Breakups hurt and there’s emotional turmoil, whether you’re the dumpee or the dumped. Howevermuch you tell yourself that it’s for the best, that you need to move on from your current relationship, that there’s no future in it, there’s a certain amount of hurt that’s inevitable. And the amount of pain you experience varies from person to person. Whether you’re a man or woman, it doesn’t matter – you’ll be in pain. How much pain – depends on your gender, says a new study published in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences by researchers from Binghamton University and University College London, both in the United Kingdom.
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Here are the salient revelations from the study:
1. The researchers asked 5,705 people in 96 countries, with an average age of 27.
2. The participants were asked to rate the physical and emotional pain they experienced after a breakup, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing ‘no pain,’ and 10, ‘agonizing pain.’
3. Of the participants, 75 percent of them had experienced a breakup, and 75 percent among them had surviced multiple breakups.
4. Women reported greater emotional pain, 6.84, compared to men, 6.58.
5. Physical pain after a breakup too, was reported more in women, 4.21, versus 3.75 in men.
6. Emotional pain was more severe than physical pain among the respondents.
7. Although women experienced more pain than men, men took a long time to get over the breakup.
8. According to the study, women initiated breakups more often than men. Women reported having initiated the breakup 39 percent of the time versus men at 37 percent, with a mutual decision at 24 percent.
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9. And when men did initiate the breakup, it was about 28 percent of the time versus women at 47 percent, with 25 percent attributed to mutual decision.
10. One of the most important revelations from the study was the fact that whether you’re the dumpee or the dumped, the decision is not without its fair share of turmoil.
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The study’s lead author, Craig Morris, who is a research associate at Binghamton University, said in a press release that from a scientific standpoint, women have more at stake in a relationship than men. He said,
“Put simply, women are evolved to invest far more in a relationship than a man [is]. 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 mintues after the encounter, with no further biological investment.”
Morris went on to say that the risk of pregnancy tends to make women picky when it comes to selecting their mate than men. Plus, women also had a tendency to settle down with mates who they consider to be ‘high quality,’ meaning those whom they deem worthy of reproduction. And the study shows that such a breakup is hurtful for a woman, both physically and emotionally.
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The researchers also averred that men, who take a long time to get over their breakup, have to deal with their own set of emotional scars. Morris said,
“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.”
The study also confirmed one other fact:
“’Lack of communication’ was selected nearly twice as often as infidelity by roughly half of men and women, as the number one reason for the breakup.”
Well, there you have it. This study confirms the fact that men and women experience breakups differently, and that even though women experience intense pain, men don’t get over it as quickly as they’d like to believe.
Featured image source: Google, copyright-free image under Creative Commons License
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