ISTM that generally, when a breakup is initiated by a man, there is some chance that he will be willing to undo it and let the relationship come back together again, whereas if a breakup is initiated by a woman, it will most likely be permanent and irreversible.
(Of course, there are countless factors at play and each couple is different, but) - does that seem to hold true as a general rule? I think that, generally, when or if a woman initiates a breakup, she has spend a lot of time thinking about it “cold” and that by the time she delivers the news, it has already been fully sorted through and processed in her mind.
When I was single I would break up with women because I wanted to be alone. That was a more reversible situation. When women have broken up with me, it wasn’t when they were unhappy… it was when they were unhappy, and they had found someone else. There’s not much ‘undo’ button in that situation.
Or, as Jeff Foxworthy says - “Guys, if a woman says to you “I think we should start seeing other people,” trust me, she has already cut a pony from the herd, and if she ain’t ridin’ him yet, she has pulled the saddle out of the barn.”
Yes. That is, at least anectdotally accepted among some marriage counsellors, notably Michelle Wiener-Davis, and James Dobbs. Wiener Davis talks about the “Walkaway-Wife Syndrome” and counsels about warning signs that a woman is checked out. Dobbs says that it is generally possible to repair a broken relationship, unless the woman has fallen in love with another. In those cases, it almost never works out.
Women also seem to be more unhappy in relationships and if I remember initiate divorce about 75% of the time as opposed to 25% for men.
When I got divorced my ex initiated it, but I respected her decision and never begged her to stay or promised to change or anything like that, I figured it was futile to try and convince someone to stay with me that didn’t want to be with me, and I fell out of love with her. We did get back together several times for several months each time but I never felt the same way about her after the divorce, and she always initiated the getting back together part, calling me crying all the time.
It probably wasn’t a healthy thing to do but I missed my kids, and honestly a big part of it was just being a weak, horny man lol. Things seem to finally be over now though.
Is there any actual data on this, or are anecdotes and speculation the order of the day here?
Because in my anecdotal experience, I’ve been dumped twice, and each time quite literally never saw the woman again. On the other hand I’ve never dumped anybody. So women do hard breakups infinitely more often than men!
My breakups have all been initiated by me, were all final as death, and there was never another dude involved: with one exception (I had to leave the country), they were instances of “better alone than in bad company”.
I don’t think it’s always the case that a woman leaves because she’s found someone else. I think a lot of times a woman will stay in a bad relationship because she’ll tell herself it’s not as bad as it seems. Then one day, she will metaphorically open her eyes and see the reality. And that will prompt her to end the relationship.
In cases like that, the break up is usually going to be permanent. Once somebody’s lost an illusion, they can’t get it back.
Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve known several guys who arrived “home” to find all their stuff out on the lawn, but I’ve never known a woman who experienced same.
Does that indicate that women break up more decisively, or just that they instigate breakups more often?
Or mayhap it just means that when a man instigates a breakup they don’t feel the need to put a locked door between themselves and their former partner.
In my anecdotal experience that rings true. When a woman decides to end a relationship she has been thinking about it and planning for a while. I think men are more apt to break up in the heat of the moment and be open to rethinking later. Again, that’s just my experience.
OTOH, it seems to me there are more news stories of men killing their ex-wives/ex-girlfriends and I can hardly imagine anything more definite than that.
Yeah but I’d wager that comparatively few of those crimes are undertaken out of a deliberate rational decision to ensure the permanence of the breakup, though of course there are always the sociopathic exceptions. I suspect most men who murder their exes are instead indulging in a huge fit of toxic entitlement along the lines of “I’LL SHOW THAT BITCH SHE CAN’T JILT ME AND GET AWAY WITH IT”.
For guys that I did more than casually date:
I’ve had two guys break up with me, one because there was someone else, the other because he wasn’t interested in my racing and wanted me to give it up. I asked him if he would give up his basketball in return, ha ha, boom.
I have broken it off 3 times, never because there was someone else for me. One was because he couldn’t keep it in his pants. The others were hampered by distance.
