One of the most traumatizing, and emotionally and physically draining experiences of life is Breakup. Like a pack of cards, all of our hopes for a wonderful and happy life with our spouse vanish. Everyone must eventually accept the split and pick up the shards of their lives. In this post on man vs woman after break up, we bring you some differences in the way men and women cope with the separation. As they say, men are from Mars and women are from Venus, so both these genders deal with their loss of love in their own style. Read on to know the differences.
Like a pack of cards, all of our hopes for a wonderful and happy life with our spouse vanish. Everyone must eventually accept the split and pick up the shards of their lives.
1. Handling The Pain
Women experience the pain of a breakup more acutely compared to men, according to research by Binghamton University and University College London. This is probably because men tend to try to escape from the pain after breaking up while women are more involved in the relationship. Men can also struggle to connect with their emotions causing them to engage in avoidant behavior to distract themselves from it.
Charity Eyre Wright, a wife and mother, talks about her most recent heartbreak and shares how deeply she’s been impacted. She writes, “Most mornings over the past six weeks i’ve woken up with a heavy harrowing ache in the center of my chest – a weight that takes blistering effort to carry out of bed. A few of my recent days at school, I haven’t been able to breathe steadily and I have to work hard to mask my whimpers. There have been several occasions recently when I truly, truly felt I could not stand up because my physical frame could not sustain such crushing, crippling emotional hurt. I’ve been oscillating between feeling frozen, barren, dead and feeling so fiercely, searingly, excruciatingly alive”.
2. Emotional Hurt
The study also discovered that women experience greater emotional distress following a breakup since they often spend more of their emotions in relationships . Even if the man in the relationship experiences anguish, humiliation, and loneliness, his immediate emotional suffering after a breakup may be less than that of the woman.
3. Post-Breakup Stress
Both the male and the woman experience intense anguish and stress after breakup. Men, on the other hand, struggle more with insecurity and make great efforts to distract themselves from the hurt. Research done by Lancaster University says that women also fight the post-breakup blues but are capable of gathering themselves better.
4. Timeframe To Overcome Breakup
As per studies, usually, men take a lot longer to recover after a breakup since the pain is more profound and lasts longer. Conversely, women grieve and express their sadness as a way of processing the breakup, which enables them to get over the pain faster. Men struggle to process it because they avoid it, while women are able to sit with their emotion and move through it faster.
5. Expressing Anger Or Frustration
According to popular belief, the feelings of anger and resentment after a relationship ends are higher in men when compared with women. Men could channelize this anger as an intent to avenge their exes, while the propensity to exact revenge out of betrayal is far less in women. Anger is often a cover emotion. Stereotypically and historically, it is viewed as more masculine to be angry rather than suffering from disillusionment or fear. It is likely that men are outwardly showing anger or frustration, but inside are experiencing more complex emotions of conflict from the break up.
6. Wanting To Get Back Together
Generally, the desire to get back with their partner after a breakup is greater in men than in women. Initially, men love their newfound freedom, but once that wears off, they may want their ex back. Women too grapple with guilt but try to rationalize their unhappiness and get on with their life.
7. Healing Process
Research indicates that men seldom totally recover from rejection; instead, they only learn to cope with the hurt. Boys are less likely than girls to be given the resources in childhood that enable them to process emotions. They are often encouraged not to address emotion. On the other hand, women are wired to recover and move on from the isolation of a relationship coming to an end.
8. Dent In Self-Confidence
It is believed that men view a breakup as a sign of them not being attractive anymore, more so if it’s their partner who called it quits. This shatters their confidence to smithereens. In the case of women, the loss of a relationship has got to do with letting go of a deep and meaningful emotional bond.
9. Embracing The Feelings
Conventional wisdom has it that while men may find it hard to embrace the pain, frustration, despair, and guilt attached to their breakup, women embrace these feelings more easily and turn the page. Women may be more attuned to reality and may reconcile to the breakup better than the man. Men may not have the skills to process the emotion.
10. Seeking Support
Studies reveal that women are willing to seek the help of loved ones and their inner circle or go to therapy to overcome the pain of a misunderstanding. Dr. Ryan Boyd, lead researcher of the Lancaster University project, says, “Traditionally, women are more likely to identify relationship problems, consider therapy, and seek therapy than are men. When you remove the traditional social stigmas against men for seeking help and sharing their emotions, however, they seem just as invested in working through rough patches in their relationships as women.”
Source: Momjunction
