How much time do you mean when you say "after a while" ?
I think that normally the mempools would start dropping the transaction after 2 weeks, but some may have different settings (longer or shorter period).
I understand him, because when I discovered this thread I started consolidating and in one case I had a transaction stuck for about a month. I can't remember if I had RBF enabled because I was even dumber than I am now regarding technical issues. I wasn't in a hurry to consolidate but having your money in a limbo for a month is not cool.
Best solution enable RBF as it has been mentioned previously.