Breakups are never pleasant, even when we cause them.
Not to mention the situations when our partner cheats on us? The feeling of sadness, anger, anger is hard to describe in words. According to new research, the feeling that you’ve been rejected for falling in love with someone else makes a break-up much more painful than usual.
At least that’s the result of a recent study conducted at the prestigious Cornell University and published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. To carry out the study, the researchers used 600 volunteers and subjected them to four experiments. In the first experiment, a woman was given a puzzle to solve. She had the option of choosing a partner to help her find the right solution. Sometimes she chose another woman in the group, and sometimes she chose to work alone.
For the other three experiments, participants were asked to recall why they had been rejected in the past or were asked to imagine that they had been rejected. Throughout the entire period, participants felt much worse when the rejection was comparative – in other words, when they were rejected in favor of someone else than in situations where they were told “it’s not you, it’s my fault.”
Interestingly, when people who were rejected were not given a reason for it, they desperately wanted to know if it was because of another person or it just happened that way. So, when you break up with someone amicably and it’s not because of another person, it helps to explain the real reasons behind your decision.
Let’s not forget to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. After all, it can happen to anyone, even the luckiest of us to go through a situation where either at work or in a relationship someone else is chosen over us. And not because there is anything wrong with us, but because someone else is better suited for the role.