It feels awful until it doesn't!
Well, even though this shouldn't be the motivation case, at least it provides a push to self-motivate to move on in life instead of getting stuck up. Breakups hurt only the people who love truly and on the contrary, they bring relief to those who can't entertain a toxic romantic bond anymore but a few people break up to elevate their sadistic pleasure in throwing others under traumatic side effects of love that are hard to digest.

Not all breakups are the same because of the various situations people go through. So the period of coming out of a break-up phase or moving ahead by leaving behind past ruins of a romantic relationship also differs according to a person's experience, age, maturity and most importantly self-consciousness. So we can't assume the span but we can always track various phases of a breakup. And there's no necessity for the serial manner of those phases too. Some people may feel frustrated in the beginning and move ahead after accepting the reality. Some people suffer nothing during the initial stages but may fall into the pool of sadness and self-doubt while hitting reality. Altogether, it feels awful because breakups are dreadful.

The phases of anger, frustration, regret, guilt, sadness, fear, disgust and disappointment keep shifting their positions in your mind and play with your opinion of love constantly until you hit the point of realisation where you start embracing the need for peace, balance and stability in your life wholly. For some people, all these phases end in days but some may take years to face all these phases. Throughout the time of encountering these blended negative emotions that come out of love, a person feels awful no matter how much ever he/she/they try to ignore or escape or distract or intoxicate or deviate themselves to lessen the effect of those depressing emotions.

It completely ends only when the person allows himself to work for the betterment of his situation considering various other factors and priorities like family, friends, career, finances, lifestyle and personal happiness out of the satisfied feeling of being stable. It isn't an easy process where one can follow the step-by-step procedures as if it's a recipe. Breakups take time to settle in your mind, and they may hit you again and again whenever you think about your ex or whenever you see something that's related to your past relationship or whenever someone takes your ex's topic or whenever you accidentally see or bump into your ex or whenever you find some piece of information regarding your ex's life. Even after moving ahead in your romantic life, these things may poke or pinch you a bit but they don't make you feel sad because moving on happens only when you don't feel your breakup, is awful anymore.

And if you still feel the opposite even after assuming yourself to move on in your life, then you must check whether you truly moved on or the bits and pieces of past ruins ignite to pull you towards the addiction of being sad for someone who no more exists in your romantic life scenario. Understandably, we all get affected when our exes (especially the ones who left us for no proper reason, closure or decorum) pop up out of nowhere with their news, new life and lifestyle scenarios but we must maintain our calm. We get nothing if we wish bad for our exes or create something that causes misfortune or trouble to them, instead, we must stay cool, unaffected, and unapologetically happy for them and their growth.

Of course, you can do anything under the name of teaching a lesson or making your ex go through what you went through before, but don't you think it makes you affected by your ex's existence and makes you no lesser than a fool? It feels awful until it doesn't anymore and once that happens, you become an exceptional person who's well accepting, inclusive, mature and broad-minded. Don't fall into the loop of hurt when you have the chance of exploring various elements of happiness.
