How do you know you are ready for another relationship when one ends?

When I was young and dating a lot I had this rule which worked for me which was: "Never stay in a physical relationship with a woman more than 3 months unless you plan to get serious and live together ongoing."

This idea served me well because what I found was that being in a relationship more than 6 months is painful often in a way people sometimes don't survive if or when you break up.

Of course this is just me and I have always tended to be a romantic like I was trained to be by my mother and her mother. They weren't that romantically happy in their marriages so they trained me to be someone literally any woman could love. Was this a good thing?

I would have to say this was a good thing and a bad thing depending upon the situations in life I found myself in.

However, one of the things I have always been is a very loyal and caring and kind person and one who can actually talk to women because unlike many men I actually like women. Many men don't like women at all except for sex I think.

However, I always enjoyed getting to know women and finding out about them and helping them with their problems. Sort of being a counselor since I am a very logical and pragmatic person so I can easily help women solve their problems if they listen to me carefully in what I have to say about their problems.

So, I got to be very popular with the ladies simply because I was willing to help solve their problems and listen to what they had to say.

However, "All Good things tend to come to an end for one reason or another".

And being prepared for these endings is often important so you can personally survive when a relationship might end.

After all, finding the right person the first time out to actually be with is something that I presently believe mostly only happens in movies and not in real life. So, actually finding someone that will work in a relationship with you is sort of like a Science Experiment. In fact, I tend to see it in exactly that way.

You don't know what relationship can work for you until you have tried it. Unfortunately, this is why most people aren't happy because they choose the first person they date and that often is a disaster (but sometimes not).

So, after a breakup how do you know when you are ready for another relationship after the disaster you just came out of?

After the pain subsides a little you get to the point where you realize you don't want to be alone anymore and you begin to reach out for another relationship.

However, you must realize that I'm writing this about who I was from about 1969 until 1973 when I met my first wife and had a son and got married. This isn't now.

So, in some ways I'm not sure how useful all this information is to children of today who might have been born since 1990 or even 2000.