A new study has found that it takes an average person about four years to reduce their emotional attachment to an ex by at least 50 percent. The research was conducted by Jia Y. Chong and R. Chris Fraley of the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States and was published in the journal “Social Psychological and Personality Science” in 2025.
The study involved 328 adults, each of whom had been in a relationship that lasted at least two years and had later ended. The participants’ average age was in their 30s, and 57 percent were women. Their relationships with their ex-partners had lasted an average of 4.6 years, and at the time of the study, about five years had passed on average since the breakup. Researchers asked participants a series of questions to measure their emotional attachment to their ex, including how much they still felt for the person, how secure they felt with them and other emotions. The same questions were also asked about a stranger, so the researchers could compare how much stronger the emotional attachment to an ex was compared with a stranger.
Statistical analysis showed that over time, most people’s emotional attachment to an ex-partner gradually decreases. In the researchers’ model, this attachment tends to almost zero in the long term, meaning most people eventually stop feeling emotions for an ex that are stronger than what they would feel for a stranger. However, the process is slow. According to the research, it takes an average of about 4.18 years for emotional attachment to an ex to halve. If this calculation is applied to long-term trends, it can take about eight years to fully free oneself from those emotions. The time difference between individuals is very large.
The study also found that maintaining contact with an ex-partner increases the likelihood of lasting emotional bonds. Those with higher levels of anxiety also tended to have longer-lasting feelings for their ex. Emotional bonding was initially stronger if the ex-partner had children, but over time that bonding declined more rapidly than in childless ex-partners. Surprisingly, neither being in a new relationship nor gender differences significantly affected how quickly emotional attachment to an ex-partner diminished. Researchers say there is no set time frame for everyone to completely forget an ex after a breakup. For some, the emotions may fade quickly, while for others, some tension may remain even after many years.
