Why can't I move on from my ex?

You can’t move on from your ex partly because, in your 20s, a breakup doesn’t stay in one place. They’re still in your feed, your camera roll, your group chat and your Spotify. And if this is your first big heartbreak, you don’t yet have the experience of getting through one, so the pain feels permanent. Moving on is partly about cutting down how often your ex shows up without your permission.

Why does it feel like they’re everywhere?

Because, digitally, they kind of are. Picture Leilani, 23, three months after a breakup. She unfollowed him in week two. But his face still pops up in her photo memories, a mutual friend tags them both in an old concert video, and Instagram keeps suggesting his new roommate. She hasn’t gone looking for him once this week. He’s found her four times anyway.

That’s the hidden work of a modern breakup. Researchers at Western University surveyed people about breakups on Facebook, and 88% said they had looked at an ex’s profile afterward.1 Changing or removing a relationship status was one of the biggest sources of distress, and people who kept tabs on an ex more often reported more breakup distress.1

Why do I keep checking, even though it makes me feel worse?

Because hurting and checking feed each other. In a study of 431 people aged 18 to 42 who had been through a breakup in the past year, Jesse Fox and Robert Tokunaga found that the more distressed someone was by the breakup, the more likely they were to monitor their ex online, especially if they weren’t the one who ended it.2

So if you were the one who got left and you can’t stop looking, that’s a common pattern, not a character flaw. The study can’t say whether checking makes things worse or hurting drives the checking. Most likely both happen. Either way, each look gives your mind new material about someone it’s trying to put down.

What do I do with all the photos?

There’s no single right answer, and that’s a relief in itself. Corina Sas and Steve Whittaker interviewed 24 people aged 19 to 34 about what they did with photos, messages and music after a breakup. Many found those digital leftovers upsetting.3 Twelve deleted them, eight kept them, and four deleted selectively.3

The deleters and keepers weren’t right or wrong. What helps is choosing on purpose instead of in a 2 a.m. spiral you might regret. A middle path works for a lot of people: move everything into one hidden album or folder, turn off “memories” features, and decide later, when it doesn’t sting, what to keep.

Why does losing our friends hurt almost as much?

Because in your 20s, a relationship often merges two friend groups, and a breakup splits them with no instructions. Researchers at the University of Manchester studied people’s online posts about friendships after a breakup. People described friends going distant or picking a side, and struggled with the gap between that and what friends are supposed to do in a crisis.4 Some realized their friendships had mostly run through the relationship.4

So you may be grieving more than one loss at once: the person, plus the Friday group chat, plus the friend who now “doesn’t want to get in the middle.” That doesn’t mean you’re not over them. It means the breakup took more than them.

Why does this one hurt so much more than anything before?

If it’s your first serious heartbreak, you’re going through it without proof that it ends. Older people tell you “you’ll get over it” because they’ve been through it and come out the other side. You haven’t yet, so your brain treats the pain as the new normal. That’s not weakness. It’s inexperience, and it’s exactly what this experience will give you.

It also helps to separate the facts from the story. The fact: the relationship ended. The story: “I’ll never feel this way about anyone again.” The first one is certain. The second one is a forecast made on the worst night, and forecasts made on the worst night are usually the gloomiest ones.

What to do this week

• Clean up the surprise reminders, not just the obvious ones: memories notifications, tagged photos, a shared playlist, their number in your favorites.
• Hide, don’t purge. One folder for everything. Decide about it later.
• Message one mutual friend you don’t want to lose, and make it about them, not your ex.
• Make one plan with a friend who’s only yours, even something small.
• Notice your check-ins. When you look at their profile, ask: what was I hoping to see? Write the answer down.

If months have passed and this still runs most of your days, if sleep, school or work is slipping, or if you feel hopeless, please talk to a licensed mental-health professional. Plenty of people do after a first big breakup. If you have any thoughts of harming yourself, use the crisis line on this page now.

What doesn’t the research show?

• The Facebook studies are correlational.12 They link checking with distress but can’t prove one causes the other.
• Those studies looked at Facebook, not the apps most people in their 20s use most now. The patterns likely carry over, but that’s an inference.
• The photo study was 24 interviews,3 useful for ideas, not a rule about what you should do.
• The friendship research came from forum posts,4 which tend to come from people who had a harder time.
• None of this sets a timeline, and none of it can tell you what your ex is feeling.