Men experience more heartbreak than women after a breakup, study finds

It's often assumed that women have a more emotional response to relationship problems. Photo / Getty Images

Most of us have gone through or will go through a break-up at some point in our lives.

And with the pandemic seeing a surge in long-term relationships ending and divorce rates rising, it appears that break-ups are at an all-time high.

Break-ups are stressful for everyone involved, with outdated stereotypes assuming women are hit harder emotionally than men - but now a new study has revealed the opposite is true, reports Metro UK.

Psychologists from Lancaster University analysed relationship problems using "big data" to study the psychological profiles and demographic of over 184,000 people.

Lead author of the study Charlotte Entwistle says most of what we know about relationship problems comes from studies of people already in couples therapy.

"This includes a rather specific subset of people — people who have the time, money, and motive to work on their relationship problems."

The aim of the study was initially to focus on common relationship problems, but ended in emphasising who tends to experience a stronger emotional reaction to a break-up.

Lead researcher Dr Ryan Boyd said, "We realised that this was an important opportunity to put a lot of common ideas about gender differences in relationships to the test.

"For example, are men truly less emotionally invested in relationships than women, or is it the case that men are simply stigmatised out of sharing their feelings?"

Men tend to open up more about their relationship problems in an anonymous setting. Photo / Getty Images

Surprisingly, the study found that men spoke about feeling upset and sad "significantly more" than women did - contradictory to previous research.

So it seems like men experience heartbreak just as much as women do, but are more likely to express their feelings in an anonymous setting.

Boyd concluded, "When you remove the traditional social stigmas against men for seeking help and sharing their emotions, they seem just as invested in working through rough patches in their relationships as women."

The team hopes the study will help destigmatise the idea of asking for help when a relationship breaks down.

The study and results are published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.