Heartache—Who Suffers more, Guys or Girls?
In fiction, men turn themselves inside out for love-from F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby reinventing his life to get Daisy back, to even a bad boy like Chuck Bass angling for Blair after three seasons of Gossip Girl.
But in real life, isn't it the women who most acutely feel the whiplash of relationship turmoil? We lose sleep over fights (he snores). We anguish at his failure to remember an anniversary. We watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf to remind ourselves that, "There but for the grace of God," and cook up revenge plans should he dare to dump us (at least I do.)
So I was interested to see a new study, published this month in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, which suggests that guys are a lot more sensitive than we might think. Analyzing the mental health of 1,611 unmarried subjects between ages 18 and 23, researchers found that, while women predictably get more depressed after a breakup, men outdo us in riding the highs and suffering the lows of the romantic roller coaster.
Really?
Lead researcher, Robin Simon, PhD, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University, was surprised, too. With older couples, she says, it's known that both sexes share the stress when love life gets rocky. But younger guys are different: They seem to have particularly thin skins.
"These boys are more sensitive to relationships," she says. "Tension and conflict are more hurtful to them than to women. And their mental health is more buttressed when things go well." Meanwhile, even though we trump them in terms of breakup misery, "men do care."
Would you know if your partner is upset? Simon notes that males don't typically admit to being depressed. Instead they show their stress by increasing substance abuse. So if he's acting like a jerk chugging way too much beer with the guys, it could be his way of reacting to the strain between you.
Why are women emotionally stronger? A man's primary source of intimacy is typically his romantic partner, and when that connection frays, he's left dangling. Women, on the other hand, have their girlfriend-net to fall back on when things get dicey at home-and that's huge.
What's changed? Simon suggests that the new marriage trends have tenderized this generation. "Today's young adults grew up in a culture of divorce-even if their own parents didn't split, for sure their friends' parents did. And they know that intimate relationships are fragile. Also their dads are probably dependent on their wives' salary."
"Are you saying that we're going to see the rise of the super-sensitive guy," I ask her?
"I think that could be," she says. "It'll be curious to see what their marriages are like."
What do you think? Take our poll.
For more on how guys feel about love (straight from their own mouths):
11 Reasons He Dumped You
8 Signs He's Totally Into You
Why He (really) Didn't Call
[Photo Credit: Getty Images/Image Source]
