Why Men Have It Harder After Breakups

Boy meets Girl.

Boy asks Girl on a date. The girl says yes. The date goes well. Boy and Girl go on more dates. Boy and Girl begin the relationship and become Boyfriend and Girlfriend.

Boyfriend and Girlfriend have a great time during the honeymoon phase.

The honeymoon phase passes. Boyfriend and Girlfriend begin having fights. The boyfriend thinks this is normal and doesn't think much of it. Girlfriend begins thinking that she's wasting time in this relationship, but stays because of reasons.

Boyfriend and Girlfriend keep dating for a while.

The boyfriend thinks the relationship is stable even if they fight sometimes. The girlfriend complains about her relationship to all her friends. Girlfriend's friends keep telling her to break up with Boyfriend. Boyfriend's friends barely know a thing about Girlfriend.

Girlfriend spends weeks mustering up the courage to break up with Boyfriend.

Girlfriend thinks Boyfriend is amazing on some days, but annoying on others.

Girlfriend finally breaks up with Boyfriend.

The boy is shocked and unprepared. Girl is relatively fine because she already mentally broke up with Boy a long time ago.

Boy is devastated and feels utterly alone.

Does the story above sound familiar?

It should. It's pretty much the most common course of heterosexual, monogamous relationships that lasts longer than a few months.

You've probably found yourself in a similar storyline before. And you might be wondering how your ex-girlfriend was able to move on so quickly compared to you.

There are plenty of exceptions, but men generally take a longer time to get over a breakup. Why?

1. Women tend to have stronger emotional support systems. In other words, they have more intimate friendships.

Men, on the other hand, tend to rely too much on their romantic partners for this. A man will often treat his girlfriend or wife as the only person he can be emotionally vulnerable around.

So, when a woman is going through loss, heartbreak, or any other hard time, she's more likely to have friends rallying to support her.

A man is less likely to tell his friends that he's going through a hard time.

How to even the playing field as a man:

Foster a wider variety of intimate relationships.

Tell your friends and any family members you're on good terms with that you love them. Hug them more often.

"That's gay," you might protest. Well, that attitude's the whole f*cking problem, isn't it? Stop acting like it's still the 1990's. It's not gay to express platonic love (or any sort of nonsexual/nonromantic love). We've also long moved on, as a civilized society, from using the word "gay" in any negative or derogatory manner. Get with the times.

And allow yourself to be emotionally vulnerable with friends and other loved ones rather than dumping all that emotional labor onto your romantic partner.

2. Men are generally less emotionally literate. This will oftentimes make us think that a relationship is fine when it's actually not.

If there is an issue in the relationship, a woman is more likely to pick up on it and feel like something is off before a man can.

Her emotional sensitivity is more attuned to what's really going on. When things are good, she'll be the first to smile and sing. When things are bad, she'll be the first to pout and cry.

Thus, women leave men more often than men leave women.

This also means the women have already broken up emotionally before actually breaking up. She's readied herself for the end.

The man did not see it coming. He thought the relationship was just fine. He didn't pick up on all the indirect cues that the relationship was already over.

When things finally end, he takes longer to pick up all the pieces because it comes as a surprise.

How to even the playing field as a man:

Practice emotional literacy, active listening, and securely-attached communication skills.

Just as I recommended in the previous section, allow yourself to be emotionally vulnerable with others. Pay attention to all the little ways others will reciprocate. You will become more emotionally literate this way.

Master active listening skills. I talk about those specific skills in my book, Never Lonely: The Uncensored Guide on How to Attract and Be Loved by Women, but you can learn about active listening just about anywhere these days.

Pick up any book about attachment style such as Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find - and Keep - Love by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. Learn how people with secure attachments communicate in relationships. Emulate that.

3. His woman is no longer "his" woman. He might feel like he's lost a valuable possession.

Patriarchy teaches us to objectify and commodify women. In heterosexual relationships, it can make us feel like we own the woman in a way.

It's why the term "cuck" is often used so derogatorily, especially among conservatives. It triggers a patriarchal male insecurity of being the weak loser who had something valuable stolen from him by another man.

Because of the other reasons above, the woman will often move on faster and start dating someone else before the man does. If he learns about this, it may just make it harder for him to move on due to the additional "pain" of losing to another man.

How to even the playing field as a man:

Get used to thinking of women as human partners instead of trophies we own or steal.

A lot of male jealousy is rooted in this patriarchal notion of ownership.

I personally overcame this by learning about and practicing polyamory for the past seven years, but I know that polyamory isn't for everyone.

But think about how you treat partners in other areas of life: business partners, tennis partners, project partners, etc. You see them as equal participants with their own agency rather than as owned objects or status symbols.

Start thinking of women the same way as those other equal participants and you'll find yourself having an easier time with all the aspects of your relationships with them.

This article was originally published on Medium.