"He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong."
- W.H. Auden
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong."
- W.H. Auden
I have to admit, immediately after I posted my "love" inspired blog I started to feel very negative about the whole idea. I started thinking about the rising divorce rate and all of the unhappiness I've seen in relationships lately and I started to think, 'Okay why do I love love? Am I a MASOCHIST?!" Then I had a conversation with my dear friend from school Alexis and she brought up oxytocin and I said that I hated it (as if it was an actual physical thing I could touch) and I wanted to punch oxytocin in the face.
Haha. Okay, so I need to calm down and realize that my urge to punch an intangible neurotransmitter is not going to satisfy my frustration toward love. In my effort to do that I'm going to write about the love that doesn’t conclude with a happy ending.
We are all aware that sometimes love just isn't enough. Sometimes love ends....it fades, people lose interest, they don't see one another in their future, or infidelity exists. Unfortunately sometimes when love ends we feel like it is a waste of time to love at all.
Sometimes frankly, love sucks the royal weenie.
Males and females experience life differently so it's only rational that they experience and deal with break-ups differently. Of course, there are certain universal coping mechanisms we all employ to get through breakups, but how are they manifested between the two sexes?
The first thing that came to mind is that women definitely take break-ups harder than men do. I guess this is a generalization from my own experience and what I've seen from friends. Women tend to deal with it emotionally - crying, eating, spending time to vent with girlfriends and many bottles of wine, sitting at home in sweats eating ice cream from the container (or better yet, getting a giant bag peanut butter M&M's while watching re-runs of Sex and The City!!!). On the contrary, it seems that the men I know have dealt with their breakups by not talking about it all, hitting the bar with friends and picking up "chicks," or pretending nothing happened and not expressing their emotions on the break-up.
This is even a concept that is shown in the media with breakups - You rarely ever see a man on TV shows or movies in his pjs cuddled up in bed with food eating his feelings, right? It’s always a woman doing that!
So I started searching and I found over 10 articles saying that men suffer more after breakups than women do. Say WHAT?
Research was done by sociologists at Wake Forest University and the University of Florida based on 1,600 responses from unmarried men and women between the ages of 18 to 23. They found that break-ups hurt men's self-esteem more than women's self-esteem because men don't talk to their friends as much as women do, which leads to a sense of isolation and more loneliness.
Research was done by sociologists at Wake Forest University and the University of Florida based on 1,600 responses from unmarried men and women between the ages of 18 to 23. They found that break-ups hurt men's self-esteem more than women's self-esteem because men don't talk to their friends as much as women do, which leads to a sense of isolation and more loneliness.
The researchers also found that while young men are more affected by the quality of a current relationship, young women are more emotionally affected by whether or not they are in a relationship (Read More).
So arguments for this? I mean men out there, do you feel like break-ups were hard for you but you had no one to talk about them to?
Why does it seem like so many men have no emotions when it comes to break-ups but some have ALL these emotions? I guess it goes the same with women.....
I think that – as I always say, it’s partially the way our society is and the way we are genetically constructed. Men are not encouraged cry to each other or talk about their feelings or emotions because if they do it’s crossing a boundary of “manliness” that must NOT BE CROSSED! And don’t deny it men, because I have seen it first-hand.
I just want men out there to know – hey you can talk about it. It’s OKAY to feel sometimes. And if you can’t talk to your guy friends, talk to a girl because they’ll understand. I hope.
So lend me your thoughts, who do you think break-ups are harder on, males or females?
10 comments:
As a man, I will say that because we do not talk about breakups as much as women, no one knows just how hard they can be on us. Thinking back to my one and only serious breakup, I don't think anyone had a clue what I was going through. My guy friends most likely didn't want to hear about my broken heart, but even if they did, I'm not sure I'd want to tell them about it. Ignoring it really seemed like the best course of action. So I probably appeared to be getting along just fine, but in reality it was effing brutal. That being said, I'm 99% sure that she took it much harder, as I think women generally do.
First off, I just want to start off by saying, “Hi Mel, how are you?” Okay, so there is a generalization that men do not suffer emotionally from break-ups, but plenty of evidence of proving the opposite. Once again I wonder if girls simply think we (men) are heartless. Break-ups are hard on guys, and I can bet you that every guy has a classic tale of how his heart was smashed one time or another. I must reference a movie in order to give my opinion.
In the recent STAR TREK movie, a bunch of Spock’s friends and family had died, and he was showing little to no emotion. Doctor pulls him aside, and ask how he could be so heartless. His response to the doctor is one for the record books; he states “I intend to assist in the effort to reestablish communication with Starfleet. However, if crew morale is better served by my roaming the halls weeping, I will gladly defer to your medical expertise. Excuse me.”
Are you upset that the men are not acting how you would want them to act? Are we supposed to be crying, and eating chocolate to release endorphins to feel love? Would us feeling and looking awful make you feel better and somehow prove that we cared and loved in the relationship as much as you did? Who said anyone has to be broken up about break-ups? Media has trained people to think they need to be torn up about break-ups. Media tells us we need to sing sad songs in the rain, and ripe are shirts apart as we beg for forgiveness. Or chase an irrational girl down the airport terminal and confess our love before she boards the plain to the other side of the US to “start over” after this terrible break-up.
What is the difference? We are men, less emotional, but we still have feelings. We have learned that crying and bumming about it is a waste. We may be hurting and dying inside, but we don’t have to live that way. We hit the bars, because who knows? Maybe Mrs. Right is going to be there? TV teaches us that we are to think we can’t live without the other person in our life.
I hate it when a girl says, “you are everything to me.” I don’t want to hear that from a girl, and I will never say that to a girl, because if a girl leaves me, I will live. I will be fine. I will move on asap, even if it hurts. Just like the evidence proved that men do hurt from relationships, I’m sure there is evidence that we talk to our boys about relationships. We just do like talking about it with girls, because they don’t understand what we feel. Just like boys don’t understand how girls feel. We need to talk to our guy friends about it, and they give the best advice. “Get over it, and move on.” Most girls say, “I need a break from dating to heal”, which is code for: I’m hoping the guy that hurt will come back.
Relationships are hard on both males and females. We both handle it differently. Males do talk to their guy friends about breaking-ups and the pain they feel. The more relationships you lose though; experience teaches you how to deal with them better. Don’t get emotional in a relationship, especially getting out of one. I have 2 quotes from George Santayana regarding relationships and that chemical imbalance in our brains called emotions. “Emotion is primarily about nothing and much of it remains about nothing to the end.” “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
"We may be hurting and dying inside but we don't have to live that way." Spoken from a man, it makes tons of sense :)
It's alot easier said than done, especially for women! There have been moments in past breakups where I've acted as if everything was fine when it wasn't and I ended up acting like a fool, doing idiotic things to try to pretend and it ended up hurting me more in the long run.
Yes I think that our environment has had some play in telling us how to deal with breakups - but when you lose someone you love, it hurts - and I know that it has helped me to grieve the relationship awhile before moving on and finding someone else. I have never had it in me to just pretend everything was alright and pursue new relationships right away. Of course, everyone is different...
So am I upset that men aren't acting the way I want them to?
No, not at all...I don't even think I know the way I want them to act to be honest. But I do know that many of my guy have friends have reaped benefits from talking their feelings out to me - maybe not the way a girl would do it - but in their own way....so I think it's cool when a man can admit that he is bummed out about losing someone.
haha I don't need him to sit on the couch in his pjs and watch sex and the city...although I think it would be an interesting sight!!
Thanks for your comment Daniel I always love reading them!
Travis, thank you :)
About how you said most of your guy friends most likely didn't want to hear about your broken heart...
I notice this with my group of guy friends all the time...anytime one of them talks about how they feel they kind of joke with him or make fun of him. I think its just the way guys have learned to deal with it in the group dynamic?
I have no idea. But it sure is interesting to watch haha....
Maybe ignoring the hurt really does help sometimes...I should have been a guy.
Shout out to Travis/T-Bone
I'll stem off a little from what Travis said, since I consider he and I to be close friends.
With guys, it's kind of an "unspoken truth" that after a serious/bad break up that we're going through a brutal time.
Since Travis posted, I'll USE HIM as an example, and follow w/ an example of myself...
To me, I understood what Trav was going through in private, and being a guy, I let Travis know that if he ever needed to talk, or to go hang out, or whatever, that I'd be there for him. And from there, it was up to Travis. When a guy has a friend who has a bad break up, we don't force the subject. Most of us deal w/ it privately ...I think for guys, it's better to go out w buddies and have a good time rather than talk it to death...which will probably make it worse.
Like Travis, I've experienced one nasty break up and basically I shut myself in my room for a few days, and went from there.
I like to think of my group of close guy friends as being a little more emotionally open than normal...so I had my buddies who I did talk to about it from time to time. And that support is helpful.
I also have my cousin (Tony) who I've had since early childhood to talk to about everything. So he and I don't hide much of anything from each other. We are very emotionally...and sexually...open with each other.
I don't feel like I have to hide my emotions from my close friends...but there is a time and a place...
On the whole, I feel "less is more" when it comes to guys expressing their "deep feelings" with one another.
And isn't it weird that females are more likely to initiate a break-up?
As a female I have had my share of talking a situation to death with my girlfriends after I thought I had gotten my heart broken. After actually being in a relationship that was worth heartbreak I realized the difference. In the times I had sat there analyzing and reanalyzing the relationship's ups and downs the relationship wasn't worth the calories gained by the overindulgence in alcohol or chocolate.
The one time the relationship was worth it I didn't want to talk about it. People would ask questions and pry and I just didn't want anything to do with that discussion. I felt like there was a literal hole in my chest and the last thing I wanted to do was sit there and ruminate over it-let alone eat anything. What a difference! I think I experienced a little bit of what you say the "typical man" does after a breakup. And ya know what... although the pain was very real and very inescapable. It helped. It helped to get up and get moving and not talk my self in poor, poor pitiful me circles. I sucked it up and I did what I had to do to get whatever else was on my life to-do-list done. The times I had sat there with my girlfriends discussing every aspect of the relationship I think it was because I didn't think it was actually over, maybe if we talked about it we could figure out what went wrong and fix it? I don't know. Or maybe I felt comfortable talking about it because so much had gone wrong in those relationships that my girlfriends had heard every gory detail anyway. Either way, although I think it's good to have someone to talk to and I would encourage every woman to have a friend she can call and pour her heart out to we could learn a thing or two by drying those tears, dusting ourselves off and getting on with it. Life is too short to have the same conversation for 6 months that always ends in the same way "he is not good enough for you anyway....blah blah blah" those words are sweet and kind and sometimes it is all we have to offer our heartbroken friends but have those words actually made any of you feel better? Time heals all wounds...in the mean time get up and do something that makes you feel good about yourself. Yoga or high-energy exercise can cure what chocolate never will.
@ Ryan - thank you for your shout out to TBONE and your comment!
I think the idea of less is more is actually becoming more appealing to me as I become older.
When I was younger I felt the need to constantly talk and talk my feelings out until I couldn't talk anymore - but now that I think about it I don't think it really helped anything and it only gave me a temporary release. DOING is so much more effective than talking about doing! or ruminating on the past....
@Anonymous. I WISH I KNEW WHO YOU WERE! Because your post is brilliant! A very mature opinion that definitely made a difference in the way I view this issue...so thank you.
To Anonymous:
I enjoyed your post, and I hope you post more often. I find your thinking and point of view real and respectable.
Sincerely contactdaniel24.
more posts are coming :) I just recently got laid off and have been scrambling around trying to figure my life out haha...so as soon as I finish my 25 pg term paper I plan to write!
From my experience, men are way more disturbed by break-ups than women. They may not eat their weight in ice cream or have mascara running down their faces, but they DO care. A LOT.
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