There is a universally accepted, highly moralised timeline for getting over a breakup. One that involves an obligatory sadness, followed by “working on yourself.” But what if doing the exact opposite, falling for someone new while you’re still carrying the bruises of your last love, is actually a way to heal?

I found myself recently single on the cusp of thirty. I’d seen it coming, of course, for months, perhaps even years, but it was simply too hard to quit. Sunk cost fallacy, a love that didn’t quite fit. The anticipation, though, didn’t spare me from the devastation that followed.

After three and a half years, the heartbreak was wretched. The grief felt less about losing the man, and far more about losing the comforting, familiar home of a relationship. I am, to my absolute detriment, a hopeless romantic and a lover – and now I was completely and utterly on my own.

After weeks of ugly-crying to my single friends over bottles of rosé, I was absolutely certain that every remaining man over the age of thirty was a toxic man-child (confirmed by my TikTok algorithm) and that I should simply resign myself to a life alone. Still, pessimism is no match for boredom and a deeply humiliating desire for a stranger with nice biceps to tell me I was hot. I downloaded Hinge a month post-breakup, much to the collective dismay of everyone who cares about my emotional well-being.

I wasn’t ready, but I swiped anyway, matching with a guy who, in a matter of weeks, became my boyfriend. It was wildly, inappropriately fast. But I am certain he is my person. The great irony of ignoring all the sensible, modern advice about “doing the work” and “being alone” is that I am happier than I have ever been, in the healthiest, most loving relationship of my life. My friends utterly adore him, so does my mum, and even my best friend is thoroughly thrilled I ignored her very rational and appropriate advice to not go on the apps.

Yet, there is still one question people constantly ask me: Was I really ready to be in a new relationship, or did I simply find a particularly wonderful distraction?

According to clinical psychologist Phoebe Rogers, the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

In fact, she says it’s entirely possible to continue healing while falling in love with somebody new.

“I think it’s completely possible,” Rogers says. “It all depends if you’ve done a level of work and you’re insightful and self-reflective.”

She regularly sees clients who have already developed insight into their old relationship and then find themselves questioning a healthy new one simply because it has happened sooner than they,  or the people around them, expected.

“They know it’s healthy, but it’s that little voice that goes, ‘I’m not sure. Am I rushing?’” she says. The difference, she explains, is that they have reflected on the past.

One thing I realised after my own relationship ended was that, despite being devastated, I wasn’t necessarily processing three and a half years of heartbreak from scratch. A lot of that grieving had already happened.

Rogers says this is common. A person can spend months (sometimes longer) recognising that something isn’t right, examining their own behaviour and emotionally detaching before a relationship officially ends.

“You’ve moved on, but you’ve been moving on inside,” she explains. “You’ve been reflecting and learning, and the growth’s already happened.”

In other words, the date a relationship ends doesn’t necessarily mark day one of healing.

That may explain why someone who appears, from the outside, to have moved on “too quickly” doesn’t actually feel as though they have.

And according to Rogers, there isn’t a universal waiting period that suddenly makes you emotionally safe to date again.

Instead, she suggests asking yourself: What did I learn? What do I understand now? And what am I doing differently?

Often, she says, healing involves starting to “like yourself again”, rediscovering your worth and appreciating who you are, and a new partner can add to that rather than replace it.

This is where things get slightly less romantic.

Because yes, Rogers says, sometimes people absolutely do jump into something new because sitting alone with heartbreak feels unbearable.

One of the biggest questions to ask yourself is surprisingly simple: Do I actually like this person? Is your attraction specific to them, or are you addicted to the distraction, chemistry, and adrenaline of having somebody new?

Rogers notes that warning signs can include constantly comparing your new partner with your ex, feeling torn between the past and present, or remaining deeply attached to the old relationship.

A much healthier sign?

“You’re feeling more like yourself,” she says. “You like yourself, and you feel safe and connected.”

Rogers says a healthy new relationship can genuinely help repair some of the damage caused by an unhealthy one.

“We can heal on our own, but I think it’s very powerful when we heal in connection, in relationship.”

“A lot of us come from attachment wounds that have really impacted our trust in others and how we feel about ourselves,” she explains. But a new relationship can provide an entirely different emotional baseline. “For you to have a new experience, you can say how you feel. It’s not held against you. You’re emotionally safe. You’re taken seriously. You’re listened to. You’re respected.”

“You can make mistakes, she says, allow your emotions to get the better of you, and still talk through the issue without the relationship feeling as though it’s about to collapse. That’s incredibly healing.”

“You don’t have to fear abandonment,” she says. “You can show those emotional, sensitive parts of you, and allow someone else to understand them.”

And perhaps that’s the part of healing nobody really talks about. Sometimes you can spend months alone learning that you deserve better. But there’s something completely different about having somebody actually show you what better looks like.

Of course, getting into a new relationship doesn’t magically erase everything that came before it. You might still be processing things your ex did. You might still have insecurities that originated in your last relationship. You might even occasionally miss the person you were with.

Rogers doesn’t believe any of those things automatically mean you’re incapable of loving somebody new.

“You can be processing and your heart’s still somewhat open, or your heart becomes open because of how the new person treats you,” she explains.

The problem begins when the past becomes the lens through which you see everything your new partner does. If you’re so fixated on what happened previously that you “can’t let in the new,” Rogers says there may still be work to do.

I entered my current relationship carrying wounds from my last one. Yet, many of them have already been healed quite simply with unadulterated love. The parts of myself I had once thought were “too much” or “too annoying” have completely vanished. Things I had once stressed about, or was deeply frightened to say, are now simply normal conversations. I am reassured and have never once been made to feel small.

Rogers says this is something she sees with clients, too. A healthy relationship can initially feel almost unfamiliar because it is more stable and consistent than what someone has experienced before. Sometimes, she says, people actually have to “learn to let love in and let the new person show them love.”

Rogers acknowledges that external voices can be difficult to navigate when you move on quickly.

“Know yourself. Trust your own feelings.”

And, she jokes, perhaps be particularly wary of taking every bit of advice from your “jaded, heartbroken girlfriends.” Sometimes the warnings people give us come from genuine love, but they can also come filtered through their own experiences.

So, can you heal from a breakup while in a new relationship? Absolutely, yes.

Being single can be enormously valuable. Therapy can be valuable. Sitting alone with your feelings can be valuable. But perhaps we’ve become so fixated on the idea that healing must happen alone that we’ve forgotten relationships themselves can be healing, too.

The question isn’t necessarily how many weeks or months have passed since your breakup. It’s whether you understand what happened, whether you recognise your patterns, whether you can see the new person for who they actually are, and, perhaps most importantly, whether the relationship allows you to become more yourself.

As Rogers puts it: “Good humans still exist, and good men still exist.”

I’d say downloading Hinge a month after my breakup just so happens to be the best decision I’ve ever made.