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Did you know that men and women respond differently to breakups? My brother Stephen and I talked about recent research that showed differences in how men and women process emotional pain, how long they take to recover from heartbreak, and how likely they are to want to get back together.
Of course, we are all individuals, and our response will also be determined by our own personality and experiences, but it’s always interesting to see these general patterns of male and female behavior and whether they conform with our stereotypes.
What do you think? Have you noticed any of these differences in your own relationships?
Transcript provided by YouTube:
00:00
[Music]
00:04
well steve we wanted to talk today about
00:06
breakups and well potentially based on
00:09
an article you read the difference
00:11
between men and women in breakups and
00:13
how long they take to recover
00:15
what was this article yeah so this was
00:17
an article about menv men versus women
00:20
after a breakup and it cited an
00:22
interesting study by university college
00:25
london and
00:26
a university called bingham university
00:29
in new york bingham binghamton
00:31
and they established that
00:34
while breakups hit women harder at first
00:39
men take much longer to heal and move on
00:42
and this jibes with a meme that goes
00:45
about on the internet where it shows
00:48
they the meme is like men immediately
00:51
after a breakup and it shows the man
00:53
cheering and celebrating and he’s really
00:54
happy he’s like free
00:56
and a woman’s really upset
00:58
and then it says like
00:59
six months after the breakup or three
01:01
months after and the woman’s feeling
01:04
relaxed and happy and free and the man
01:08
is sad and in pain and lonely and the
01:12
fact that many people share it as a meme
01:14
suggests there’s something that people
01:16
intuitively latch onto here and the
01:18
study also suggests that a lot of men
01:21
this is a bit dark it says a lot of men
01:23
never fully recover from heartbreak they
01:25
simply learn to live with it and get on
01:27
with life
01:28
good lord i mean that’s pretty uh that’s
01:31
pretty big deal
01:33
wow how do you i mean we’ve worked with
01:36
i wonder because we’ve worked with a lot
01:37
of women matt what do you think well i i
01:40
i’ll tell you firstly what our audience
01:42
thinks because
01:44
we put out a poll on my instagram that
01:47
said
01:48
the matthew hussey is the instagram for
01:50
anyone who wants to go find that out
01:52
give us a follow um on instagram we put
01:55
out a poll that said do you think men or
01:57
women suffer more during a breakup
02:00
22 percent said men suffer more
02:05
78
02:06
percent said women
02:09
suffer more so that does not
02:11
that does not sync up with the study
02:14
uh we also asked what do who do you
02:17
think bounces back faster
02:20
after a breakup and 64
02:24
said men
02:26
now i think that that
02:28
that is the interpretation in both of
02:31
the answers to those questions there
02:32
seems to be this
02:35
perhaps what people are looking at is
02:37
the way that men seem to be able to jump
02:39
right in after a breakup they seem to be
02:41
in a better place they seem to
02:44
potentially move on in a colder way than
02:47
a lot of women do there’s this
02:49
caricatured notion of women who are
02:52
lamenting and grieving with their
02:55
friends and discussing why the
02:57
relationship didn’t work and
02:59
and and the man
03:02
is
03:03
out there just doing his thing having
03:05
fun happy for the freedom
03:08
feels like he’s you know into the next
03:10
chapter of his life
03:13
i think that the bias
03:16
in the poll on instagram from our
03:19
audience that doesn’t accord with the
03:21
results of that study
03:24
is because of the interpretation of what
03:27
men do initially
03:29
after a breakup which is those things
03:31
that i just
03:32
mentioned yeah now there is another way
03:36
to interpret
03:38
that behavior
03:40
you could say that
03:42
for men
03:43
there’s that
03:45
instant sense of
03:48
firstly if if we were to take the kind
03:50
of stereotype that men aren’t so good at
03:53
processing their feelings
03:55
or that they’ve never really been taught
03:57
maybe they’ve not been taught to be
03:59
vulnerable
04:00
maybe they’ve not been taught to express
04:02
their emotions and frankly maybe they
04:04
don’t have the friends that they can go
04:06
and do that with
04:08
and maybe they even have the opposite
04:11
you know they have friends who wouldn’t
04:13
reward that so
04:14
it gets straight into denial of my
04:17
emotions denial of how much this has
04:19
affected me
04:20
and lots and lots of distraction
04:24
activity
04:25
whether it’s going out and having fun
04:27
whether it’s spending time with friends
04:29
whether it’s hooking up whatever it is
04:31
it’s distraction from my
04:33
feelings distraction from my emotions or
04:37
maybe even the feeling of in order to
04:39
move on i just have to keep running
04:42
if i run fast enough i’ll just outrun
04:46
these feelings
04:47
and and by the way i think fueled in
04:49
with that is the kind of male culture of
04:53
oh well you’re so good you’re free now
04:55
you can go and do whatever you want you
04:57
can go and be with whoever you want you
04:58
can go and enjoy yourself finally you’re
05:01
off the hook you can men’s friends can
05:03
be like that yeah for sure right so that
05:05
i think feeds into this psychology of oh
05:08
what a great thing you’re free again or
05:10
whatever whereas women
05:12
it’s
05:13
a lot less likely that that’s the first
05:16
place that a woman’s friends are gonna
05:17
go i would argue that it’s more likely
05:20
that a girl’s friends are gonna go
05:22
um
05:23
that’s so sad talk to me about that
05:26
how do you feel
05:27
what happened
05:28
you know and there and so that’s the
05:30
man’s side the woman’s side
05:33
is that
05:34
we could say we could interpret what
05:36
she’s going through
05:38
in this
05:39
ice cream-eating
05:41
lamenting with friends
05:43
watching
05:45
movies that only seem to upset her more
05:48
listening to songs that only seem to
05:50
upset her more we could look at all of
05:53
that as indulging and
05:55
being in those feelings and suffering
05:59
but you could also look at that as
06:01
processing
06:03
here’s a person who’s actually
06:06
processing their breakup
06:08
here’s a person who’s actually
06:10
processing their breakup who’s actually
06:13
processing their emotions and perhaps if
06:16
they’re lucky as a woman has a group of
06:19
female friends
06:20
who are
06:22
likely to be more of an aide in that
06:25
processing than a man’s friends are and
06:27
this study does say that women might
06:30
even feel that pain initially as like
06:32
physical
06:33
pain uh even more acutely more acutely
06:36
than men like actual physical
06:38
pain and so it and they said maybe
06:41
there’s even like biology in it like
06:43
women invest more in a relationship and
06:47
because they typically bear children
06:49
they may like have more investment in
06:51
keeping their relationship so so there
06:53
could be and and like you say yeah just
06:55
men are taught more like hey what i’m
06:58
buddy
06:58
you’re out there again you’re out it’s
07:00
that austin powers moment i’m single
07:02
again you know as soon as he found out
07:04
his wife was a robot
07:06
my one true love
07:08
the woman who taught me the beauty of
07:10
monogamy
07:12
was a fembot
07:14
all along
07:18
that means i’m single again
07:21
oh behave
07:25
[Music]
07:25
[Laughter]
07:28
so yeah i i do think there’s this weird
07:31
mix of uh culture and biology there and
07:34
and
07:34
what’s interesting is how then it
07:37
seems to like
07:40
hit men
07:41
harder you know a lot of studies show
07:43
that
07:44
divorces hit men much worse over time
07:47
like men seem to get far worse off by
07:49
divorce
07:50
women initiate more divorces maybe uh
07:53
that’s part of it i don’t know but it it
07:56
seems like men have more trouble
08:00
recovering their life again may i don’t
08:02
know if that’s disillusionment like they
08:04
get out there and think they’re gonna be
08:06
like the player and alfie again and then
08:08
they’re quickly devol dissolved of that
08:11
of that illusion and then it hits them
08:13
like oh god i had a really i was really
08:15
close to that person and it was great so
08:18
it could be partly that
08:20
it’s interesting because yeah you could
08:22
get a certain kind of person that that
08:24
thinks he’s going to go out there and
08:26
suddenly be a total player and have fun
08:28
and he realizes that’s either a not
08:31
available to him in the way that he
08:33
thought or b
08:34
he is reminded that oh yeah this is why
08:37
i didn’t this is why i got married in
08:39
the first places because this wasn’t all
08:41
it’s this is not all it’s cracked up to
08:43
be so it could be that but i almost
08:45
think that
08:47
a lot of guys don’t think that they’re
08:49
going to go out and be the player after
08:50
that i think that they just don’t
08:52
necessarily appreciate what that
08:54
relationship may have been bringing
08:57
them it’s a bit like a kid who’s
09:00
you know like you
09:01
you think that just christmas just
09:03
happens
09:05
you know your mum does all these things
09:07
behind the scenes that makes christmas
09:09
happen each year
09:10
and then if your mum were just to not do
09:12
any of that you’d go
09:15
but where’s christmas
09:17
and she’d be like yeah that’s all the
09:19
[ __ ] that i do
09:21
that i go i decorate the tree i put up
09:24
all these beautiful decorations i put on
09:27
the music i bring everyone together i
09:29
arrange the party i create i made the
09:31
hors d’oeuvres i did all these things i
09:33
went shopping for presents i’m the
09:35
reason christmas happens
09:38
but you’re sitting there not knowing
09:40
that until it’s gone and i think that
09:42
that’s true for a lot of men and i think
09:43
that
09:45
when they get out of a relationship it
09:47
it has to be true on some level that and
09:50
and i want to throw in a uh a study here
09:54
that basically said that uh men might be
09:57
more at risk of suicide after a
09:59
relationship breakdown
10:02
and concluded
10:03
that divorced men
10:05
were more than eight times more likely
10:08
to die by suicide
10:10
than divorced women yeah which is an
10:13
extraordinary
10:15
number
10:17
and some of the factors that were cited
10:19
were discussion of the changing nature
10:21
of intimacy men’s loss of honor marriage
10:24
is a more positive experience for men
10:26
than for women controlling isn’t that
10:28
interesting marriage is a more positive
10:30
experience for men than for women we’re
10:32
supposed to be good for men’s long-term
10:34
happiness being married
10:36
interesting controlling relationships
10:39
the increasing importance of the care of
10:42
children for men and men’s social
10:45
networks
10:46
you know the point i was going to
10:48
mention was about the
10:49
which is touched on by some of these
10:51
things is the infrastructure that a lot
10:53
of men lose
10:54
when they get out of a relationship
10:57
a lot of men have not invested in
10:59
creating community around themselves
11:02
have not invested in their friendships
11:04
have not invested in
11:07
those things that that
11:09
have those daily routines that make them
11:11
feel grounded and connected and rely a
11:14
lot on all of those things being part of
11:17
their marriage
11:18
and so i think i do think a lot of women
11:20
walk out of a marriage into a circle of
11:22
friends and support that they’ve been
11:25
nurturing hobbies and
11:29
tending to and men
11:31
leave to this sort of
11:33
stark barren wasteland
11:36
that they’ve not invested in in a long
11:38
time that’s because a lot of men get
11:40
into a relationship kick back and go ah
11:42
now i never have to make another friend
11:44
again
11:45
uh so yeah that’s the reality i’ve got a
11:47
little quiz for you matt of three
11:49
questions uh these these are just from
11:51
this article but i’m interested what
11:53
your intuitive responses and i’ll give
11:54
you the real answer
11:56
so who has more shattered self-esteem
11:59
after a breakup men or women
12:03
[Music]
12:06
men
12:07
according to this men it says when the
12:10
relationship ends men tend to view it as
12:13
an indication of not being desirable any
12:15
longer
12:16
that’s why their self-esteem takes a
12:17
severe beating even if it’s their
12:19
partner who caught off the relationship
12:21
see that makes sense to me oh especially
12:24
especially if it’s their partner who
12:25
caught off the relationship yeah that
12:27
makes a lot of sense to me i think that
12:29
i i can imagine that for a lot of women
12:31
they will tell themselves if there’s a
12:33
breakup you know they could say it’s
12:35
about me or they could just say oh he
12:37
didn’t want a relationship he wasn’t
12:38
ready and i think the stereotype that a
12:41
lot of men feel is that well it can’t be
12:43
because she doesn’t want a relationship
12:45
because a lot of women do want a
12:47
relationship i’m not saying that’s true
12:48
for all women i know that a lot of
12:50
people can be in a phase of their life
12:51
where they’re not ready either but
12:53
as far as what stereotypes we’re used to
12:56
we’re used to the idea that you know
12:59
it’s men who have a really really hard
13:01
time committing so i think that when a
13:04
man gets left by a woman it’s harder for
13:06
him to tell himself culturally
13:08
societally that she left me because she
13:11
didn’t want a relationship it’s much
13:12
more likely in his mind to be to do with
13:15
the fact that she just didn’t want me
13:17
that’s really interesting i didn’t match
13:19
up to the kind of man that she wanted to
13:20
be in a relationship with okay was
13:23
question two question two
13:25
who do you think wants to get back
13:27
together more
13:29
men
13:30
it is men yeah um
13:33
that makes sense to me because if men
13:35
take a longer time to get over something
13:37
because they realize at some point that
13:39
they’ve lost a lot more than they had
13:41
bargained for and they haven’t done any
13:43
proper processing of that breakup
13:45
they’re going to be the ones who at some
13:48
point suddenly have this panic
13:50
of i’ve got to get it back because i
13:52
can’t process these emotions god you
13:54
know god forbid i process any emotions
13:57
and
13:58
i’m suddenly there’s this giant hole in
14:00
my life i must have her back okay it was
14:03
question three question three uh
14:06
well uh now this one’s been a bit
14:08
spoiled but the healing process of
14:10
moving on
14:11
right so men men
14:13
appear to move on quicker but have a
14:15
hard time moving on in the long term
14:17
yeah men slow women faster so it’s often
14:20
seen that i think and i’ve definitely
14:22
noticed anecdotally i’ve seen women
14:25
even when they went through a
14:26
devastating breakup i mean look over the
14:28
years i’ve heard from many women who
14:30
took a long time to get over a breakup
14:32
so that that exists as well for sure we
14:34
we’ve coached many of those women but
14:36
sometimes i’ve seen
14:38
they will be in a new they might just
14:39
meet someone new
14:41
and
14:42
they’re back it like oh i’m actually
14:43
going to give it a try with this new
14:44
person and in six months you’re like oh
14:46
they’re already in a relationship right
14:48
like they’re they’re in and they fallen
14:50
in love with someone new
14:52
because i think they did some of the
14:53
harder work in the beginning than
14:56
than men did
14:57
i i think there’s an interesting
14:59
dichotomy not not between men and women
15:01
here if we take that kind of
15:03
you know if we take
15:05
firstly
15:06
this is possible on either side a man or
15:09
woman any human is
15:10
is capable of
15:13
you know taking a long time to get over
15:16
someone
15:17
but there’s a right balance between
15:19
processing
15:21
and moving on
15:24
men don’t do enough processing if we
15:27
were to take this kind of archetypal
15:30
uh this study right you could say that
15:32
men
15:34
move on too quickly
15:35
without processing and my experience of
15:38
coaching women and yours too i think
15:41
steve
15:41
is that
15:42
too many women spend too long ruminating
15:47
over a breakup so there’s a point at
15:50
which processing just becomes pointless
15:52
rumination
15:54
and we’re now no longer actually making
15:56
progress we’re just getting stuck in a
15:58
loop of emotions i actually
16:01
you know have coached enough men to know
16:03
that men do plenty
16:06
of ruminating of their own and i’ve
16:07
spoken to men who years later are still
16:10
talking about someone that they stopped
16:13
processing in a productive way a long
16:16
time ago or maybe they have never
16:18
processed it in a productive way which
16:19
is why they’re still ruminating but
16:21
they’re ruminating over the long term so
16:22
this can happen to anybody but i think
16:24
that the key message from this to me is
16:26
there is a time for processing
16:28
that we have to be brave enough to do
16:31
and then there’s a time for moving
16:32
forward which we have to be brave enough
16:34
to do which requires no longer sitting
16:37
and processing that which we have
16:38
already processed but being willing to
16:41
now fill that
16:42
territory
16:44
with new things
16:46
in our life there was an interesting
16:48
study done on 9 11 people who had been
16:51
through 9 11 and survived
16:53
whether that’s because they were in the
16:54
building and survived or because they
16:55
had family members in the building and
16:57
survived
16:58
the
16:58
people
17:00
that got over it
17:02
over time
17:04
effectively were not the people who
17:07
stayed in therapy talking about it over
17:10
the long term they were the people that
17:12
actually
17:13
decided to move on with their lives and
17:16
do new things and create more in their
17:19
lives and move forward in other words
17:21
whilst processing is a healthy thing
17:25
post-traumatic stress
17:27
tended to be higher in people who
17:30
continued to talk about the event and
17:32
ruminate in the event for a long time
17:35
afterwards
17:36
so i find this to be a very interesting
17:38
thing and i think it’s applicable to
17:40
breakups there’s a time to talk about
17:42
them and there’s a time to stop talking
17:44
about them and lastly i’ll just say for
17:47
anyone who is struggling from heartbreak
17:49
or and wants to move on
17:51
we have a free guide for you at
17:54
moveonstrong.com if you go over there
17:56
now you can download the free guide
17:59
and it can be part of your blueprint for
18:01
getting a little stronger today in
18:02
moving past that pain
18:23
you
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
***
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The post Men vs Women in a Breakup: Who Suffers More? [Video] appeared first on The Good Men Project.