Do men suffer less after a love breakup?

Ending a relationship can seem like an apocalyptic event to many. Even if there are early signs of a deterioration in the relationship, the shock and the surprise of a breakup can have many psychological and physical consequences.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands tested two groups of people: one set had recently been through a romantic breakup, and the other group were in ongoing relationships.

The scientists found that the group that had ended relationships showed higher scores of depression, and that stress can be a determining factor for a person to transition from a relatively normal state to a depressed one. In this case, the key stressful event was the breakup.

Some of the symptoms of a post-breakup situational depression (as opposed to a diagnosis of chronic depression or major depression) include changes in appetite, weight loss or gain, general sadness, and even suicidal thoughts.

One of the questions that exist around the issue of breakups is whether men or women take it worse. For María Fernanda Acosta, psychologist and couples therapist, the difference between how men and women react after a love disappointment does not lie in whether one sex takes it better or worse than the other, but in the cultural factors that determine how a A man tends to process his emotions regarding how a woman deals with them.

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“Whenever there is a loss, regardless of the type of loss it is, the most natural thing is for sadness to occur as a reaction, especially if it is a relationship,” says Acosta, who adds that it is accurate to speak of mourning after a breaking off.

Mourning —he continues— involves several phases that are dynamic, that is, it is not a linear process. The process “could occur in a different order,” says Acosta, and it would even seem that the person goes back and forth, until “meaning” is given to the loss.

One of the stages of mourning is denial, which, according to Acosta, is a mechanism of the mind to cushion the blow: it means that the person “has not fully understood” the situation. It can manifest in the form of continuing to call the ex or continuing to wait for a reconciliation with the ex.

Other phases of grief include denial, anger, and sadness. Eventually, when you fully understand the loss and make sense of it, you come to acceptance.

For Acosta, one of the most useful tools to overcome a breakup is to talk about it with loved ones, even at the risk of sounding like a broken record. “Being on the subject is the way to solve it; it is the way of accepting that it will definitely not work”, emphasizes Acosta.

Some differences

It is when expressing and processing emotions that the differences between how men and women grieve come to light, according to Acosta. “Culturally, there are some differences, although biologically there aren’t,” adds Acosta, who points out that the phrase “Men don’t cry” is still valid in society, although with less force than before.

Craig Morris, anthropologist who led a study from the University of Binghampton and University College London that found that men suffer from emotional wounds that tend to linger longer after a breakup compared to women, also pointed out to cultural differences to explain how men process their emotions, in an interview with the American newspaper Washington Post.

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Morris attributes the study result to the expectation that men should be tough and the difficulty some men have in forming emotional support networks with members of their own sex. Women, on the other hand, talk about their emotions with each other, which allows them to soften the shock of ending a relationship.

“Perhaps women, who are allowed a more fluid emotional expression, speak more and more freely about the subject, about how they feel; they express anger, guilt, things that are socially more permissible for women than for men”, continues Acosta.

The man, he explains, will still follow the phases of mourning, but “perhaps he will express them differently.” This, indicates Acosta, can cause changes in the behavior of men, such as exercising more or putting in more hours of work. Resorting to substance abuse is also a common reaction, although Acosta says that this is also recurrent in women, only that men feel more socially comfortable demonstrating these behaviors.

Men and women

Despite the fact that José Guerra’s relationship, from Guayaquil, was no longer on the best of terms, the breakup of their relationship at the beginning of 2023 caught him by surprise anyway. “It will always affect you to cut a link with another person,” says Guerra.

Work and university consume a lot of his time, and it has also helped him to spend time with his friends and loved ones. The moments in which she is alone, however, she takes advantage of them to meditate and to channel what she feels through poetry.

Get over love break up

She is not ashamed to talk about her defunct relationship, although she is not “born” to vent to someone or feel that she is processing her feelings in that way. She doesn’t mind opening up about her breakup if anyone asks her. She thinks that, in general, men express their feelings less than women, but that it depends a lot on each person.

Linda López, a native of Manabí, took her breakup at the beginning of last December “very badly”, at least for the day she ended up with her ex-partner. “From there, I think things are going well (…). But it was very shocking. Sometimes things are one way and the next day they are another”, explains López.

Her breakup meant rediscovering herself: “I completely put myself aside,” recalls López, adding that she “returned” to being herself after the breakup. She returned to traveling alone, for example, an activity that helped her process the breakup more effectively.

For López, the men with whom he has shared ties before have known how to handle breakups a little better, since they looked after “themselves” and their interests within the relationship. However, he acknowledges that there is a cultural factor: “Men are raised so that nothing hurts them, so they don’t cry… But repressing feelings is so that they explode at some point.” (YO)