Arthur Brooks: So You Got Dumped. What Next?

Dear friends,

My column on Monday focused on the fear that many young adults experience about in-person dating and romantic commitment—particularly an exaggerated concern about “red flags” (reasons to cut and run from a relationship). This anxiety has led to an explosion of pornography use and social-emotional avoidance behaviors. I urged my readers to treat relationships like start-up ventures, with courage and not a fear of failure.

One comment I got in several responses came from a stat I put into the article: that the average person experiences five painful breakups before finding “the one.” Here’s what one reader wrote in response:

I have a huge problem with this guy acting as if 5 broken hearts is something we should normalize. Maybe if you’re on the callous end of the spectrum! Is there no place in western modern culture for the tenderhearted?

In fact, I don’t find this to be so terrible at all. Fifty heartbreaks would have been worth it to get to Mrs. B. More to the point, learning to bear up under suffering is a critical part of growing up, and one that many social scientists today would say we are denying our adolescent and young adult kids in the era of safetyism.

But of course, we also need to help young people learn how to recover when the pain of rejection in love inevitably comes. There is plenty of research on this topic, of course. (Remember, professors have to get tenure by publishing research, so there are papers on everything. I’ve read them, so you don’t have to.)

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Couples break up for many reasons, but big patterns emerge in the data. Much of the time when people are still dating, one partner simply loses interest in the other. In more developed relationships, breaking up is more often associated with certain behaviors. Here are the top five likely to lead to a breakup:

1. Low emotional support

2. Low commitment

3. High criticism

4. Substance abuse

5. Infidelity

If you are the breakup-ee, that can be unbelievably painful, for good reason: Humans evolved to resist social rejection. The unwelcome loss of a loved one could mean—at least in the good old Pleistocene days of our knuckle-dragging ancestors—being cast out from the tribe, wandering helpless in the savanna, and dying alone. About what your last bad breakup felt like, right?

In other words, my dear breakup-ee, if you’re in intense pain, you are normal. But things have changed somewhat since the Pleistocene: Despite what your lyin’ limbic system is telling you, you will not die alone, and in fact, won’t even be so sad after a little time has passed. In the meantime, a few science-backed approaches can help lower your suffering.

More on Finding Love

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How The Free Press Found Me a Husband

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Arthur Brooks: Opposites Really Do Attract

Arthur Brooks

1. Learn

In a little notebook, write down a couple of sentences about the pain of the breakup. Two weeks later, come back and write below it something useful you have learned from this experience that you want to remember. I don’t mean, “I figured out where her new boyfriend lives and I am now sitting outside his house in a van, smoking cigarettes.” Rather, “I learned that the pain is not constant, and as the days pass, I have more moments of peace.” Then, after another month, come back and write down something of benefit you have gotten from the experience. Not “I hear she got the shingles, LOL.” Rather, “I am stronger than I thought” or “I have great friends.”

2. Put on a sad song

Maybe this sounds counterintuitive, but sad music has been found to be consoling in times of sadness, because it helps you to understand the complexity of your negative emotions. A friend once told me that after a terrible heartbreak, she listened to the Sinéad O’Connor version of “Nothing Compares 2 U” 900 times—and it helped a lot. Personally, I would prefer 900 breakups than to listen to that song more than once. I’ll take the Adagio assai movement from Ravel’s piano concerto, but I’m a geek.

3. Don’t surveil

The biggest mistake people make in the era of social media is to surveil your ex to see whether they are moving on with their life. Don’t do that. It’s like picking a scab over and over again. It prevents healing of the wound. Obsessing over your ex is the single best way to make sure you don’t start to feel better. As a matter of fact, I recommend unfollowing them entirely, on all platforms, blocking their number, getting a restraining order, and maybe even entering the Witness Protection Program. Okay, that may be a little much, but you get the idea.

Anyway, if you’re suffering, I hope all this helps. One last thing: You will love again.

Until next week,

Arthur

PS: In case you haven’t heard yet, my new book The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness, is coming out in March! Lots more information to come in the weeks ahead, including details about a big virtual book launch event on March 27. You can find information on both at themeaningofyourlife.com. In the meantime, please mark your calendar.

The Pursuit of Happiness with Arthur Brooks will be back next week with a column on Monday. His newsletter returns next Friday.

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