Love Life with Matthew Hussey - (Rewind): Men vs Women in a Breakup. Who Suffers More?

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Did you know that men and women respond differently to breakups? My brother Stephen and I talked about recent research that showed differences in how men and women process emotional pain, how long they take to recover from heartbreak, and how likely they are to want to get back together. Of course, we are all individuals, and our response will also be determined by our own personality and experiences, but it's always interesting to see these general patterns of male and female behaviour and whether they conform with our stereotypes. What do you think? Have you noticed any of these differences in your own relationships? --- Follow Matt @thematthewhussey Follow Stephen @stephenhhussey --- ►► Heal Your Heart & Move on Strong From Your Breakup. Get Your FREE Training → http://www.MoveOnStrong.com

There's a point at which processing just becomes pointless rumination. And we're now no longer actually making progress. We're just getting stuck in a loop of emotions. what's up everybody matthew hussey here welcome back to the love life podcast a fun informative insightful clip from one of our previous videos today i think you're going to love it check it out well steve we wanted to talk today about breakups and well potentially based on an article you read the difference between men and women in breakups and how long they take to recover what was this article yeah so this was an article about men men versus women after a breakup and it cited an interesting study by university college london

and a university called bingingham university in new york bingham binghamton and they established that while breakups hit women harder at first men take much longer to heal and move on. And this jibes with a meme that goes about on the internet where it shows, the meme is like, men immediately after a breakup. And it shows the man cheering and celebrating and he's really happy, he's like free. And a woman's really upset. And then it says like, six months after the breakup or three months after and the woman's feeling relaxed and happy and free and the man is sad and in pain and lonely and the fact that many people share it as a meme suggests there's something that people intuitively latch on to here and the study also suggests that a lot of men this is this is a bit dark it says a lot of men never fully recover from heartbreak they simply learn to live with it and get on with life good lord i mean that's pretty uh

that's pretty big deal wow how do you i mean we've worked with i wonder because we've worked with a lot of women matt what do you think well i i i'll tell you firstly what our audience thinks, because we put out a poll on my Instagram that said the Matthew Hussey is the Instagram for anyone who wants to go find that out. Give us a follow on Instagram. We put out a poll that said, do you think men or women suffer more during a breakup? 22% said men suffer more 78 said women suffer more so that does not that does not sync up with the study uh we also asked what do who do you think bounces back faster after a breakup and 64% said men. Now, I think that that, that is the interpretation in both of the answers to those questions. There seems to be this, perhaps what people are looking at is the way that men seem to be able to jump right in after a breakup. They seem to be in a better

place. They seem to potentially move on in a colder way than a lot of women do. There's this caricatured notion of women who are lamenting and grieving with their friends and discussing why the relationship didn't work. And the man is out there just doing his thing, having fun, happy for the freedom, feels like he's, you know, into the next chapter of his life. that doesn't accord with the results of that study is because of the interpretation of what men do initially after a breakup which is those things that i just mentioned yeah now there is another way to interpret that behavior you could say that for men there's that instant sense of firstly if if we were to take the kind of stereotype that men aren't so good at processing their feelings or that they've never really been taught maybe they've not been taught to be vulnerable maybe they've not been taught to express their emotions and frankly maybe they don't have the

friends that they can go and do that with and maybe they even have the opposite you know they have friends who wouldn't reward that so it gets straight into denial of my emotions denial of how much this has affected me and lots and lots of distraction activity, whether it's going out and having fun, whether it's spending time with friends, whether it's hooking up, whatever it is, it's distraction from my feelings, distraction from my emotions, or maybe even the feeling of in order to move on, I just have to keep running. If I run fast fast enough i'll just outrun these feelings and and by the way i think fueled in with that is the kind of male culture of oh wow you're so good you're free now you can go and do whatever you want you can go and be with whoever you want you can go and

enjoy yourself finally you're off the hook you could men's friends can be like that yeah for sure right so that i think feeds into this psychology of oh what a great thing you're free again or whatever whereas women it's a lot less likely that that's the first place that a woman's friends are going to go i would argue that it's more likely that a girl's friends are going to go, um, that's so sad. Talk to me about that. How do you feel? What happened? You know, and there, and so that's the man's side. The woman's side is that we could say, we could interpret what she's going through in this ice cream eating, lamenting with friends, watching movies that only seem to upset her more, listening to songs that only seem to upset her more. We could look at all of that as indulging

and being in those feelings and suffering. But you could also look at that as processing. Here's a person who's actually processing their breakup. Here's a person who's actually processing their breakup, who's actually processing their emotions. And perhaps if they're lucky as a woman has a group of female friends who are likely to be more of an aid in that processing than a man's friends are and this study does say that women might even feel that pain initially as like physical pain uh even more acutely more acutely than men like actual physical pain and so it and they said maybe there's even like biology in it like women invest more in a relationship and because they typically bear children they may like have more investment in keeping their relationship so so it could be and and like you say yeah just men are taught more like hey what

i'm buddy you you're out there again you're out it's that Austin Powers moment. I'm single again. You know as soon as he found out his wife was a robot my one true love The woman who taught me the beauty of monogamy Was a fembot all along Wait a tick that means I'm single again. Oh behave Yeah single again oh behave yeah and um so yeah i i do think there's this weird mix of uh culture and biology there and and what's interesting is how then it seems to like hit men harder you know a lot of studies show that divorces hit men much worse over time like

men seem to get far worse off by divorce women initiate more divorces maybe uh that's part of it i don't know but it it seems like men have more trouble recovering their life again may i don't know if that's disillusionment, like they get out there and think they're going to be like the player and Alfie again, and then they're quickly dissolved of that illusion. And then it hits them like, oh God, I was really close to that person and it was great. So it could be partly that. It's interesting because yeah, you could get a certain kind of person that thinks he's going to go out there and suddenly be a total player and have fun. And he realizes that's either a not available to him in the way that he thought or B he is reminded

that, Oh yeah, this is why I didn't, this is why I got married in the first place is because this wasn't all it's, this is not all it's cracked up to be so it could be that but i almost think that a lot of guys don't think that they're going to go out and be the player after that i think that they just don't necessarily appreciate what that relationship may have been bringing them it's a bit like a kid who's you know like you you think that just christmas just happens you know your mom does all these things behind the scenes that makes christmas happen each year and then if your mom were just to not do any of that you'd go but where's christmas and she'd be like yeah that's all the shit that i do that i go i decorate the tree I put up all these beautiful decorations I put on the music

I bring everyone together I arrange the party I create I made the hors d'oeuvres I did all these things I went shopping for presents I'm the reason Christmas happens but you're sitting there not knowing that until it's gone and I think that that's true for a lot of men and i think that when they get out of a relationship it it has to be true on some level that and and i want to throw in a uh a study here that basically said that uh men might be more at risk of suicide after a relationship breakdown and concluded that divorced men were more than eight times more likely to die by suicide than divorced women yeah which is an extraordinary number uh and some of the factors that were cited were discussion of the changing nature of intimacy men's loss of honor marriage is a more positive

experience for men than for women controlling isn't that interesting marriage is a more positive experience for men than for women we're supposed to be good for men's long-term happiness being married interesting control in relationships the increasing importance of the care of children for men and men's social networks. You know, the point I was going to mention was about the, which is touched on by some of these things, is the infrastructure that a lot of men lose when they get out of a relationship. A lot of men have not invested in creating community around themselves, have not invested in their friendships, have not invested in those things that have those daily routines that make them feel grounded and connected and rely a lot on all of those things being part of their marriage. And so I do think a lot of women

walk out of a marriage into a circle of friends and support that they've been nurturing hobbies and tending to and men leave to this sort of stark barren wasteland that they've not invested in in a long time that's because a lot of men get into a relationship kick back and go oh now i never have to make another friend again uh so yeah that's the reality i've got a little quiz for you matt of three questions uh these these are just from this article but i'm interested what your intuitive response is and i'll give you the real answer so who has more shattered self-esteem after a breakup men or women men according to this men it says when the relationship ends men tend to view it as an indication of not being desirable any longer that's why their self-esteem takes a severe beating even if it's their partner who called off the relationship see that makes sense to me oh

especially especially if it's their partner who called off the relationship see that makes sense to me oh especially especially if it's their partner who called off the relationship yeah i that makes a lot of sense to me i think that i i can imagine that for a lot of women they will tell themselves if there's a breakup you know they could say it's about me or they could just say oh he didn't want a relationship he wasn't ready and i think the stereotype that a lot of men feel is that well it can't be because she doesn't want a relationship because a lot of women do want a relationship. I'm not saying that's true for all women. I know that a lot of people can be in a phase of their life where they're not ready either.

But as far as what stereotypes we're used to, we're used to the idea that, you know, it's men who have a really, really hard time committing. So I think that when a man gets left by a woman, it's harder for him to tell himself culturally, societally, that she left me because she didn't want a relationship. It's much more likely in his mind to be to do with the fact that she just didn't want me. That's really interesting.

I didn't match up to the kind of man that she wanted to be in a relationship with. Okay, what's question two? Question two, who do you think wants to get back together more men it is men yeah um that makes sense to me because if men take a longer time to get over something because they realize at some point that they've lost a lot more than they had bargained for and they haven't done any proper processing of that breakup they're going to be the ones who at some point suddenly have this panic of i've got to get it back because i can't process these emotions god you know god forbid i process any emotions

and uh i'm suddenly there's this giant hole in my life. I must have her back. Okay. What's question three? Question three. Well, now this one's been a bit spoiled, but the healing process of moving on. Right. So men appear to move on quicker, but have a hard time moving on in the long term. Yeah. Men slow, women faster. So it's often seen that. And I've definitely noticed anecdotally, I've seen women, even when they went through a devastating breakup well i mean look over the years i've heard from many women who took a long time to get over a breakup so that that exists as well for sure we we've coached many of those women but sometimes i've seen they will be in a new they might just meet someone new and they're back it like oh i'm actually going to give it a try with this new person and in six months you're like oh they're already in a relationship right like they're

they're in and they've fallen in love with someone new because i think they did some of the harder work in the beginning than than men did i i think there's an interesting dichotomy not not between men and women here if we take that kind of, you know, if we take, firstly, this is possible on either side, man or woman, any human is capable of, you know, taking a long time to get over someone. But there's a right balance between processing and moving on. Men don't do enough processing. If we were to take this kind of archetypal, this study, right? You could say that men move on too quickly without processing. And my experience of coaching women and yours too, I think Steve, is that too many women spend too long ruminating over a breakup. So there's a point at which processing just becomes pointless rumination.

And we're now no longer actually making progress. We're just getting stuck in a loop of emotions. I actually, you know, have coached enough men to know that men do plenty of ruminating of their own. And I've spoken to men who years later are still talking about someone that they stopped processing in a productive way a long time ago, or maybe they have never processed it in a productive way, which is why they're still ruminating, but they're ruminating over the longterm. So this can happen to anybody. But I think that the key message from this to me is there is a time for processing that we have to be brave enough to do. And then there's a time for moving forward, which we have to be brave enough to do, which requires no longer sitting on processing that,

which we have already processed, but being willing to now fill that territory with new things in our life. If you want to join us in June for the virtual retreat, we would so love to have you. It's real stuff we're doing together over those days. It's three days of immersive coaching. It's live, it's virtual, so you can do it from anywhere in the world. And whether you're brand new to us, or you've followed us for a while, you know that what we do is about far more than finding a person. It's about finding a deep, deep love for life because the marriage that we're all in is a marriage with life itself. And of course with ourselves and getting those marriages right getting the marriage with ourself right and getting the marriage with life

right i believe if we do that the rest actually does fall into place and that's what we do on the virtual retreat together so right now we have a self-care special ticket that ends very very soon and that's a hundred dollars off the main ticket plus a self-care special ticket that ends very, very soon. And that's $100 off the main ticket, plus a couple of other special bonuses that are only available as long as that self-care special ticket is available. So now is a fantastic time to go and get your ticket. If you know you're going to come, now is the best time to do it. And you can find it over at mhvirtualretreat.com.