Despite the common notion that men are less emotionally invested in relationships, a new study has found that breakups might be harder on men than women.
The findings, based on an analysis of relationship posts in an online forum by over 184,000 people, say that men tend to experience greater emotional pain than women when their relationships go sour.
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The researchers created a ‘map’ of the most common relationship problems to understand discussions in the online forum. Words like regret, breakup, cry, and heartbroken were used the most by people to discuss heartache-related feelings.
Published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, the study found communication problems to be the most common relationship issue mentioned, followed by trust issues.
It was also found that men were more likely to seek relationship help than women in online settings, in order to preserve anonymity. The team explained that this could be due to the traditional social stigmas against men for seeking help and sharing their emotions.
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