Men And Women Deal With Breakups Differently, Here’s Why

Breakups are hard. Sometimes they come out of the blue, other times they are gestating for longer periods of time until they happen ever so inevitably.

But what is interesting is that, for some reason, men and women perceive these split ups quite differently.

We’re here to see why exactly this happens.

It appears that it is not about how quickly one recovers, but how much quality recovering one actually accomplishes.

The Study

Several researchers from Binghamton University and University College London wanted to delve a little deeper into this matter so they interviewed almost 6,000 participants from 96 different countries in order to find that fine line between how and why our sexes deal with the emotional pain of a recent breakup with that special someone.

The scientists asked all the participants to rate their emotional and physical pain following their last split on a scale of 1 (no pain whatsoever) to 10 (the pain is unbearable).

They found that women generally felt the strongest effects right after a breakup, with their average rating for emotional and physical pain being 6.84 and 4.21. Men, on the other hand, averaged 6.58 for emotional anguish and 3.75 for physical pain.

So, why is this so?

Women Are Evolved To Invest Far More In A Relationship

According to Craig Morris, a research associate at Binghamton University, it seems that women are more evolved when it comes to processing emotional pain, and relationships in general.

Here’s how he explained this interesting difference in a press release:

“Put simply, women are evolved to invest far more in a relationship than a man. A brief romantic encounter could lead to nine months of pregnancy followed by many years of lactation for an ancestral woman, while the man may have ‘left the scene’ literally minutes after the encounter, with no further biological investment,” said Craig, and continued:

“It is this ‘risk’ of higher biological investment that, over evolutionary time, has made women choosier about selecting a high-quality mate. Hence, the loss of a relationship with a high-quality mate ‘hurts’ more for a woman.”

But What About Us Men In The Long Run?

Craig Morris also pointed out that, although women deal with a breakup harder in the beginning of the recovery period, they tend to feel better and make a full recovery over time, whereas men’s emotional pain only ferments and lingers, making us feel the consequences even year later.

“The man will likely feel the loss deeply and for a very long period of time as it ‘sinks in’ that he must ‘start competing’ all over again to replace what he has lost — or worse still, come to the realization that the loss is irreplaceable.”

What are your thought on the subject?