Some studies go as far as say that not only men also suffer when a relationship ends, but they tend to suffer even more than women and to carry the burden of the breakup for longer. Actually, it seems that women are emotionally hit hardest after a break-up – but men suffer more in the long term and may never truly get over it.

The end of a relationship is never fair on anyone. Women hurt and men also suffer when the familiar feeling of happiness is suddenly snatched from them due to a breakup. Even when the breakup is expected, the grieving process often still plays out.

Despite a lingering stereotype that men are less emotionally invested in relationships than women, researchers have discovered that it’s men, in fact, who suffer the greater emotional impact during a breakup. Some researchers found that men also suffer as the impact of the loss ‘sinks in’ and they have to start ‘competing’ all over again.

Is it true that men also suffer after a breakup and to what extent?

men also suffer

The study

The age-old stereotype of men being ‘less emotionally invested in relationships’ than women isn’t true, according to a new study carried out by a team of leading psychologists. Men also suffer in heterosexual relationships, they even feel more pain than women following a break-up and are also more likely to discuss heartbreak, Lancaster University researchers found.

The international study of online relationship support looked at data collected from more than 184,000 people and found that men also suffer and tend to experience emotional pain more than women when their relationship takes a turn for the worse. Researchers analysed the demographic and psychological characteristics using ‘natural language processing methods’ after users  posted their relationship problems to an anonymous online forum.

Another recent study found that while break-ups take a more immediate emotional toll on women, men often never fully recover — they simply move on. Men just don’t bounce back after they get their heart broken the way women do.

Why do men also suffer after a breakup?

Quite often (in heterosexual relationships, at least) the man has a more difficult time coping due to the fact that men are more prone to being shocked. The greater the shock of the loss, the longer it takes to recover. Males are traditionally thought to be the pursuers. They like the pursuit and seem to place more value (at least initially) on a woman that is beyond their reach.

When she ends the relationship, this rejection could hit their confidence and self-esteem hard. That rejection can stimulate obsession, which can then turn into denial, which renders the wounded man “unable to move on.” Women tend to recover faster because they know how attached they are to their partners, so the shock isn’t as great. The pain is still there, to be sure, but it typically doesn’t last as long because women intuitively know what the magnitude of the loss will be if things don’t work out.

The role of society

Men are not less emotional than women, but rather they may be less equipped with emotional support. And to some degree, it’s not even their fault. Traditionally, society encourages women to talk about their relationships with one another, while men are often encouraged to ‘man up. The consequence is that men tend to bury their feelings rather than work them out.

Males lean heavily towards a belief that they should be able to deal with their own problems and solve them themselves, in a society that has taught them that asking for help is a weakness. 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.

How do men cope with the breakup?

While women constructively channelise their emotions and tend to understand themselves and their needs from a relationship better, men have a completely different way to deal with the situation. A study has found that men either ‘experience nothing’ or may resort to alcohol, drug abuse or violence, and are less likely to come up with any kind of personal realisations.

Moreover, men are less willing or able than women to take accountability for what went wrong in the relationship. Men often struggle with accepting responsibility for their part in the breakup, instead seeing her leaving as an unfair decision that they did not deserve.

Women are also often less dependent on their significant other for emotional support – they typically have a wider circle of friends and will confide to family in a way most men wouldn’t countenance. Moreover, women usually have more time to start processing the pain ahead as they usually do the breaking up more times than a man. Women begin to prepare early for the outcomes of splitting up from a partner.

By the time they are done with that phase, the man may just be beginning his. For men, therefore, it is important to begin to deal with breakups in more expressive, healthier ways as opposed to the ‘suck-it-all-up’ technique that is being used from way back.