True or False: Men Deal Better With Breakups Than Women

What is it about women that they need time to be ready to date again after a
breakup?  What are you readying yourselves for and how does sitting
there being miserable and throwing a pity party for yourselves cause
this readiness to come about?  This is one of the fundamental
differences between guys and gals.  We get right back on the horse.
Women need to mourn and are loathe to love again until the mourning is
complete - even in the face of new and promising opportunity.  I don't
get it.  When you lose a pet, yeah it sucks and you're sad, but then
you go right out and get a new one.  Then you feel a lot better when
you bring that new pet home to love in the old one's place.  Unless
someone has up and died on you, two months is long enough to grieve a
lost lover.  If you have opportunites, take them.  The longer you deny
your own happiness, the longer you prolong your misery.  Us men have a
saying with regards to breakups:

"Nothing gets you over the last one faster than the next one." - Craig

"Are you implying that men aren't completely wrecked after they've been
dumped or ended a relationship? Unlike men, who do almost little to no
introspection and never consider that maybe they were the ones to fuck
things up, women beat themselves up and to figure out where things went
wrong so we don't do the same thing again.

"When you lose a pet, yeah it sucks and you're sad, but then you go
right out and get a new one."

Uh...who does? You? Then that says you didn't really care much about
the pet who died and simply like to replace one thing for another
rather than go through the grieving process. Kind of like how men date
versus how women date. You might dislike how we do it, but we actually
handle grief and break ups in a healthier way than men do because we
allow ourselves to feel what we feel and move on when we're sure we can
give it our best shot.

You dislike our emotional make-up in regards to dating, but man do you
sure require it when you're ready to have kids and you want the woman
to stay home and raise them. Then our emotions and need to nurture and
be sympathetic are required. - Moxie

YOUR THOUGHTS?

Comments

[trouble]

One thing that amazed me after my last breakup (well over a year ago) was that my former boyfriend was out, and fucking around, with a vengeance, the following week. And, this was after a year-long, serious relationship during which he asked me to marry him.

As soon as I made it clear that things weren't working out between us, for a number of reasons, he was off and running, looking for the next victim. Ditto my ex-husband.

I have come to believe, however, that there is value in taking time to recover from the emotional trauma of a breakup. Some are minor and we bounce back rather fast. But, I believe it took me at least 3 years to fully recover from my divorce and/or that last relationship. I spent a year dating very little and getting used to my own company.

What happened with my exes (both of them) is that they failed to break the habit of being with someone all the time. They couldn't deal with being alone. To them, women are objects that fit into a hole in their lives, one size fits all.

I'm glad I took the time to recover from those situations. Yes, it was very difficult to watch them dating and moving on, and it would so annoy me at times that I simply couldn't move that fast, emotionally. We all move at different paces. I've done the thing with breaking up with a guy and replacing him the following week. And in some scenarios, that's fine. But, if life really deals you a serious emotional blow, and a longterm relationship ends, it takes time to pick up the pieces from that, learn from your mistakes, and go on healthier and not damaged/bitter.

I've seen too many guys who didn't properly nurture themselves before putting themselves back into the meat market. They are the walking wounded...bitter, angry, cynical. I don't want to be that person.

[Oh My]

This is why a majority of women end up baffled and hurt by "unavailable" men who don't deal with their last relationship before getting into the next. Being in a relationship isn't just about YOU. If you focus on how to make just yourself happy, without a thought as to what the next/new person wants, you're just plain selfish. I sure hope Craig is in the minority, because the statements screams selfish, selfish, selfish! If you truly loved or cared for someone and wanted the relationship to work out, you would grieve when it ended, and should take time to figure out what went wrong before jumping into the next one. If you take the whatever-next! attitude, you're not any wiser or healthier to avoid the lather-rinse-repeat cycle of bad relationship pattern.

[Mira]

Both False & True.... depending on that individual man & that circumstance he is in (the relationship he is in, that person), applies to both men & women. No breakup is equal, some breakups the woman is happier, some... man is better off; or they can both be extremely hurt or both happy from the relief of it.
Like people who has died in the name of love (suicide, rescue etc.) does not discriminate between the sexes.

"Nothing gets you over the last one faster than the next one." - Craig

As much as I agree with most what you say, this line rings both true & false; depending on that person. Sometimes the next one does nothing but as a reminder of that last person you are with.... so it depends on who you are trying to forget (how much that other mean to you) and how much one is vested emotionally to that other person.

Men aren't unfeeling creatures and women can be just as cruel.

[Craig]

Hey, I never said one gender handled things better than the other. I just acknowleged we do things differently and expressed my failure to understand why women go through the motions they go through. No one said men don't feel pain and loss. Many of us just deal with it by replacing what was lost with something else. That's what always healed the hurt best for me. If that makes me selfish, unfeeling, blah, blah, blah, so be it. As for my pet example, you bet I usually had a new pet within a short time after losing the old one, especially my fish. Dogs took a bit longer because it's obviously a bigger investment and time commitment. Does the short delay in replacing them mean I didn't care for the pet or somehow disrespect their memory? I beg to differ. I can't bring them back and life goes on.

Who here has waited months or years after their pet died before getting a new one? Not me! I mourn the loss, but I want a replacement ASAP, and when that new puppy is licking my face, it really eases any sense of loss I feel for the old pet. The same theory applies for breakups. Sure I hurt over a breakup - for a couple of weeks to a month. But waiting 6 months to a year or more while passing up promising opportunites along the way like some women commonly do before dating again? Not gonna happen in my world. Having drinks or a meal with a new hottie sure beats sitting home alone feeling sorry for myself while obssessing over a scrapbook of my ex and eating a pint of Haagen Dazs any day. But that's just me. To each his or her own.

[Moxie]

You didn't have to explicitly state what you thought. Your condescending tone was pretty obvious.

[griffin]

"sitting home alone feeling sorry for myself while obssessing over a scrapbook of my ex and eating a pint of Haagen Dazs any day. But that's just me. To each his or her own."

Just so you know, what you've just described is not what people here mean when they refer to "taking some time for themselves" to "figure out what went wrong before jumping into the next one." Interesting that your take on what it means to be introspective is so unabashedly superficial, though.

[Cullen]

I can't comprehend the comparison between a person you're in a relationship with and a pet. However, I'm sure you were stretching for some form of comparison in order to explain your thought process... it's just interesting that you chose a pet.

For whatever reason... hurt, anger, cynicism, bitterness... I didn't feel that I was actually over the person who I was in the relationship with... and therefore was not ready to start a new one. Have I just jumped into another relationship and eased the pain of the one that hurt? Hell yes! Was it a good experience... nope. Hurt another person in the process and didn't really feel that great about it.

Here's my metaphor: you wouldn't break your leg and go running before it was fully healed would you? you're hurt... and you could hurt yourself worse if you didn't take care of your leg before trying to go out and run another marathon. ...and who knows who's little kick-dog you could crush if your busted-not-yet-healed leg gave out on you in the process and you took a header. Heh.

Sometimes it's better to take time and heal before hurting yourself more or perhaps unintentionally hurting someone else.

Griffin your comment at 3:11 makes me think you are a wise man. Your comment was very important as we do need to see that there are men who feel as you do.

[ALH]

I'm baffled why you would think it is unhealthy to take time to figure out what went wrong, what you're really looking for in a relationship, and how to make things better next time.

It all comes down to WHY you want to be in a relationship -- Craig, it sounds like you just want a warm body next to you, and if one doesn't work out, fine, next! And the animal thing just underscores that... people who are truly able to connect to other living beings view mourning and "getting over it" as a natural and necessary process in order to fully commit -- in a HEALTHY way -- to a new situation.

You're describing a fine recipe for being single forever, but I don't know any woman who would WANT to date a man (on any sort of committed level) who's jumped from relationship to relationship without taking time to introspect. That would scare me off VERY quickly. Good luck with that, I guess.

[harmony1969]

Sorry but if you don't take time, any bitterness etc you have from the last relationship will cloud and or ruin the next one. Not saying you should mourn for years on end, but certainly jumping back on the horse before you've even looked at what went wrong is a good way to prolong everything.

Have a girlfriend that does what Craig suggests and surprise surprise, nothing lasts any length of time. And she ends up feeling like sh*t because another relationship has gone down the tubes.

Smart? Not really. And not all guys are like this either. Guy I know has taken almost a year (I think it's relative to the length of time you were together) after a 10 year relationship failed. Believe me, he's much happier man now than he was 6 months ago, had he jumped into anything it would have ended in tears undoubtedly.

If you don't take the time to 'grieve' and figure out what went wrong and why, you will continue making the same mistakes over and over.

[brent]

And here is what you are all missing, for men, going out and "having" a few ladies is healing, this is part of our recovery process. Most women know that if they are "with" a guy who just ended a long relationship that what they have is very temporary. We aren't that different, we just use a different process to heal; think about it, it'll make sense.

[jaded]

"Many of us just deal with it by replacing what was lost with something else. That's what always healed the hurt best for me. If that makes me selfish, unfeeling, blah, blah, blah, so be it."

"And here is what you are all missing, for men, going out and "having" a few ladies is healing, this is part of our recovery process."

This just confirms my thoughts that when men date they only care about themselves and thier own pleasure. They couldn't care less how the woman feels as long as thier own immediate needs are met.

Thanks Craig and Brent!!

Brent, if that's the case then OK, if that works for you...although I have to wonder if these rebound women are aware of their status, and would they be so enthusiastic to be recovery aids if they were? I don't think the temporary status of being "with" a guy fresh out of a relationship is quite as universally common knowledge as you assume, hence the possibility of hurting someone innocent in the process of your own healing. Regardless, my point is that the dismay in some of the comments has as much to do with the rather condescending, dismissive tone of Craig's original quote as it does with the content. We understood what he was saying; we just thought it was callous.

[harmony1969]

Um Brent...personally I'm not "missing" anything....I think what you guys are missing is that distraction doesn't actually heal anything, just masks it.

If that works for you, so be it. But as anonymous above mentioned, I'm not too sure if it would work so much for your recovery aids if they actually knew what was going on.

Hence why my theory that men out of relationships for less than a year are a no no.

[Rock]

"If you don't take the time to 'grieve' and figure out what went wrong and why, you will continue making the same mistakes over and over."

Exactly what i think. Then again, some enjoy being conditioned to shitty patterns.

[Mr-happy]

Ahh...

Two Words:

Bull-Sh&T

I know a few guys who have gone to pieces at the end, and in fact I would venture to say guys tend to fall apart at the end if they were really attached, [and let me tell ya it's ugly] and many times act out making the all the complaints of the women a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Maybe that's why many men never evolve because they emotionally disconnect faster, do not give themselfs time between women in many cases, never examine what went wrong last time, and just keep on going like a freight train out of control until they find a girl who sticks to them or just date until they can't anymore.

In this case I would have to strongly disagree with Craigs statements, and my disagreement comes from being a fly on the wall so to speak in many breakups from the females side so I heard everything about how the guy handled it and it was SAD!

If Craig is really in love with his girl lets see what happens if she dumps him, can Craig really disconnect so quickly and jump right back in, if that's the case it's makes me wonder. Dude I am sure your a great guy, but I think you maybe seeing this from your own experience point of view. Because from my listening to my girlfriends and how their ex's act your flat out wrong bro.

Oh btw you do seem like a very intelligent and nice man and I enjoy your responses on this blog!

So much for that one....

[steve]

I agree with craig. Moxie, I can use an infinite number of proxies to defeat your typepad antispam filter.
The one who's been dumped takes longer to recover then the dumper. When I was dumped I felt hurt for a few months. But I still got back on the horse right away to take my mind off it and heal. Perhaps taking a break from dating is the rational choice, but emotions aren't rational and for me, dating better looking, nicer and younger women then my ex was the ego boost I needed to get past her.

[jonny]

I figured out the root cause of my breakup-I was with a bitch. I know what I have to do with future girls to have less problems-not tolerate bitches. That took all of 5 minutes.

[b]

It's obviously much easier to get over a breakup if you conclude that the person you were with was not a good person, not right for you, etc., or as jonny so eloquently put it "a bitch." I think men tend to engage in revisionist history faster than women, basically painting the woman who dumped them in the worst light possible, so as to emotionally disengage faster, and then drive the point home by going right out and dating women who fit the role of "better, younger, prettier, etc." But this is obviously an oversimplification and a defense mechanism. They were with their ex, chose her and stayed with her, for a reason. If the ex was really a "bitch" the whole time, why did they get involved with her in the first place? Why did they attract and choose to stay with someone so terrible? They should figure that out (assuming they are being honest with themselves and the ex really was the whole problem, being such a terrible person), or they will no doubt find themselves repeating history with another future "bitch."

But it's the men who were really in love and recognize they have lost something of value to them, something that may be impossible to replace, that "go to pieces" like anyone would. In this case, a guy needs to figure out how he contributed to screwing things up, so that the next time, if he is so lucky as to find love again, he will not make the same mistakes.

In my case, years ago, I was ready to date again immediately after my divorce, because I knew deep down throughout my marriage that I had chosen the wrong man for me. By the time it was over, there was no need for grieving or figuring things out. But more recently, I was really in love with someone and had to let him go due to wanting very different things in life. That breakup brought me to my knees, and it has taken a full year to get to the point where any man can capture and hold my interest. I DID try to get "back on the horse" many times, but since I wasn't over the ex yet, I couldn't enjoy the company of other men on a romantic level. Everyone just felt "wrong" because they weren't the ex. Craig, I think that's why some women (and men) really do need to take some time after a breakup. They find that trying to date again too soon just makes them feel worse, not better. It all depends on the circumstances of the breakup and how deeply they were in love, and how firmly they had believed they had found the love of their life.

[Jojo]

Taking the time to grieve after a relationship is healthy. Trying to replace someone just does not work. Using someone in order to forget someone else is unfair and is what we call a rebound. No one says you have to sit home and pitty yourself. You can go out with friends; doesn't have to be some other warm body. It just shows that there are so many superficial relationships rather than meaningful ones out there!

[separated guy]

Why won't men ask for directions? Why are many of them often regarded as handy? These are obvious (but common) generalizations, just as the notion that men replace instead of grieve is a generalization. However, I think there's a common thread to all of them -- experiential learning. The same way a guy might figure out how to repair a busted clock by cracking it open and seeing what's inside, perhaps the way he analyzes his relationships is by jumping in and comparing to something else. Not only looking for what different attributes he might look for in a woman, but also how he might behave differently with a clean slate.

I have no idea whether that's it or not but it's a good question that I know I'll think about. I'll venture that most people here have been hurt and have hurt others and one of the reasons they show up, read, and post is to think about these questions and build better relationships. I know that's why I read and post. It's also a reason why I'm bothered by the vitriol with which some are condemning these differences.

i have found that men do usually get right back on the horse...but whatever new horse they are riding now has to carry a whole lot more shit.

[trouble]

~~~In my case, years ago, I was ready to date again immediately after my divorce, because I knew deep down throughout my marriage that I had chosen the wrong man for me. By the time it was over, there was no need for grieving or figuring things out. But more recently, I was really in love with someone and had to let him go due to wanting very different things in life. That breakup brought me to my knees, and it has taken a full year to get to the point where any man can capture and hold my interest. I DID try to get "back on the horse" many times, but since I wasn't over the ex yet, I couldn't enjoy the company of other men on a romantic level. ~~~

This is it, exactly. The other part is this...Even though I had mostly mourned my divorce BEFORE the marriage even ended, slowly and gradually, STILL, there was a process of recovery from the end of a 12-year-long relationship, no matter how miserable it was. I would compare it to having your arm lopped off. Certainly, it is possible to live without an arm, and you can recover from that injury, and go on to live a vibrant, wonderful life. But, still, right after that loss, you are going to have a lot of awkwardness in dealing with life without a limb. That's what a serious breakup of a long-term relationship and/or marriage is like...like an amputation. A part of you is simply GONE. And, you are going to have to deal with it, either sooner or later. In my case, I didn't mourn all that badly right after the marriage ended, but when my first real relationship (after the divorce) ended, man, it knocked me for a loop. I have never been so miserable in my life. I think that when all is said and done, I really ended up grieving for both ended relationships at the same time, and learning to function without a significant other at that point in time.

Obviously, if you've only dated someone for 3 months or 6 months, the recovery time is going to be a whole lot less. But when you are talking about a year or more, it definitely can smart.

I got back on the horse, and had dates again within weeks of my breakup, but I didn't enjoy them. The entire time, even during sex, I was missing the familiarity of my former boyfriend.

If I had not taken the time to heal, and address some of my counter-productive dating patterns, I would not have been prepared to date the wonderful guy I am dating now. Truth be told, I was so addicted to the crazy, I'd have found him boring. Now that I have learned to appreciate some sanity in my life and recognize guys who aren't healthy, I appreciate the peacefulness of being with him, and the fact that we almost never disagree on anything, and if we do, even the disagreements are agreeable.

[Mr-happy]

I think allot of relationship pain has to do with the fact that the majority of people are so damn miserable on their own, and when their support [a.k.a the relationship] is striped away and they have to look at them selves again, it just sucks for most of us, because in most cases zero change internally has taken place and humans naturally WANT to evolve... Women too many times will have sex for no other reason after ending a relationship then they are lonely and that they can so easily, unless they are flat out ugly.

Trouble thanks for sharing, your post illustrates why I disagreed with Craig so strongly, that if you do not have enough time on your own after the death of a relationship then the next one is not really real, it's just a cover up like drinking ones problems away.

The folks who truly understand this and evolve have a shot at real happiness in life, the rest are doomed to come to the same uncomfortable place again, and again and again, regardless of whether they admit or not.

[hudugi]

After talking to my therapist about this, I have found out that it is better take time off and deal with your emotions so that you don't care the same baggage into your next relationship

[Crotch Rocket]

"Unlike men, who do almost little to no introspection and never consider that maybe they were the ones to fuck things up, women beat themselves up and to figure out where things went wrong so we don't do the same thing again." Yet most women _do_ do the same things over and over again, so apparently that "time off" doesn't help. Still, men learn better by experimenting and women try to plan (not taking into account how a man will react to her plan), so that affects how we recover from a breakup.

"If you don't take the time to 'grieve' and figure out what went wrong and why, you will continue making the same mistakes over and over." Men _are_ introspective and do analyze why things went wrong, but it doesn't take us months or years to figure it out, nor what we need to do to change how things go next time.

"although I have to wonder if these rebound women are aware of their status," Doesn't _everyone_ know, by their early 20s, not to get into a rebound relationship? Don't they ask the necessary questions and watch for the cues that's what they are? Heck, men will often make it quite clear that's what's going on, but the new woman deludes herself into thinking she'll be the one to change him with love... It's also pretty obvious with most women as well, but many men are willing to tolerate (or even seek) women in that state because they're more vulnerable and less likely to push for something serious again so soon.

"I think men tend to engage in revisionist history faster than women," Huh? Men are far more in touch with the facts than women are, and any revision they do is conscious and solely for the purpose of alleviating guilt or making themselves look better to others. Women are more grounded in feelings, not facts, and it's a lot easier to revise how one felt or feels (or how one assumes another felt or feels) than facts. The amount of delusion that women put themselves through, both during and after relationships, is absolutely astounding in comparison to what men do. (Note that I'm not commenting on intent here.)

"If the ex was really a 'bitch' the whole time, why did they get involved with her in the first place?" Because he was getting laid, duh? I think the problem the ladies here are having is that many men do not, in the privacy of their own minds, consider themselves to be in a serious relationship as early as their girlfriend does. If we're not mentally committed to the gal, why _should_ we grieve the loss of the relationship we didn't even want in the first place? I assume you, when a guy _is_ in love with a woman and things end, he will take months or even years to grieve about it -- but that's rare because it takes a lot more for us to fall in love than an orgasm or two. It also doesn't help appearances that men can fall out of love and start distancing themselves emotionally from a relationship (and doing his grieving) before he actually ends it, whereas women are more likely to delude themselves into thinking everything's fine up 'til the day it's over or even after that.

And, for the record, I know _plenty_ of gals that jump from one boyfriend to the next, never processing and repeating the same bad patterns over and over. That is not the exclusive territory of men.

[jalabi]

Both true and false: I think it is more true to say that men ARE EXPECTED BY SOCIETY to deal better with breakups (to "suck it up" and "be a man") than "emotional" women. Whether they actually DO or not is another story.