The paper questions the findings of previous studies on memory retrieval that had led to its conceptualization as being a self-limiting property whereby the initial retrieval is achieved at the expense of other memories. More specifically, the paper questions the retrieval induced forgetting finding of the previous studies based on the claim that the conditions under which they were contacted had little similarity to people’s typical remembering in everyday life where the time and general context of memory retrieval may be totally different. Three experiments were contacted and the effects of retrieval and cuing across two retention conditions were compared and presented in the paper. The results show that retrieval dynamics depend critically on situation. That is, they can be detrimental for other memories after short retention conditions and similar context but are beneficial after prolonged retention conditions due to their similarity to remembering in everyday life.