How men and women learn from their own and other people’s mistakes when breaking up

Who trades in breakups?

Exposing your “exes” is new and interesting. The fact is that the right to interpret love stories has historically been usurped by women. Maybe because most stories have ended badly, usually through the fault of men. Complaining to girlfriends and supporting each other (in women’s conversations about love, men are usually negative characters – not cherishing relationships, not fighting for them, etc.) is a kind of compensation for abandoned women.

But the world is changing, and all types of relationships, including love relationships, are reversed literally every year. Again and again the questions come up: who to love? what to love for? how to love? how to talk about it? how to stop love?

But the most important thing that is happening is that social roles are being aligned, and women are starting to leave men too. Statistically, more often and more sharply. But a woman wants to reserve the right to have the “last word” by quitting on her own. It is very important who “trades” the breakup and manages to understand it.

For me, the story of Arthur Chaparyan’s telegram channel is precisely a statement of men’s desire to rewrite the classic story of a breakup. And to remove himself from the role of the guilty party.

How do men and women learn from their mistakes?

Young men and women burn out and learn from mistakes in different ways.

Women are much more likely to complain after hurt feelings, breakups, abuse, and harassment and expect their complaints to culminate in a moral verdict from at least the girlfriend community.

Men soon cease to be allowed into their circle of communication and the women’s communities degenerate into inter-girlfriends like the famous “I’m not afraid to tell” flash mob about violence against women. I’m not a big fan of that kind of thing, it’s a dead end. Here you are talking about the mystery of abusive violence, and then what? You tell it again? Mousing over the drama leads by no means to recovery from shock and depression, but to re-dramatization.

Men are more adaptable than women. They are attentive to their experiences, teachable, curious, and lately have been trying out women’s ways of living out their dramas. It is very important for them to work through everything and not to make the same mistake.

Women after difficult stories often abandon relationships with men altogether and do not want to hear, see or understand them – for years. And in the next relationship they take revenge on the men for the previous ones (judging position, questions, control, claims) and in the end they doom themselves to loneliness again. It is a principled “uninviting” of the man into the relationship from the very beginning.

And abandoned men, not wanting to repeat their mistakes, on the contrary, build the next relationship with a woman as an apology for the previous ones. Not saying “I repent” – who wants to be guilty? – but after thinking about what I did wrong, a man purely technologically builds his behavior so as not to repeat his mistakes.

Strange and seemingly unimportant claims of lovers like “You didn’t take out the trash!” becoming the last straw in a relationship, in the following lead to the man grabbing the trash can like a sick man.

The trash can is a very difficult topic. For women, it’s anecdotal nonsense (“And for some reason he can’t even do that”), and for the man coming in from work as a “big war” man, it’s a status humiliation and a crossing of real effort (you just turned the tide on important negotiations, and at home you are immediately turned into a trash can boy). A man ignores the trash can to maintain his status integrity. So it’s okay to trash can a man, but you have to understand what it means to him. We have only recently, unfortunately, begun to discuss what all these internal gestures mean.

And so for this experience to build up, not to air it out, and we need to talk about exes and the experience of breaking up with them. But it would be desirable if at least from the outside a smart psychologist was watching the conversations, ready to suggest simple things: when you should not raise your voice, but rather stop the conversation and shut the door …

Men and women are often “foreigners” to each other: each translates the other’s behavior into his own language. Men sincerely try to understand women. And as a rule do not understand. Just remember the change in her mood, as changes in the weather. Seeing what mood a woman is in, a man usually understands what is about to happen, but – why, does not understand ever. Not without reason the most frequent metaphor of a woman is the elements, a storm, a downpour. A woman is usually something of a weather condition for a man.

Why do abandoned men rarely want to go back?

Girls keep “picking up” their “exes,” as if accidentally sending them pictures in bathing suits or birthday wishes… They tell their girlfriends how he looked when they met, sighed. But so comforting to themselves, they are afraid to ask direct questions. This almost stalemate-like unwillingness to ask straight questions of men is a typical female withdrawal from responsibility and truth. The reason, I think, is that women secretly feel they are perfect. And any criticism from men, although the amount of criticism from men’s side is much less than from women’s, traumatizes us. And it hurts a woman a lot when a man leaves. She is less ready for it. If you look at the “transcript” of the relationship, you can see that men have more complaints about women. But out of noble motives – as a strong man to a weak man – a man is ready to extinguish his grievances. And the woman reads the morals to her heart’s content…

And suddenly – it was me who was displeased, offended, and he was silent, so why is he leaving? Psychologists always register women’s insensitivity: there is a fatal breakup, and she does not even understand what is happening.

Man leaves “logically”: she is not happy, I can not meet her needs, you have to leave.

If the relationship begins to be clarified, the man asks direct questions: “What have you been missing? Tell me, and I’ll fix it. And women respond with “it’s all wrong…”. But this is not serious from a man’s point of view: something was “that”.

Breakup situations are often stalemated. People break up without understanding the reasons. And it may take years to understand what happened. Sometimes only 20 years later you can understand yourself and her, and the absurdity of the breakup. And the delightfulness of the very gift of your meeting. When you break up, you thought: well, not with this one, so with the other. And then suddenly realize after 20 years that it was a very special case. And you did not save it.

Because the situation was ruled by a battle of wills, inexperience, arrogance, and the environment did not give any clues. In public spaces-messengers, telegram channels-they give you clues. But there is often little experience and reflection in these horizontal bonds of companionship. Therefore, the repertoire of men’s conversations about their “exes” may add to their air of understanding, but not as much as a good psychologist can do. Because in such cases it is important to understand yourself and seriously change – to rearrange your life and its meanings. And if we don’t change, we will walk away from each other, pushing each other in the Brownian motion of the breakup and remaining as round as balls, fools.

If the breakup was mutual, the boys’ sense of abandonment is higher. And yes, they are jealous of the new guys. Because the feeling hasn’t cooled off. The girls, by texting, constantly appeal to it. The boys laugh at this appeal. But the feeling hasn’t cooled off…

It is cruel of the girls to pull these strings. Especially since it is done most often because of the girls’ ego and desire to keep all the “exes” in the fairway. To have them as a trophy under your belt. They are like asterisks on the wings marking the downed planes. But this is where you can fall into a trap. Because if the new relationship doesn’t work out, and the girl makes an attempt to get the “spare” back, he’ll have a good chance for revenge. She thinks that he waited and loved her all the time. And he suddenly says to her: With you? Nothing but sex! Yes, we had great sex, but after a while I’m well aware that you can’t be relied upon, you’re not a reliable person. Often he has reason to say this, and the comeback story doesn’t work out.

Most breakups happen before or during the holidays – and always at the peak of the relationship

A psychologist who listens to men’s confessions can see how men feel sorry for being left behind. Because of their ego, they don’t want to devalue the girls who left them. They say: yes, she was beautiful. But – it goes on – now she’s different. The gorgeous one I adored is gone. I grieve endlessly, but I won’t go back. And they sort of slowly bury their “ex.” The person is still alive, but their image is destroyed.

This experience, by the way, becomes an obstacle for young men to adore a woman in their next relationship. They are already more cautious and realistic. Male maturity tells them: any woman – a real person with flaws, which will have to put up with. And the ideal is just a guiding star. But as soon as these very real relationships begin, then, in fact, comes the time of the essence. A complex mix of fitting in, figuring out characters and relationships, inspiration, disappointment. And the slow realization is that this is my man. Because I can stand him. Because I love him. Etc.

Crisis

Three stages after she leaves.

The first stage is withdrawal into oneself. The young man is shocked, alone with himself, and does not know what to do.

The second stage is coming out of the shock, trying to find an understanding interlocutor and with his help to get out of the serious clamp.

The third stage is adapting to unhappiness.

The question is

Why is it always not enough gifts and sex?

If you ask a man about the most important desire in a relationship with a woman, it is definitely the desire to control her emotions. Although no man has yet found the right button for this…

Moments of agreement and happiness are possible, of course, but briefly. And the next day the woman again will make a scandal, and her demands and behavior will not be any logic. And finally the man concludes that the woman, firstly, you can not control, and secondly, it is not necessary in every way to please and pamper her – from gifts to sex. Because it’s no use: a woman is always not enough.

From a man’s point of view it is fair to make an exchange – services, caresses, gestures, gifts, such is the man’s world. But a woman can cancel the arrangement at any moment. And it is this female “guile” that makes men conclude that you cannot rely on a woman. You can adore her, live with her under one roof, but you have to look somewhere outside. A mother? A friend? A job?

We live in a time when both men and women are becoming psychologically freer, but the man studies his woman more boldly and in more detail than the woman studies her man. When young female clients come in, one of my first clues to them is: learn from men. Watch how they do this or that, and don’t be afraid to repeat it, it will lead you to success. Not to success in the feminine sense – you got a new haircut, a manicure, went out into the light and “everyone fell over”. The endless feminine posing and selfies born out of it smacks of emotional abuse. The woman is emotionally pressured, but someone pushes through and someone shrugs and walks away. It’s so not mature, to stand up like a child on a stool and make everyone exist on their own wavelength. Men quickly lose their taste for the “I’m out and everyone’s down” scenes.

The man who presents himself as the grand prize is lost in the women’s camp. For men, success is tied to weightiness and tangibility – money, car, apartment – show, buy.

Now is the time for gifts. There is some resistance from men. No one usually wants a haircut like a poodle, a haircut at a barbershop, a sock or shower gel to buy him. And women often give such unsuccessful gifts on automatic.

The gift must necessarily contain some kind of compliment. For women, yes, the main thing – appearance. And in a man to encourage the scale, intelligence and status. So it’s better to give him a map of the world or a globe than a set of men’s cosmetics. And a good book is better than a diary. A good purse isn’t bad, but it’s a duty gift.