Most guidance says 30 to 90 days depending on the relationship. The first two weeks are usually hardest, and somewhere past 60 people tend to notice they have stopped counting. There is no fixed number, and anyone selling you one is guessing — the honest answer is that it stops being a countdown before it stops being hard.
You want a number. Everyone does, and every site will give you one, usually 30 or 60 or 90 days, delivered with more confidence than anybody has earned.
Here is the honest version: those numbers are conventions, not findings. What is reasonably consistent is the shape — which weeks are worst, and what tends to shift when.
For a lot of people it is not linear, and week five being harder than week four is not failure. The swings tend to be widest early and they do ease — but not on a schedule, and not in a straight line. Some people find it mostly steady, and that is not a sign you cared less.
The number is mostly cultural. It is a month, it fits a calendar, and it is long enough to feel like a commitment without being long enough to refuse.
It is not that nothing changes at 30 days. It is that nothing changes because it is 30 days. What is doing the work is repetition — every day the old pathway goes unfed — and a pathway does not know what date it is.
"How long until I stop wanting to text them" is the wrong question, because it makes the wanting the enemy. You can want to text someone for a long time and never do it, and that is a fine outcome — it is most people's outcome.
The better question is how long until the wanting stops running your evenings. That one moves faster, and it is the one you can actually influence.
Watch what the count is for. A number you check once in the morning and feel steadied by is doing its job. A number you check six times a day is a shrine with better branding, and it is keeping the thing central rather than helping it fade.
Same with the timeline you are reading right now. If you came here to find out when they will reach out, that is the counting that keeps people stuck — and no honest page can answer it.
If you're thinking about hurting yourself, please don't sit with it alone. In the US and Canada, call or text 988. In Poland and the UK, 116 123. Anywhere else, findahelpline.com finds a free line where you are — a number you cannot dial is not help. We're peer support, not a crisis service, and this is the one thing we'd never want you to use us for.
It's 2am, and a number can't answer you. NO CONTACT CLUB puts 3–5 real people at your exact stage on the other end of one shared streak — so when the urge hits, you text them instead of your ex.
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