimes two people, after a period of no contact get back together with one another. They realize they value the relationship, can work through the blocks that made the relationship unworkable or return with a commitment to work through those issues together. Other times two people decide that it’s better to not even remain friends.

In the initial days and weeks after a breakup, your brain gets flooded with chemicals that will drive you to seek and connect with your former partner. It doesn’t matter if your relationship was good or bad. In the early days after a breakup, you’re going through a kind of withdrawal. According to Helen Fisher and other researchers writing in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology, “feelings of intense romantic love engage regions of the brain’s ‘reward system,’ specifically dopamine-rich regions, including the ventral tegmental area, also activated during drug and / or behavioral addiction.” While researchers don’t go as far as to call love an “addiction” in the traditional sense, there is a sense in which the same strategies that help individuals heal from addictions can be employed to help us heal from heartbreak.

One of the ways people heal from their addictions is through abstinence. Going no contact after a breakup involves committing to physical, social, and emotional abstinence from your ex by taking some time apart.

Yet, how long should you go no contact after a breakup for your period of abstinence from your ex to be effective?

Recent scientific research indicates that the period of no contact after a breakup can range anywhere from three months to four years, and if you were in a toxic relationship or abusive relationship, most professionals will suggest that you go no contact indefinitely.

Let’s start by looking at what the research says. In this article we’ll explore the following topics:

• The Case for Longer No Contact
• The Case for Three Months No Contact
• The Case for One Month No Contact
• The Case for Permanent No Contact
• Why Support is So Important

The Case for Longer No Contact

Recent research published by Y. Chong and Chris Fraley in the journal, Social Psychological and Personality Sciences indicates that, on average, it takes people 4 years to fully break their attachment bonds with an ex. The 328 adults who were surveyed in the study had been with their partners for about 5 years, and, at the time of the study, they had been broken up with their exes for about the same amount of time they had been together.

The researchers asked the participants how often they turned to their former partners for physical or emotional support, for comfort, and for a sense of security. The study found that it took on average 4 years before individuals stopped turning to their former partners for emotional support, to seek comfort, and to gain a sense of security.

Yet, there were some factors that could speed up the recovery time. Individuals who maintained ongoing contact with an ex were more likely to report continued attachment. According to the British Psychological Society, “the thing that made the most consistent difference to fading attachment, however, was ongoing contact: people who regularly interacted with their ex, whether online or in person, were far less likely to sever emotional ties.”

Other factors, like attachment style, could also impact recovery time. But this data only further reinforces the idea that going no contact for a longer period is better.

Avoidantly attached individuals were able to detach more quickly (likely because they were able to maintain no contact after a breakup), while more anxiously attached individuals took longer to get over their ex (largely because anxiously attached individuals were more likely to turn to their ex for comfort). Here we see direct evidence for how going no contact after a breakup can speed up your recovery. By choosing to behave more like someone who is avoidantly attached, we can speed up our healing process, regardless of our attachment style.

Interestingly, individuals who shared children with an ex and who were co-parenting were able to get over their exes faster than those who didn’t share children or co-parent with their ex. The researchers found that while co-parents might have been more attached earlier, the attachment faded more quickly (possibly because of ongoing resentment from co-parenting difficulties). So, if you think you can’t get over your ex or practice no contact because you share children together, here's one piece of evidence to suggest otherwise. Co-parenting might help you heal faster. And there are strategies that you can use to go “low contact” or minimal contact to help you navigate co-parenting.

We explore the idea of going low contact when you co-parent with an ex in our online breakup coaching program.

So, what’s the key takeaway? 

While there isn’t a specific period you should go no contact, ideally, you should stay no contact with your ex until you have had some time to establish other bonds with people or communities you can turn to for physical or emotional support, for comfort, and for a sense of security

The question you should then be asking yourself then is not “how long should I go no contact after a breakup,” but rather, these questions:

1. Do you have someone you can reliably turn to for physical or emotional support instead of your ex?
2. Do you have someone you can reliably turn to for comfort when you’re feeling sad or down?
3. Do you have someone reliable in your life who you can turn to when you’re feeling self-doubt, lonely, or alone?

Until you’ve established reliable bonds with other people, you’ll be more likely to turn to your ex to seek comfort rather than creating bonds with new people and communities. This isn’t about starting a new relationship right away—it’s about building a strong community of social support so that if you do start talking to your ex again, you aren’t relying on them to meet your needs.

If you’re struggling with rebuilding after a breakup, you’re not alone.

Our Online Breakup Coaching program and FREE 7-Day No Contact After Your Breakup Challenge offers practical tools and strategies you can use to calm your nervous system and tap into your internal resources for support.

The Case for Three Months of No Contact

Other studies indicate that most people can get over a breakup in about three months. Researchers writing in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology studied college students who had recently gone through a breakup. The researchers found that most students felt better about their breakups in about three months. Even students who thought that healing would take years because they reported being deeply in love, or weren’t the ones initiating the breakup, felt much better than they had predicted they would within about three months of going through a breakup.

Yet, the study has its limitations because the research group involved college students. College students are more likely to have deeper social connections and community connections than other groups, are more likely to live in communal settings rather than live alone after a breakup, and the duration of their relationships are more likely to be shorter than 4 years. These factors can impact healing time. Social connection and support can significantly improve healing time after a breakup.

So, if you weren’t in a relationship for a long time or if the relationship wasn’t your primary attachment bond, or if you have deep social connections with friends and community, you might be able to go no contact after a breakup for three months and find that you feel much better in a shorter period. And if you are a college student, the research indicates that three months of no contact should be sufficient.

The Case for One Month of No Contact

Anna Lembke, in her book Dopamine Nation, writes that most people who have addictions leave a dopamine deficit state after about 4 weeks. She explains that “at about two weeks, patients are usually still experiencing withdrawal. They are still in a dopamine deficit state.” Yet, everyone is different. Lembke notes that she’s observed patients who have been able to reset their reward pathways in two weeks and others who needed far longer than four weeks to re-set. She also noted that “younger people recalibrate faster than older people.”

Because a breakup will put you in a dopamine deficit state, Lembke’s research suggests that the minimum time you should go no contact after a breakup is one month.

Lembke also adds that approximately 20% of people won’t feel better after a four-week dopamine fast. She notes that in this case, there might be other issues driving the underlying feelings, and it might be wise to seek additional support from a licensed mental health professional. So, while you might not be totally over your ex after 4 weeks of no contact, you should be feeling better. And the goal of no contact after a breakup, after all, is to feel better.

The key takeaway is this: if you want to give yourself time to heal, you’ll want to commit to going no contact for at least a full month.

Most people can’t heal from addictions without support, and the same is true for breakups. If you’ve been trying to go no contact, but have been struggling to stay no contact, you’re not alone.

You need support.

Our Self Love Breakup Coaching program and No Contact After You Breakup: 7-Day Challenge can provide you with the support you need to get out, stay out, and move on.

The Case for Permanent No Contact

If you’re leaving an abusive relationship or toxic relationship, you probably want to commit to going no contact with your ex permanently. Individuals who have narcissistic tendencies might try to hoover you back into the relationship, or you might open yourself to ongoing abuse if you remain in contact with an abusive or toxic ex. By creating space between yourself and the toxic or abusive relationship, you not only give yourself space to heal, but you also give yourself the space and opportunity to fill your life with healthier, more fulfilling relationships.

According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, it can take a person experiencing domestic violence up to seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship. While we understand that not everyone has the privilege of being able to go no contact in all situations, if you can go no contact, and if it is safe to do so, it might be a good idea. The fewer opportunities you give your former partner to get you sucked back into the relationship, the more likely you’ll be to succeed and not go back.

Staying no contact after a breakup with a toxic partner can be especially difficult, especially if you and your partner had a cycle of rupture and repair or were in an off-again on-again relationship. It’s important to get support. Licensed therapists and mental health professionals can help you navigate the strong feelings that can arise if you find yourself drawn to re-engage in a toxic relationship.

Self Love Breakup Coach’s online Breakup Coaching program, while no replacement for licensed mental health support, delves deeply into why it’s so hard to break free from these toxic dynamics, and what you can do. If you’re interested in learning more about systems of coercive control in relationships, bounded choice in toxic relationships, and how to break these patterns in future relationships, consider joining our Online Breakup Coaching program.

Why Support is So Important

Because a breakup can activate the same brain regions triggered in addiction, it’s important to seek support while attempting to go no contact after a breakup. People recovering from addictions seek social support to help them get through the initial withdrawal phase. Yet, when we are going through the initial withdrawal phase after a breakup, we seldom seek out similar support.

But what if you used the same tools to help people quit addictions to quit your toxic or unsatisfying relationship? This is why I developed Self Love Breakup Coach’s online Breakup Coaching program. With over 80 modules of support, drawn from research-backed recovery tools, Self Love Breakup Coaching’s online breakup & divorce coaching program offers additional support during the initial withdrawal phase of a breakup. Learn how to regulate your nervous system, gain tools and strategies to fight urges to reach out or scroll on your ex’s social media feed, learn more about dynamics at play in toxic and bad relationships, and gain the skills you need to break the cycle—for good. When you join our breakup coaching program today, you also get instant access to our Intentional Dating course. Break the cycle of toxic relationships, situationships, unavailable people, and unsatisfying relationships for good.

Consider joining our self-paced breakup coaching program today. Or try our FREE 7-Day No Contact Challenge.