Why Women Get Over Breakups Faster Than Men
Men grieve the loss of relationships longer than women.
MAYA LAB / Shutterstock If there is one phenomenon that most women have noticed, it’s that men tend to grieve the loss of a relationship for years.
We’ve all heard it on a date before, anyway. At least one date always seems to say, "Yeah, my last breakup was a nightmare. I still am not totally over her."
Obviously, the guy shouldn’t be dating if he’s still grieving her. But, there’s more to this picture than meets the eye.
Girls rarely believe that men are not over their exes from years ago, and while there are exceptions to the rule, it’s a legit thing.
At one point or another, we all have to realize something’s going on. It seems to be one of the major differences we see when it comes to the way that cismen and ciswomen date. Lately, I decided to take a closer look at what is really going on.
Every breakup is different, but I noticed that there seem to be several main themes that keep popping up. Whether it’s trauma from abuse or realizing you effed up, there’s a lot to unpack with grieving men. Here’s what I started to realize.
Here are 6 reasons why women get over breakups faster than men:
1. Women are socialized to recover from abuse and breakups — men aren’t
The ways we raise women and men as a society are very different from one another.
If you take a look at women’s magazines, you’ll notice that there are a ton of little articles about how to get over a breakup faster. It’s part of girl culture.
Guys are often told that they are weak if they cry and that they shouldn’t vent about their problems. They are given little to no guidance on how to accept rejection or how to handle a breakup. So, they bottle their hurt up until it festers.
Leaving it to broil under the surface only leads to bad consequences for men.
RELATED: How Guys Really Feel After A Breakup, According To Men On Reddit
2. Guys are also aware that they may have a harder time finding the next girl
According to this study, there are now more single, sexless men than there are single, sexless women. In fact, there are more single men, period.
It’s not a surprise that guys already feel pressure to date and link up. The single shaming is real.
Whether we like it or not, it’s often treated as a major milestone in adulthood. Guys have to do a lot of pursuing and dating around before they find another girlfriend — or even find someone interested in sleeping with them.
When the reality of having to start over hits them, a lot of guys start to feel dread. No one likes the idea of having all their effort undone. This is especially true if the girl was good to them or if they felt she was "The One."
Losing anything kind of sucks, but it hurts more when you lose someone you felt was a "sure thing." Men who lose good women through their own actions often panic when the full extent of their consequences is felt.
3. Most men do not have good support systems for breakups
When a girl breaks up with a guy, her parents will comfort her. Her friends immediately rally by her side. If she has an older brother, he might go beat up the dude if he cheated on her or hit her. It’s kind of just the way much of our culture is.
When a guy breaks up with a girl? Well…Uh…They don’t really get much emotional support. Even among guyfriends, finding that kind of collaborative support is a little rare. It depends on your circles, yes, but it’s generally a rarity.
Most guys will not do much aside from offering a beer and trying to listen.
In the event that the guy in question ended up in an abusive relationship, guys might actually poke fun at their friend for being abused. In some cases, they’ll just look at him funny and ask why he let her do that.
Uh, that’s not okay. Guys deserve support after a relationship ends, too.
4. Sometimes, the breakup may have revealed something about the guy he didn’t want to accept
Breakups have a way of revealing something about ourselves that we don’t want to confront — especially if we’re the ones dumped. Guys often don’t believe their partners when they say they’re unhappy until it’s too late.
We’ve all heard of guys who were "blindsided" by their wife who was already resentful and had all but stopped complaining.
When things get real for them, it forces them to feel the consequences of their actions. More painfully, it forces a mirror to their face.
Bad as it sounds, women are socialized to see themselves as partially at fault for most of their interactions. Even if they don’t necessarily admit it, most girls I know second-guess themselves when they break up with a guy — even when it’s warranted.
A lot of men, on the other hand, are socialized to become defensive when something is their fault. Having someone to blame or being able to say it was "all of a sudden" is so much easier.
When they can no longer do that, they either cling to their fake narrative or end up crumpling because they realize how awful they’ve been. This is literally the whole result of the classic essay from the guy whose wife divorced him over dishes.
5. It also takes a bit longer for most men to realize what they’ve lost
True story. My ex and I had broken up. I had done everything for this man. I cooked, I cleaned, I gave him gifts, the works. He didn’t want to commit, and in fact, actually hid the fact that we were together from his family.
When he basically left me after promising to marry me, I was devastated. I could barely eat. I was so angry, so upset, that I couldn’t actually function. I was just a ball of rage and hurt. I mean, how could he?
But, eventually, I recovered. He became an afterthought.
Years later, guess whose friends were approaching me, begging me to take him back? Yep, my ex.
Apparently, he became obsessive and wouldn’t stop crying about me, to the point that it was harming his social life.
Why was he suddenly doing this? I’ve always liked to think that he realized what he lost. Then again, I’m not a psychic. It could also be a rampant mental illness that was left untreated. Either way, I’m not the only one who’s had this happen.
We often don’t realize the full gamut of what we lose when we dump a partner who treats us well and supports us. When it hits, it can be absolutely devastating — regardless of what gender you are.
6. Finally, we don’t really teach boys healthy ways to cope with life
I’ll be the first one to say that we don’t give men good resources when it comes to confronting depression, dealing with rejection, or learning proper social skills.
We, as a society, don’t really seem to care about that — and it’s killing men.
Social skills, manners, and cooperation are heavily emphasized for girls. For guys? We tend to emphasize being tough and aggressive. They’re taught that rage, fighting, and bragging are the way to do things.
But, men aren’t just breathing war machines. They’re people. They’re going to be upset when they’re rejected, dumped, or abused. They can get trauma from dating. They can lash out because they feel scared or lost in our society.
What happens when a man doesn’t know how to cope with his role in life? What happens when a man doesn’t know how to handle the cards he’s been dealt? Honestly, bad things.
Since we don’t really teach boys how to react in healthy ways, we end up with men who are angry, bitter, addicted, and depressed. There’s a direct correlation between how a man was taught to react to mental illness and today’s skyrocketing suicide rates.
Without proper coping mechanisms, men are going to hurt for longer. And for more.
So, maybe it’s time we start emphasizing the roles of self-care and breakup recovery in our menfolk. It’ll be a healthier world for everyone.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a writer whose work has been featured in Yahoo, BRIDES, Your Daily Dish, Newtheory Magazine, and others.