Free private worksheet
Am I Ready for a Relationship?
The usual advice is a rule about time — six months, a year, however long it was multiplied by something. Readiness turns out to be measurable, and time since the last relationship is one of the weaker indicators. What matters is considerably more interesting.
PDF · 6 pagesFree · no cost, everSumarie Engelbrecht
Sound familiar?
This is for you if
People keep telling me it is time and I am not sure it is
I want a relationship and I am afraid I would ruin it
I do not know if I am over my last one
I keep dating and pulling away as soon as it gets real
I want to do it differently this time and I do not know how
Readiness is measurable, and it is not about time
Commitment readiness — a felt sense of being prepared to invest in a relationship — has been studied and predicts relationship quality and stability better than most of what people use as proxies. Time since the last relationship performs relatively weakly; so does age, and so does how much you say you want one.
What it seems to track is a combination of feeling settled enough in your own life to have something to offer, having some clarity about what you are looking for, and not needing a relationship to resolve something else. Those are addressable, which is a more useful conclusion than waiting for a date on a calendar.
What are you hoping it will fix?
This is the least comfortable section of the worksheet and the most useful. Wanting a relationship because you enjoy partnership is different from wanting one to resolve loneliness, to prove something after a rejection, to satisfy family pressure, or to avoid sitting with yourself.
None of those make you unready, and pretending otherwise is unrealistic — most people bring some of it. But knowing which is operating changes what you notice while dating, and it is protective. A great deal of poor partner selection happens when someone is solving a different problem and does not know it.
Rebound relationships are not what folklore says
The research on rebounds is considerably kinder than the conventional wisdom. Studies find that people who enter new relationships relatively soon after a breakup often report higher wellbeing and confidence, and that these relationships are not reliably shorter-lived than any others.
The variable that matters is not elapsed time but whether the new relationship is being used to avoid processing the old one. That distinction cannot be measured with a calendar, which is why the worksheet asks about it directly instead.
Common questions
Questions people ask
There is no evidence-based number. Research on rebound relationships is more positive than the folklore suggests, and the relevant question is whether you are using a new relationship to avoid processing the last one — not how many months have passed.
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