NEW ORLEANS (Reuters Health) - When rating previous breakups, women view the process of ending of the relationship no differently if they are the dumper or the dumpee--but the same is not true with men, new research shows.

According to researchers at Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina, men believe there was much more scheming on the part of their partners, less finality in the relationship and less working together during the breakup if they were dumped than if they ended the relationship themselves.

For example, when rating how much scheming went into the breakup, "females don't differ much whether they were the actor or the target," Dr. Mike Jordan told Reuters Health.

"The males, on the other hand--if they're the ones who did it, they thought 'Oh, there was no plotting on my part or anything.' But there was a lot if she broke up with them," he added.

Jordan and his team asked 28 male and 90 female undergraduate college students to report on their last relationship that ended before it lasted 6 months. The students rated the breakups according to certain qualities: how much the couple worked together to decide to end the relationship (collaborativeness), how much plotting occurred on the part of the dumper (scheming), and how much they felt the relationship was truly over at the time of breaking up (finality).

The investigators found that women perceived there to be equal amounts of scheming, collaborativeness and finality whether they initiated the breakup or whether they were forced out of the relationship.

Men, however, felt the breakup was much less pleasant if it was forced upon them, rating much higher amounts of scheming, lower collaboration and less finality when their partners dumped them than when they started the breakup themselves.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Jordan said that the women simply perceive breakups as a negative experience overall, whether or not they initiate the process.

"Females just saw it as kind of bad all the time," he noted. However, for men, dumping a partner may not be so bad, the researcher added.

"The males are not bothered if they end the relationship--it's not threatening to them," Jordan explained. "But if they are the target--the girl ends the relationship--this is highly threatening to them, and they don't take well to it," he said.

He added that demonstrating that men perceive the relationship as less final when the partner ends it may explain why men are more likely than women to pursue their former partners after the relationship ends--such as phoning them, or showing up where they work.

Jordan and his team presented the findings here Saturday at the American Psychological Society's annual meeting.

Reference Source 89

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