Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Selects: The Science of Break-Ups

Transcript

Selects: The Science of Break-Ups · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Josh and for this week's Select, I've
0:03
Speaker 1: chosen our twenty nineteen episode on the science of breakups.
0:08
Speaker 1: It's just a straight ahead, interesting episode about people and
0:13
Speaker 1: what makes us tick. I hope you enjoy it.
0:21
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:30
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
0:33
Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryan over there, there's Jerry Rush Rush Rush, Jerry.
0:39
Speaker 1: This is Stuff you Should Know, the breakup edition.
0:43
Speaker 2: Right, Three people who you've never broken up with one another? No,
0:48
Speaker 2: that's true, the last three great point modern triad.
0:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, the tryad.
0:56
Speaker 2: So I picked this one out because mainly this is
1:01
Speaker 2: a refrain. We get an email a lot. We hear
1:03
Speaker 2: from heartbroken people a lot, sure more than you would
1:06
Speaker 2: think that are just like, that's so sad. Lots of
1:10
Speaker 2: broken hearts up and you you guys have helped me
1:12
Speaker 2: with this show as a distraction, which we will learn
1:15
Speaker 2: as one of the official ways to get over a breakup.
1:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, look over here, Yeah exactly.
1:22
Speaker 2: So it just got me thinking about, like, is there
1:24
Speaker 2: any science behind breakups and the emotions that go along
1:28
Speaker 2: with it. And it turns out there's a lot, like
1:32
Speaker 2: a disturbing amount of study has been done. I know
1:35
Speaker 2: when you look at it, you're like, oh, man, maybe
1:38
Speaker 2: you should have allocated that money toward research toward other things.
1:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, like cancer. Yeah, although social psychology couldn't do anything
1:45
Speaker 1: about cancer.
1:46
Speaker 2: No, And it's you know, it's not like they're like, oh, well,
1:48
Speaker 2: we'll just it's all taken from one big pool, so
1:51
Speaker 2: we'll just allocate some of this breakup money toward cancer research.
1:57
Speaker 1: Sure, it's not. It works, well, you could allocate the money,
2:00
Speaker 1: but the mental energy, I guess, is what I'm talking about.
2:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that was just it seemed like study after study.
2:07
Speaker 2: And also we should point out too that I think
2:12
Speaker 2: there was one case in here of one study where
2:14
Speaker 2: they looked at homosexual couples, But most of this study
2:19
Speaker 2: is like cisgendered straight couples. Yeah, through that lens only,
2:25
Speaker 2: they're not doing a ton of research outside that.
2:27
Speaker 1: I found I found one that, uh that that tracks
2:33
Speaker 1: it correlates the likelihood of breaking up to time, and
2:37
Speaker 1: they had it broken out by same sex and straight,
2:42
Speaker 1: married and unmarried. Those are like the four categories. So
2:46
Speaker 1: some people are doing it, sure, but yeah, for the
2:48
Speaker 1: most part now. And I think one of the reasons
2:51
Speaker 1: why Chuck is a lot of this is from the
2:53
Speaker 1: mid two thousand's, early twenty tens. Yeah, and that was,
2:58
Speaker 1: you know, was about the last like the tail end
3:03
Speaker 1: of that. Now I think it's starting to change, fortunately, right,
3:08
Speaker 1: because people of all genders and sexual orientation break up
3:13
Speaker 1: and get dumped, and we're here to help all of you.
3:16
Speaker 1: So buckle in, grab a hanky, and let's get through this.
3:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, let's we should go ahead and start
3:23
Speaker 2: out by saying, I guess that in theory, more people
3:26
Speaker 2: are breaking up now because people are generally waiting longer
3:29
Speaker 2: to get married. So if you could extrapolate that if
3:32
Speaker 2: you're not married for ten more years than let's say
3:36
Speaker 2: our parents were, right, then maybe you've gone through a
3:39
Speaker 2: couple more breakups along the way.
3:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. We should give a shout out to Kristen Conger
3:43
Speaker 1: of Unladylike Media Yeah Kongs, who wrote this article our
3:47
Speaker 1: old pal, and she points out that that typically means
3:51
Speaker 1: that you are going to find somebody who you work
3:54
Speaker 1: with rather than rushing into it. But it also, as
3:57
Speaker 1: she puts it, like leaves the window open longer for
4:00
Speaker 1: heartbreak to be dumped. Yeah, one thing I saw, Chuck.
4:04
Speaker 1: This is mind boggling to me. Eighty five percent of people,
4:08
Speaker 1: according to this one study, will be dumped in their lifetime,
4:14
Speaker 1: will experience being a breakup in their lifetime. That means
4:18
Speaker 1: fifteen percent of humanity won't. That is those are some
4:22
Speaker 1: interesting people.
4:23
Speaker 2: Eight fifteen percent have not had a breakup or been
4:26
Speaker 2: broken up with.
4:27
Speaker 1: Will not in their lifetime. They're just going to either
4:31
Speaker 1: never have a relationship or the first time they're going
4:35
Speaker 1: to hit it out of the park.
4:36
Speaker 2: But that doesn't mean like or subtle I've never been dumped.
4:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like they'll never have gone through a breakup.
4:43
Speaker 2: But I've been through breakups. I've been the dumper.
4:46
Speaker 1: Right, I know what you're saying. No, I believe that
4:48
Speaker 1: they will not have experienced a breakup in their lifetime.
4:52
Speaker 1: Either way, Well that's great.
4:53
Speaker 2: That means they sure, yeah, they met the person that
4:55
Speaker 2: they love when they're young, probably again.
4:58
Speaker 1: Or it means that they decided to of their life
5:00
Speaker 1: alone just fine, right, or or both they like I said,
5:06
Speaker 1: they decided like, yeah, I'm just gonna stick with this person. Yeah,
5:10
Speaker 1: I don't want to I want to be what I
5:12
Speaker 1: don't want to ruin my record, my spotless record.
5:15
Speaker 2: I think it's very interesting here that supposedly, and this
5:20
Speaker 2: is very hinky how they found this out about the
5:25
Speaker 2: spikes and breakups from Like, that's.
5:27
Speaker 1: A Facebook data poll, so media doesn't count, social psychology
5:31
Speaker 1: doesn't count.
5:32
Speaker 2: I agree, But it doesn't make a little bit of sense.
5:34
Speaker 2: And I could see this being true that generally dumping
5:38
Speaker 2: someone or getting broken up with can happen on any
5:42
Speaker 2: day of the year, but there are spikes in early
5:45
Speaker 2: December and early March, yeah, because of Christmas holidays and
5:49
Speaker 2: spring break.
5:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, And technically you could see that being true. There
5:52
Speaker 1: has I'm sure it's true at least on Facebook. And yeah,
5:55
Speaker 1: this is a pretty big data pull. But it's like,
5:58
Speaker 1: that's so lazy.
5:59
Speaker 2: It's lazy. But I see it because it's it makes
6:01
Speaker 2: a little bit of sense that you would not want
6:03
Speaker 2: to go through the holidays with someone that And you
6:08
Speaker 2: said a thing too, And this is important to point out,
6:10
Speaker 2: like when the breakup happens, when that talk or these
6:14
Speaker 2: days text message or phone call happens, it's not okay,
6:18
Speaker 2: that is the end of something for maybe both of you,
6:24
Speaker 2: but definitely one of you.
6:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes most of the time.
6:27
Speaker 2: That that actual act of saying we're breaking up, that's
6:30
Speaker 2: at the end of many, many weeks or even months
6:33
Speaker 2: or even years of contemplation about whether or not you
6:37
Speaker 2: want to still be with this person.
6:38
Speaker 1: Right, And that's why being broken up with is almost
6:44
Speaker 1: across the board, way harder sure than breaking up because
6:48
Speaker 1: by the time, like you said, by the time the
6:50
Speaker 1: person who initiates the breakup initiates the breakup is this
6:54
Speaker 1: is at the end of a long road of decision making,
6:57
Speaker 1: Whereas the other person might have been blissfully unaware or
7:00
Speaker 1: at least wilfully ignorant or not willing to address the issues,
7:05
Speaker 1: and so they are one way or another largely caught
7:08
Speaker 1: off guard by being broken up with. So the person
7:12
Speaker 1: who does the breaking up has already gone through all
7:14
Speaker 1: these stages of grief of separation, Whereas now it's this person,
7:18
Speaker 1: the person who's just been dumped, it's their time to
7:21
Speaker 1: go through it.
7:22
Speaker 2: Right. So, if you're doing the dumping, like the hour
7:26
Speaker 2: after you have that conversation, you're like, what a relief,
7:29
Speaker 2: I'm I'm starting over. Let's go get some gin, Whereas
7:32
Speaker 2: the dumpy is like, let's go get some gin. That begins,
7:36
Speaker 2: that begins their process. Although the only thing I'll take
7:39
Speaker 2: issue with that whole line of thought though, is that
7:41
Speaker 2: a lot of people, even that might get dumped, aren't
7:45
Speaker 2: like what like They may have known and just didn't
7:49
Speaker 2: want to admit it or weren't brave enough or strong
7:51
Speaker 2: enough to do it themselves.
7:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I agree with you on that. I think
7:56
Speaker 1: that there's still a thread that they had not been
8:01
Speaker 1: preparing themselves just by being in SAE denial and willing
8:05
Speaker 1: to address it face it. Now they have no choice
8:09
Speaker 1: but to face reality, whereas the person who did the
8:12
Speaker 1: breakup was like facing reality and coming to terms with
8:15
Speaker 1: it quietly, sure, and then now it's your.
8:18
Speaker 2: Turn, right, Which brings me back to my original point,
8:21
Speaker 2: which is Christmas and spring break make a little bit
8:24
Speaker 2: of sense because the person who was desperate to get
8:28
Speaker 2: out of a relationship and break up with somebody, they're
8:30
Speaker 2: staring at those Christmas holidays and that first week of
8:33
Speaker 2: December rolls around, They're like, I gotta do this now
8:36
Speaker 2: because I don't want to travel a lot of time
8:39
Speaker 2: with this person and go through the whole gift thing, right,
8:41
Speaker 2: and the holidays are just it's tough to be in
8:43
Speaker 2: a relationship that's a lie.
8:45
Speaker 1: Well, it's sure because the holidays, I mean, the holidays
8:48
Speaker 1: are so about like connecting and feeling and warmth and
8:52
Speaker 1: all that, and if you're faking it or have to
8:54
Speaker 1: fake it, you know, some people are like, I'm not
8:57
Speaker 1: going through that, no good. I also saw an explanation
9:00
Speaker 1: in Harper's Bizarre of All Places that some people may
9:03
Speaker 1: do that because of the pressure of coming up with
9:06
Speaker 1: a really good gift, sure that the relationship is not
9:09
Speaker 1: worth the pressure of coming up with a good gift
9:12
Speaker 1: outweighs the value of the relationship to those people. Or
9:16
Speaker 1: there are some people who don't want to put their
9:19
Speaker 1: significant other through that, so they just break up proactively, right,
9:23
Speaker 1: which also means that they didn't value the relationship that
9:26
Speaker 1: much either, But at least in their mind, they're not
9:28
Speaker 1: doing it for themselves. They're doing it for the other
9:31
Speaker 1: person because they don't want to put the other person
9:33
Speaker 1: through that pressure of having to get the perfect gift. Yeah.
9:36
Speaker 2: I've never had that thing either, where you start dating
9:38
Speaker 2: someone and it's like a couple of weeks for their
9:41
Speaker 2: birthday or Christmas, and you're and then that pressure of like,
9:45
Speaker 2: oh man, how do I play this one?
9:48
Speaker 1: You know, a couple after a couple of weeks, Yeah,
9:50
Speaker 1: oh yeah.
9:51
Speaker 2: This person? But how deep do I go on this
9:54
Speaker 2: gift here?
9:55
Speaker 1: I don't really know you, So I got you a
9:58
Speaker 1: basket of socks. Everyone loves socks.
10:01
Speaker 2: So here's an Amazon gift card for thirty eight fifty.
10:07
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, after a couple of weeks, it's a little
10:09
Speaker 1: it's a little close. Yeah, I come up with a
10:12
Speaker 1: perfect gift, or even be expected to.
10:14
Speaker 2: And I did mention breaking up by text or whatever,
10:18
Speaker 2: like you would suspect if you were born before nineteen
10:21
Speaker 2: seventy five, like myself, you break up in person supposedly
10:27
Speaker 2: about seventy four percent of the time. Not bad post
10:30
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four. If you were born less than fifty
10:33
Speaker 2: percent of the time, you're going to do that in person.
10:36
Speaker 2: And they say generation, Why whatever that is?
10:39
Speaker 1: I think it's millennials, is it? I'm pretty sure.
10:42
Speaker 2: When did they name them?
10:43
Speaker 1: Like?
10:43
Speaker 2: Do they know what?
10:44
Speaker 1: Like?
10:44
Speaker 2: Does my daughter have a generation already? I don't know,
10:46
Speaker 2: like a name.
10:47
Speaker 1: I'm sure somebody out there is name your daughter's generation.
10:50
Speaker 2: I annoying, don't box her in right?
10:54
Speaker 1: Well, you got a pigeonhole folks, let her grow.
10:56
Speaker 2: Up, be your own person. But if you are jen y,
10:59
Speaker 2: you're or likely thirty percent to do it over the phone.
11:03
Speaker 1: Uh.
11:03
Speaker 2: And of course this says a searing instant message or
11:08
Speaker 2: an email. I think these days you would call that
11:10
Speaker 2: a text.
11:10
Speaker 1: And email is the lowest percent wise and compassion wise
11:17
Speaker 1: four percent of people. That's the worst break up by email.
11:21
Speaker 2: What was this?
11:21
Speaker 1: Pretty bad? Email? Is as bad as it gets?
11:24
Speaker 2: Was it sex in the city where it was a
11:25
Speaker 2: sticky note?
11:26
Speaker 1: No? I don't remember. I feel like the movie or
11:28
Speaker 1: the show. I didn't see the movie Sticky Note Break,
11:31
Speaker 1: I think.
11:31
Speaker 2: So should we take a break?
11:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take a break? Man? All right, this is
11:37
Speaker 1: going really really well so far. All right, Chuck. So
12:07
Speaker 1: we've talked about when people break up, how they break up,
12:13
Speaker 1: why do they break up?
12:15
Speaker 2: Well, actually, there's one more, okay, I think pretty important
12:19
Speaker 2: thing about the how, which is men and women. Women
12:24
Speaker 2: tend to present and this sort of makes sense to
12:28
Speaker 2: if you want to be stereotypically, you know, stereotypical about it.
12:33
Speaker 2: Women tend to present a list of grievances.
12:36
Speaker 1: Here's all the things wrong with you both.
12:38
Speaker 2: Pretty much, whereas men it's a little more supposedly a
12:43
Speaker 2: little more nebulous.
12:44
Speaker 1: Where'd the magic go?
12:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go.
12:46
Speaker 1: That's apparently the difference is as far as like rationale
12:50
Speaker 1: for breaking up.
12:51
Speaker 2: And these are so macro level and broad and how
12:54
Speaker 2: we talk about it. It's a little embarrassing to even do.
12:58
Speaker 1: To talk about this stuff. I know I wouldn't do this.
13:01
Speaker 1: Women do this right. No, it's absolutely true. That's but
13:05
Speaker 1: I feel like when you talk about this, people can
13:07
Speaker 1: find themselves in the contours of of all if you
13:11
Speaker 1: put all this stuff together, if you just took one
13:13
Speaker 1: study and said that this is definitive, people should should
13:16
Speaker 1: punch you in the kidney, agreed, but not really don't
13:19
Speaker 1: punch anybody. You know, everyone. Over the last almost eleven
13:24
Speaker 1: years of stuff, you should know, I've said a lot
13:26
Speaker 1: of things that make it sound like I'm inciting people
13:29
Speaker 1: to violence.
13:29
Speaker 2: Friendly violence.
13:30
Speaker 1: I was joking every single time why someone said something. No,
13:35
Speaker 1: I just I just want to make sure that everyone
13:38
Speaker 1: knows that I was never ever actually serious in saying
13:42
Speaker 1: hit somebody in the head with a tag camera or
13:45
Speaker 1: punch someone in the kidney. Actually, I'm kidding all the time.
13:50
Speaker 2: Except for when you recommend that you pants somebody, and.
13:53
Speaker 1: I was kidding even then that's psychological abuse.
13:57
Speaker 2: It is.
13:58
Speaker 1: It's physical, but it's more psychological than anything.
14:01
Speaker 2: You ever been pants in front of people?
14:03
Speaker 1: Yes? Really, yes, And I can tell you it's psychological.
14:06
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever been pantsed. Boy, I can't
14:10
Speaker 2: imagine anything more horrifying than being pantsed. What's underwear on?
14:16
Speaker 1: What? I can confirm that because I can't remember being pantsed.
14:21
Speaker 1: I just remember that I have been pants So I
14:22
Speaker 1: think I just immediately blocked out everything.
14:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, so no story, no story there. Okay, So if
14:33
Speaker 2: you get broken up with, you will feel and we're
14:37
Speaker 2: going to talk about the science of a lot of
14:39
Speaker 2: this because it's very similar to overcoming addictions sometimes but
14:43
Speaker 2: of course depression and anxiety, sometimes suicidal.
14:48
Speaker 1: Thoughts, sometimes homicide. Oh sure, that's a that's an outcome,
14:52
Speaker 1: a worst case outcome. That and suicide of breakups, but
14:57
Speaker 1: they are directly related to break That's how bad breakups
15:01
Speaker 1: can be.
15:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, And apparently, you know when people do write in
15:06
Speaker 2: about getting dumped and stuff, I always say, you know,
15:09
Speaker 2: it's the most trite thing in the world. But like
15:11
Speaker 2: time is the only thing that really helps. Yeah, like
15:14
Speaker 2: ice cream and stuff like that is good, but like
15:17
Speaker 2: it really does decrease over time. However, in studies, eight
15:23
Speaker 2: weeks after being dumped in this study, forty percent of
15:27
Speaker 2: people still had signs of clinical depression, and twelve percent
15:31
Speaker 2: appeared moderately or severely depressed. So it depends on the
15:34
Speaker 2: relationship along you're in it, how much it meant to you,
15:37
Speaker 2: what kind of person you are. But it can stick
15:40
Speaker 2: around for a bit.
15:41
Speaker 1: It can. So the thing is, though, there are things
15:44
Speaker 1: you can do to help accelerate the healing process, and
15:48
Speaker 1: we'll talk about those at the end. How about that. Okay,
15:50
Speaker 1: we'll make y'all wait, all right, So where are we at, Chuck?
15:54
Speaker 1: Are we at the well?
15:56
Speaker 2: The attachment styles I think is interesting because we did
16:00
Speaker 2: talk about like gay, straight, cisgendered, you know, on the
16:05
Speaker 2: gender spectrum. Maybe none of that matters. Maybe what matters
16:10
Speaker 2: is what they call your attachment styles.
16:13
Speaker 1: That's what this says pretty plainly. Tho. Yeah, that's what
16:16
Speaker 1: it comes down.
16:16
Speaker 2: To, how you attach yourselves to other people.
16:18
Speaker 1: You can be a needy, clingy dude. You can be
16:21
Speaker 1: a avoidant woman, yeah, or you can be either one
16:25
Speaker 1: of those things. Anywhere on the gender spectrum. That's the thing,
16:28
Speaker 1: like the idea that women are clinging and men are
16:31
Speaker 1: distant is fabled. Yeah, it's at least ham fisted.
16:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. It's sort of that thing in
16:40
Speaker 2: social science that bothers me, which is like, you're either
16:43
Speaker 2: this or this, right, like one thing or the other.
16:45
Speaker 1: And really all you are is a white college student.
16:47
Speaker 1: That's what they really mean.
16:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, who had a little time on their hands.
16:51
Speaker 1: Right, you needed extra credit.
16:53
Speaker 2: But there are two supposedly again two things attachment styles,
16:57
Speaker 2: anxious attachment and avoidant well attachment.
17:01
Speaker 1: Conger points out, like, that's two ends of a spectrum.
17:03
Speaker 1: Oh okay, and you can fall somewhere on there. There's
17:06
Speaker 1: actually a it's pretty straightforward. It's the OIS, I believe
17:14
Speaker 1: or OSI. It's a scale where you pick how your
17:20
Speaker 1: relationship is best described by a series of ven diagrams,
17:24
Speaker 1: and one circles you, and one circle is your significant other,
17:28
Speaker 1: and they're just increasingly together, from just barely touching to
17:33
Speaker 1: almost completely merged into one single circle, and you just
17:37
Speaker 1: circle the one that best describes your sense of what
17:40
Speaker 1: your relationships like, and that supposedly gets your spectrum replacement
17:45
Speaker 1: on the spectrum of attachment across. Oh interesting, So it's
17:49
Speaker 1: real subjective and self reported, so that is to say,
17:51
Speaker 1: not scientific, right.
17:53
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Supposedly two thirds of women initiate divorces, and in
18:01
Speaker 2: this article it says that might give them a statistical
18:03
Speaker 2: edge over getting over a relationship.
18:05
Speaker 1: Because they initiated the breakup, so they've been in the
18:08
Speaker 1: process already. Maybe that's what I think she meant.
18:12
Speaker 2: I think so, I'm just not so sure that just
18:14
Speaker 2: because a woman initiates a divorce, it may have been
18:19
Speaker 2: after years of systematic abuse, you know, which may not
18:24
Speaker 2: mean like she's so ready to get over this quicker
18:27
Speaker 2: than he might be.
18:28
Speaker 1: Right, you know, Yeah, No, I mean you can't just
18:31
Speaker 1: say it like if X, then Y. With this stuff,
18:35
Speaker 1: it's relationship, sir as messy as as humans get. It's
18:40
Speaker 1: a relationship. Yeah, that's all you need to say.
18:45
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about the brain a little bit, because
18:47
Speaker 2: this is where it does get a little more interesting,
18:49
Speaker 2: I think, slightly god slightly more scientific.
18:52
Speaker 1: Okay.
18:55
Speaker 2: There was a study in twenty eleven by neurologist at
18:58
Speaker 2: the Einstein College of Medicine which sounded totally fake, totally,
19:01
Speaker 2: but it's not.
19:02
Speaker 1: I have sounds made up written down.
19:04
Speaker 2: It's in the bronx.
19:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's also reputable. There were also anthropologists from Rutgers
19:09
Speaker 1: in Sunni to legitimize things.
19:11
Speaker 2: Oh in this study, if Rutgers is legitimizing things, sure,
19:15
Speaker 2: we're in trouble.
19:16
Speaker 1: Oh really, is that? Is that? Really? I thought Rutgers
19:20
Speaker 1: was all right? Or am I confusing of its toughs?
19:23
Speaker 2: Uh? You're probably thinking Princeton, okay, both New Jersey schools.
19:27
Speaker 1: I thought Rutgers was the public ivy. Okay, sorry, Rutgers.
19:33
Speaker 1: I tried the check back.
19:35
Speaker 2: Then they're gonna be so mad at me. I've hung
19:38
Speaker 2: out at Rutgers.
19:38
Speaker 1: I've been there people, so you know what you're talking about.
19:40
Speaker 1: I know exactly what I'm Is it like the Detroit
19:43
Speaker 1: of New Jersey colleges or something.
19:46
Speaker 2: That's not untrue?
19:47
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, you don't disagree, boy, we're gonna.
19:51
Speaker 2: Get killed, that's okay. So this study from Einstein College
19:55
Speaker 2: of Medicine found that just looking at a photograph of
20:00
Speaker 2: an ex partner caused the second somo somatosensory cortex and
20:07
Speaker 2: the dorsal posterior insula. Nice geez, and these areas process
20:13
Speaker 2: physical discomfort. They start lighting up. The same thing as
20:16
Speaker 2: happens is when you get physically injured basically.
20:19
Speaker 1: Right like you are in actual, legitimate pain as far
20:23
Speaker 1: as your brain is concerned, in the midst of a breakup,
20:26
Speaker 1: at least when you're stuck in an MRI machine and
20:29
Speaker 1: showing a picture of your recent X.
20:30
Speaker 2: Which is a big deal now with social media, because
20:34
Speaker 2: every modern article I read about breakups and getting over
20:38
Speaker 2: them talked about what a deletrious effect social media will
20:43
Speaker 2: have on your recovery process.
20:45
Speaker 1: Are you taunting me?
20:47
Speaker 2: Because the stuff's everywhere now? It used to be easy.
20:50
Speaker 2: You could just throw everything in a shoe box and
20:54
Speaker 2: set it on fire and send it down a river
20:58
Speaker 2: and a little boat made of rage. Sure, but you
21:01
Speaker 2: can't do that anymore because they're everywhere.
21:03
Speaker 1: No, but that's that's tip number one from psychologist Guy Wench,
21:07
Speaker 1: author of How to Fix a Broken Heart. Stay the
21:11
Speaker 1: h off of social media. Do not stalk your ex
21:15
Speaker 1: on social do not check in, like just separate.
21:19
Speaker 2: I imagine that would be really hard because in the
21:21
Speaker 2: old days it was just left to your imagination to
21:25
Speaker 2: think about how much fun they were having m with
21:29
Speaker 2: You know, now you can see pictures of the nine
21:31
Speaker 2: new boyfriends that she has, right, but yeah, you're right now,
21:36
Speaker 2: or you know, maybe it helps.
21:38
Speaker 1: I'm people, I don't know. I think it's imperative that
21:41
Speaker 1: you not do that to help to help, Like, it's
21:45
Speaker 1: not like watching them on social media will prevent you
21:48
Speaker 1: from ever getting over it. I think no matter what
21:51
Speaker 1: you do, you're going to eventually get past this. Sure,
21:55
Speaker 1: but all you're doing is prolonging the process, and that
21:58
Speaker 1: like unnecessarily.
22:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then also when you were on the fMRI
22:04
Speaker 2: machine and they did brain scans from people who had
22:07
Speaker 2: been broken up with recently, they found that very much
22:10
Speaker 2: similar to people overcoming like an addiction to cocaine, and
22:14
Speaker 2: that that same circuitry is of overcoming addiction is just
22:18
Speaker 2: lighting up. It's that potent.
22:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. So so far with this MRI study from Albert
22:23
Speaker 1: Einstein came up with is that you were in physical
22:26
Speaker 1: pain from the breakup. Huh, And you're the same centers
22:30
Speaker 1: that are activated by addiction. Cravings withdrawals are activated by
22:36
Speaker 1: the breakup as well. That's astounding.
22:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this weird mental cycle happens basically when you
22:41
Speaker 2: do look at like a photograph of a what they
22:44
Speaker 2: say a former lover.
22:46
Speaker 1: You're right, like the burger king laying rug pair skin rug.
22:51
Speaker 2: But you will, you'll see the photo. And the weird
22:54
Speaker 2: thing is you'll immediately get a reward. You will get
22:57
Speaker 2: a dopamine hit, like a pleasurable feeling by seeing this person.
23:01
Speaker 1: And then you realize, oh wait, well then you.
23:04
Speaker 2: Get sad all right immediately afterward, and then that sagnus sagnus,
23:10
Speaker 2: Where did that come from?
23:11
Speaker 1: It is a little saggy feeling.
23:13
Speaker 2: That triggers the brain's ventral tegmental area and the nucleus
23:19
Speaker 2: acumen bins acumen bins.
23:22
Speaker 1: I think, so, I know we've run into that before.
23:25
Speaker 1: We just talk about the brain a lot more human beins.
23:28
Speaker 2: I think we figured out the brain though, right, so
23:30
Speaker 2: we stopped.
23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were like done.
23:33
Speaker 2: But these two things working together, regardless of how I
23:36
Speaker 2: mispronounced them, they trigger the urge to see that person.
23:40
Speaker 2: So you get sad, and then your brain lights up
23:43
Speaker 2: in two areas and then you go, hey, I remember
23:46
Speaker 2: that dopamine hit you get from looking this picture. Why
23:49
Speaker 2: don't you just give them a call and see what's
23:51
Speaker 2: going on?
23:52
Speaker 1: Right? You want the real stuff? Go go get home.
23:55
Speaker 1: They also those two areas apparently also are analytical as
23:59
Speaker 1: well well. So they're responsible for rehashing the relationship, but
24:06
Speaker 1: apparently they're not very realistic because most people, when rehashing
24:11
Speaker 1: the relationship, highlight the good parts and forget about all
24:14
Speaker 1: the bad parts.
24:15
Speaker 2: I kind of have tended to do that, I think
24:17
Speaker 2: everybody does.
24:18
Speaker 1: I don't understand why. I don't know.
24:21
Speaker 2: I don't agree with that. Like Emily, and we of
24:26
Speaker 2: course been married so long the subject never comes up anymore.
24:30
Speaker 2: But I was always like, oh, with the old girlfriend,
24:33
Speaker 2: what was so bad there? And then if I really
24:36
Speaker 2: thought about it, I would remember where She's always like,
24:38
Speaker 2: oh that was awful?
24:39
Speaker 1: Oh really? Yeah, gotcha? Well she's smart.
24:42
Speaker 2: Yeah maybe so and I'm not dumb dumb so but okay.
24:45
Speaker 1: So even and you're not dumb dumb, even if like
24:51
Speaker 1: you represent a third of people or a half of
24:53
Speaker 1: people who do when rehashing, only think about the good
24:57
Speaker 1: stuff and forget about all the negative stuff, like what
25:00
Speaker 1: is that? Why does that even happen? It's bizarre if
25:03
Speaker 1: you think about.
25:04
Speaker 2: The personality thing. What if I tend to be optimistic? Maybe?
25:08
Speaker 1: Or yeah, yeah, I guess that's a pretty good explanation
25:11
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth. What I was going to
25:13
Speaker 1: say is if you look at relationships or romantic love
25:17
Speaker 1: sure as an evolutionary drive to pair and mate sure
25:24
Speaker 1: successfully over and over again, and to stay together, that
25:27
Speaker 1: would bring you back to this person that you've already
25:30
Speaker 1: connected with, rather than making you go look for another mate.
25:33
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
25:33
Speaker 1: So maybe it's kind of like a backstop or fail
25:36
Speaker 1: safe for breakups evolutionarily speaking.
25:40
Speaker 2: Right, Like I was so close to having nine babies,
25:44
Speaker 2: Like I really want to start all over again.
25:46
Speaker 1: Right right, Which is funny because that means that Emily's
25:48
Speaker 1: more evolved than you in that sense.
25:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, in every sense, that's awesome. But the end of
25:55
Speaker 2: that mental cycle, basically, though, is those areas light up
25:58
Speaker 2: that say go back and see that person. Then you
26:01
Speaker 2: are immediately unsatisfied and about the fact that that's not happening.
26:05
Speaker 2: That's when your pre frontal cortex trips into gear and
26:09
Speaker 2: that's when you get angry. And it's just that mental
26:12
Speaker 2: cycle that starts seeing that photo on a social media
26:15
Speaker 2: platform and ending up upset ye in the end.
26:20
Speaker 1: But the same study led by Helen Fisher, found that
26:25
Speaker 1: after over time, the same process is greatly degraded. Sure,
26:29
Speaker 1: I think they did a follow up in well months,
26:34
Speaker 1: Conger says, found that the whole process and all of
26:38
Speaker 1: the neurochemicals and the brain regions are much less active,
26:42
Speaker 1: which again, just time, give it.
26:45
Speaker 2: Time, right. But if you don't give it time and
26:47
Speaker 2: you do the thing where you do get back together,
26:50
Speaker 2: that can be great, you know, it's sometimes you can
26:53
Speaker 2: work it out and people can change.
26:56
Speaker 1: But there's a big caveat there.
26:58
Speaker 2: Well, right, go ahead, no no, no, no, you say yours okay,
27:02
Speaker 2: because I think I'm talking about something else.
27:04
Speaker 1: So what I saw was that if you get back together,
27:09
Speaker 1: rather than saying like this is a fresh start, we're
27:12
Speaker 1: going to try this over again, we're going to really
27:15
Speaker 1: make a go of it. If you do that, all
27:17
Speaker 1: you're going to do is just walk right back into
27:19
Speaker 1: the same pitfalls and pratfalls, because the separation probably did
27:23
Speaker 1: nothing or virtually nothing to your individual personalities, which are
27:28
Speaker 1: the source of all of your conflicts. So it's not
27:31
Speaker 1: like you just magically worked your conflicts out and you're
27:33
Speaker 1: getting back together and everything's fine. That's just a charade.
27:37
Speaker 1: But if you get back together and say I decided
27:40
Speaker 1: I love you the way you are and I don't
27:42
Speaker 1: want to be away from you, and I just accept
27:46
Speaker 1: you for you, and I accept our relationship with all
27:49
Speaker 1: of its problems. You're probably going to have a successful
27:52
Speaker 1: reunion if you go into it like all of our
27:55
Speaker 1: problems are solved because we broke up. You're just going
27:57
Speaker 1: to do the same thing again down the line. Apparently
28:00
Speaker 1: a fairly frequent thing that something like sixty percent or
28:04
Speaker 1: some crazy percentage of younger the younger generation generation. Why,
28:10
Speaker 1: I guess the process of breaking up the majority of
28:15
Speaker 1: them that breakup involves getting back together multiple times, not
28:19
Speaker 1: just once. Yeah, so you're getting back together and just
28:22
Speaker 1: going through the same pattern. I think there's a field
28:25
Speaker 1: of thought in psychology called scripts. These are scripts that
28:28
Speaker 1: we're playing out one another's scripts, and if you don't
28:31
Speaker 1: alter the script, you're going to go through the same
28:33
Speaker 1: script over and over again. You're working out the same
28:37
Speaker 1: things from your past or from your childhood against one another,
28:40
Speaker 1: and you're not doing it the right way. So all
28:42
Speaker 1: you're doing is creating conflict. And that doesn't just magically
28:45
Speaker 1: go away because you spend a couple of months apart.
28:48
Speaker 1: You have to just say i'd love you for who
28:50
Speaker 1: you are, and we're going to just keep going.
28:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what I was going to say was,
28:55
Speaker 2: don't they think though that that also depends on just
28:57
Speaker 2: what kind of person you are in terms of thinking,
29:01
Speaker 2: either people can really make substantial change in their lives
29:04
Speaker 2: or they can't.
29:05
Speaker 1: That's how how you deal with a breakup, which we'll
29:08
Speaker 1: talk about in a minute.
29:09
Speaker 2: That sounds like a good place for a break I.
29:11
Speaker 1: Think so too, all right.
29:40
Speaker 2: Before we get to that what we were just talking
29:43
Speaker 2: about before the split. This is one piece of data
29:47
Speaker 2: from the same sex couple community. Supposedly from studies, they
29:52
Speaker 2: do think that same sex couples are better at staying friends.
29:55
Speaker 1: Yeah.
29:56
Speaker 2: I saw that after a breakup, which.
30:00
Speaker 1: Particularly lesbian couples. Yeah, and then gay men and then
30:07
Speaker 1: straight couples are.
30:08
Speaker 2: Like, forget about it so long. Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
30:13
Speaker 2: Can you really be friends after? And it all depends
30:16
Speaker 2: on how intense and how long and how kind of
30:19
Speaker 2: a person you are. But yeah, it's interesting when I
30:23
Speaker 2: meet people that legitimately are friends with people that they
30:27
Speaker 2: seriously dated years later.
30:28
Speaker 1: It's pretty rare, I think. Actually I think it's too.
30:31
Speaker 1: I think it seems less rare because you see it
30:33
Speaker 1: on like TV shows, A lot, you know, and it's
30:38
Speaker 1: also almost aspirational, like, oh, look at how like how
30:42
Speaker 1: laid back and like with these people are that they
30:44
Speaker 1: can be friends after this, you know. I think it's
30:47
Speaker 1: pretty rare, actually, I think it's an idealized form, right,
30:51
Speaker 1: because people like to you like to think that like
30:53
Speaker 1: you're on good terms with everybody in your life.
30:55
Speaker 2: I think that's usually the person breaking up though. There
30:58
Speaker 2: it's like I'd like to still be friends, right sure,
31:00
Speaker 2: whereas the person getting broken up with this, like or
31:03
Speaker 2: you could get hit by car, right, yeah, and that
31:04
Speaker 2: would solve the problem.
31:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then sticking with the whole same sex straight thing,
31:10
Speaker 1: are we saying straight still?
31:13
Speaker 2: I don't know. That doesn't feel right, does it.
31:16
Speaker 1: It doesn't, So let's just say same sex and hetero. Yeah, hetero.
31:22
Speaker 2: There's a clinical name for it.
31:24
Speaker 1: Boy. So the time and marriage seemed to be the
31:31
Speaker 1: two greatest indicators, at least as far as this one
31:33
Speaker 1: study I saw went for the likelihood of staying together
31:38
Speaker 1: over long periods of time. Right, all relationships, same sex
31:42
Speaker 1: and hetero man woman, all of them are in at
31:48
Speaker 1: the greatest risk of breakup within the first year or two.
31:51
Speaker 1: And then it starts to drop precipitously. But I think
31:54
Speaker 1: married hetero couples have a fairly low rate of a
32:02
Speaker 1: low chance of breaking up over time. It's pretty much
32:04
Speaker 1: flat the whole time, say, and then with same sex couples,
32:10
Speaker 1: the same thing happens. The chance of breakup is pretty
32:13
Speaker 1: high at the beginning, and then it starts to come down,
32:15
Speaker 1: and then it's basically tracks with hetero couples. For marriage,
32:19
Speaker 1: So marriage is kind of the factor. Time is the
32:22
Speaker 1: second factor, but then time stops being a factor after
32:26
Speaker 1: like thirty forty years. For unmarried couples, both hetero and
32:30
Speaker 1: same sex, they start to break up after year like
32:33
Speaker 1: thirty or forty, like, the chance of a breakup increases. Yeah,
32:36
Speaker 1: but once you get married, once you get a ring
32:38
Speaker 1: on it, over time, over like you know, decades is
32:42
Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Your chance is almost nil of
32:45
Speaker 1: breaking up, right, like less than I think of percent.
32:49
Speaker 1: But that doesn't sound right because to like half of
32:52
Speaker 1: all marriages into divorce. Yeah, this thing was way off,
32:57
Speaker 1: But maybe that's when taking into account, maybe that's front
33:00
Speaker 1: loaded by all the divorces that happened in the first
33:02
Speaker 1: five years or anything like that.
33:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, that would make a little bit more sense.
33:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does.
33:06
Speaker 2: They do find that your chances of getting over a
33:09
Speaker 2: breakup or adjusting to that new post breakup life really
33:14
Speaker 2: centers around regaining your sense of self. That when you
33:20
Speaker 2: couple up with someone. It's not saying you can't have
33:24
Speaker 2: a sense of self anymore, because it's very healthy too. Sure,
33:26
Speaker 2: but there's an inevitable absorption and morphing that happens, and
33:33
Speaker 2: a little bit of your sense of self goes away
33:36
Speaker 2: when you couple.
33:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, all the same friends, the same phone number, yeah,
33:40
Speaker 1: and the same madre yes.
33:42
Speaker 2: Yeah. Boy. What about couples that share the email address?
33:46
Speaker 1: Yeah? You mean I have one? Really?
33:48
Speaker 2: Sure, never had one, But you have your own too, well.
33:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just have our own, but we have our
33:52
Speaker 1: shared one too.
33:53
Speaker 2: I think I'm talking about the people that just have
33:55
Speaker 2: the shared address. Sure, I've always found that interesting. Yeah,
33:57
Speaker 2: I'm judging. I don't know anybody who just as a
34:00
Speaker 2: shared address. I don't get why people would have the
34:02
Speaker 2: same one. I guess I just always Emily sells a
34:04
Speaker 2: MindSpring address.
34:06
Speaker 1: Oh wow, is it Emily atmindspring dot com.
34:09
Speaker 2: No, And that is the truth, because I'm not saying
34:12
Speaker 2: that just to keep people from emailing her. But she's
34:15
Speaker 2: she had it for so long and I make fun
34:17
Speaker 2: of her all the time, sure because she still pays
34:20
Speaker 2: like twenty dollars a year for this what And she
34:23
Speaker 2: was like, I've had it for so long that I
34:25
Speaker 2: just can't give it up.
34:26
Speaker 1: Well that's why people stay on Facebook.
34:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I'm not changing my email address.
34:30
Speaker 1: There's like so many of your memories there.
34:32
Speaker 2: It's like, well even that just her contact list and
34:34
Speaker 2: every email, Like, I don't know, I just think it's funny.
34:37
Speaker 2: I was like, where's that money going?
34:39
Speaker 1: Right? Who owns MindSpring? The air of the mind Spring fortune?
34:45
Speaker 1: He can count on twenty bucks a month.
34:47
Speaker 2: Back of cigarettes every month because of Emily yep oh
34:51
Speaker 2: Man and then for recovery the whole stress related growth
34:58
Speaker 2: thing that can happen with which is and I think
35:02
Speaker 2: women tend to be more apt to do this than men.
35:05
Speaker 2: But like, all right, you know what, I'm free now.
35:08
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do all those things that I lost while
35:11
Speaker 2: I was with him. I didn't have time for my
35:14
Speaker 2: friends anymore. I lost connections with them.
35:16
Speaker 1: I didn't do I didn't fly model airplanes or RCA
35:19
Speaker 1: airplanes anymore.
35:19
Speaker 2: I'm gonna drop some weight. I'm gonna start eating healthier.
35:22
Speaker 2: The post breakup weight loss is a huge, huge thing.
35:25
Speaker 2: It is, and partially from stress, but partially just because
35:28
Speaker 2: like I'm gonna make myself the best I can be
35:31
Speaker 2: and I'll show her or him.
35:33
Speaker 1: I think it's also like just as simple as like
35:36
Speaker 1: more free time.
35:37
Speaker 2: Sure, you know too, and something to do that is,
35:40
Speaker 2: you know, exercises also stress relieving. You might not be
35:45
Speaker 2: eating as much because your stomach is tied up into stress.
35:48
Speaker 1: Nots right.
35:49
Speaker 2: So there are a bunch of reasons for it.
35:50
Speaker 1: But here is that. Here's where that that part you
35:54
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier I said we would get to
35:56
Speaker 1: kind of kicks in. Is how much of the so
36:00
Speaker 1: you identify with does relate to how well you handle
36:05
Speaker 1: a breakup? How much of your how much of the
36:07
Speaker 1: you is the we in the relationship? Yeah, And what
36:10
Speaker 1: they found is that that's a huge part of it.
36:13
Speaker 1: But more significant is the amount of growth that happens
36:17
Speaker 1: while you're in a relationship, Like you can share a
36:19
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of the same self with your significant other
36:24
Speaker 1: and grow as a person as a result. And if
36:27
Speaker 1: you do that, you're actually going to have a harder
36:30
Speaker 1: breakup because that we that that super attachment that led
36:36
Speaker 1: to that personal growth is related to that other person
36:39
Speaker 1: who's now gone. Whereas if you were you even if
36:42
Speaker 1: you were totally in messed with another person, but you
36:45
Speaker 1: didn't grow much personally. If you experience a burst of
36:48
Speaker 1: growth after the breakup, you're going to have the easiest
36:52
Speaker 1: breakup of all. Even though you were super in messed
36:55
Speaker 1: with the person, you weren't growing, But then you grow afterward.
36:59
Speaker 1: Now that period of non growth is related to that
37:02
Speaker 1: person who's gone, and you can be like, so long zero,
37:05
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make myself a hero, yeah, DC, sure did
37:12
Speaker 1: they come across? Yeah, because sometimes I'm not the best
37:15
Speaker 1: at explaining things.
37:17
Speaker 2: Which is pretty funny if you think about it.
37:19
Speaker 1: It really is.
37:22
Speaker 2: In two thousand, they did a study at Northwestern University
37:26
Speaker 2: where they did find out though that they ask people,
37:29
Speaker 2: I believe, how bad do you think this breakup is
37:34
Speaker 2: going to be? If you know you're in a relationship,
37:37
Speaker 2: what if you broke up? And then they found out
37:40
Speaker 2: that they weren't as bad off as they thought they
37:43
Speaker 2: would be, which is encouraging.
37:45
Speaker 1: It is, but also think about this, Chuck, These vultures
37:48
Speaker 1: who are running the study where like, you're in a relationship,
37:51
Speaker 1: just we're going to study just in case you guys
37:54
Speaker 1: break up. Yeah, And so they would get that info,
37:57
Speaker 1: that self reporting info about how bad the breakup of be,
38:00
Speaker 1: and then they swooped in upon the breakup. They're like,
38:03
Speaker 1: how bad is it?
38:04
Speaker 2: Yeah?
38:04
Speaker 1: Tell us And the person was like, well, this is
38:08
Speaker 1: as bad as it is, And it was almost across
38:10
Speaker 1: the board. Yeah, not anywhere near as bad as the
38:14
Speaker 1: people thought it would be when they were in the relationship. Yeah,
38:18
Speaker 1: which is pretty surprising. And what was even more surprising
38:20
Speaker 1: is the more in love you are, the easier it's
38:24
Speaker 1: going to be relative to how bad do you think
38:27
Speaker 1: it will be during the relationship, right, Which makes sense
38:29
Speaker 1: if you stop and think about it.
38:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought the other interesting thing too, when we
38:33
Speaker 2: were talking about getting over a breakup and your sense
38:38
Speaker 2: of self, that's closely tied to how you feel about rejection.
38:43
Speaker 2: And there are a couple of I mean more than
38:46
Speaker 2: a couple of ways. But if your reflection of your
38:52
Speaker 2: how you think about rejection is tied heavily into how
38:55
Speaker 2: you feel about yourself, so there's some people that might
38:58
Speaker 2: be rejected and it might devastate them because they start
39:01
Speaker 2: to analyze themselves and what did I do wrong? And
39:04
Speaker 2: what's wrong with me? Right, there's a whole other camp
39:06
Speaker 2: out there, And I think this goes into personality and
39:10
Speaker 2: ego and all that stuff. But you call these people
39:13
Speaker 2: healthy or sociopaths, maybe, Oh, it's probably on a range.
39:19
Speaker 1: Wow, I just we just put both of our cards
39:22
Speaker 1: on the table. Then.
39:24
Speaker 2: But the people that are like, yeah, I got broken
39:27
Speaker 2: up with and I but and I got rejected. But
39:29
Speaker 2: you know, as happens that happens in life, people get rejected.
39:33
Speaker 2: It's not because of me, I just not everyone. You know,
39:35
Speaker 2: So you find together, you.
39:36
Speaker 1: Find this quote sociopathic. I learned that two people can
39:39
Speaker 1: both be quality individuals, but that doesn't mean they belong together.
39:43
Speaker 1: That's sociopathic to you.
39:44
Speaker 2: That's that was Oh wait, it says you said that
39:48
Speaker 2: it was Ted.
39:48
Speaker 1: Bundy, Patrick Bateman.
39:51
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I don't think it necessarily necessarily means
39:53
Speaker 2: you're a sociopath. But I think someone with that is
39:56
Speaker 2: a true sociopath would probably be way more apt to
39:59
Speaker 2: be like, oh yeah, well.
40:02
Speaker 1: It was them, not me.
40:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like it's fine, your point breakup.
40:05
Speaker 1: There's a sub a subgroup to that sociopath as you
40:08
Speaker 1: call it camp, and they are like, well, breakups happen.
40:12
Speaker 1: I heard what the other person said, and there's some
40:15
Speaker 1: things I feel like I need to work on, Like say,
40:17
Speaker 1: I was a terrible communicator, so I'm going to work
40:20
Speaker 1: on becoming a better communicator as a result. It's called
40:23
Speaker 1: stress related growth is what that's called. Where you're growing
40:26
Speaker 1: out of this horrific experience. And that's healthy, that's super healthy.
40:33
Speaker 1: But they the key is what's unhealthy is to say
40:38
Speaker 1: this was all because of some fatal flaw that I have,
40:42
Speaker 1: that's part of my personality that I'll never be able
40:44
Speaker 1: to get rid of. And so all I'm going to
40:46
Speaker 1: do is poison every relationship from here on out, and
40:49
Speaker 1: I'm just going to build walls and keep everybody at
40:51
Speaker 1: a distance. And that's what some people do as a
40:54
Speaker 1: result of a breakup. And you can't do that. Even
40:56
Speaker 1: if your brain starts to go that way. This research says,
41:00
Speaker 1: stop it. Don't you have to disassociate yourself become the sociopath.
41:05
Speaker 1: I guess if it need be to say this is
41:09
Speaker 1: not because of an inherent flaw in me, that's uncorrectable,
41:13
Speaker 1: even if the person was right, even if they're like,
41:15
Speaker 1: you're a terrible communicator and you have serious mommy issues,
41:21
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that you will always be a terrible
41:23
Speaker 1: communicator with serious mommy issues. You could work on those
41:28
Speaker 1: post breakup and become a much better SOO to the
41:32
Speaker 1: next person or whatever. The key is not being a
41:36
Speaker 1: fatalist like there's nothing you can do to change. And
41:40
Speaker 1: then also you should evaluate whether the person was saying
41:42
Speaker 1: that in anger, how much faith you put in their
41:45
Speaker 1: opinion of you. There's a lot of factors that you
41:47
Speaker 1: need to take into account before you take on that
41:50
Speaker 1: kind of thing that just puts you in the bottom
41:53
Speaker 1: of a well where you could conceivably hang out for
41:57
Speaker 1: the rest of your life if you're not careful without
42:00
Speaker 1: copious amounts of therapy.
42:02
Speaker 2: Yeah agreed, or turning to drugs and alcohol, which is
42:05
Speaker 2: a big, gin yeah, big thing that a lot of
42:08
Speaker 2: people do.
42:08
Speaker 1: Gin cuts both ways.
42:10
Speaker 2: Should we talk about some of these tips from.
42:12
Speaker 1: This guy, the psychologist Guy Wench. Remember number one is
42:17
Speaker 1: don't check up on them on social media.
42:19
Speaker 2: Good luck with that.
42:20
Speaker 1: Here's why. He says that this will reinforce your ex's
42:23
Speaker 1: presence in your mind and will make it harder for
42:26
Speaker 1: you to stop fantasizing about your broken relationship. You're basically
42:29
Speaker 1: just like literally keeping them right there in front of
42:33
Speaker 1: your face, right through social media. Yeah, which is why
42:36
Speaker 1: it's a bad idea.
42:39
Speaker 2: Number two, avoid creating mysteries about why the breakup happened.
42:44
Speaker 2: And again, this is along those same lines of just
42:47
Speaker 2: keeping your ex like forefront in your mind, which is hard.
42:51
Speaker 2: I mean it's gonna take a little while. Sure, he says,
42:55
Speaker 2: next day to pop up and just be like, well,
42:57
Speaker 2: they're out of my mind.
42:58
Speaker 1: That's sociopathic.
43:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, even if you're the breaker upper, you know, it
43:03
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that you don't have a process to go
43:05
Speaker 2: through as well.
43:06
Speaker 1: Sure, you know, but that's why he says, avoid creating mysteries,
43:09
Speaker 1: like it's it's probably going to happen, but like be
43:11
Speaker 1: mindful when it's going on and be like enough, I'm
43:14
Speaker 1: going to go work out, yeah, or go drink some
43:16
Speaker 1: gin or both.
43:19
Speaker 2: Number three, Make a list of all the comp Oh,
43:21
Speaker 2: this is a good one. Make a list of all
43:23
Speaker 2: the compromises that you had to make that you don't
43:26
Speaker 2: want to make again. Start to think about like, yeah,
43:28
Speaker 2: you know when I was with this person, I felt
43:30
Speaker 2: like I could never really have my real sense of
43:33
Speaker 2: humor out in public because they thought it was loud.
43:36
Speaker 1: That counters that that rehashing that just focuses on the positive. Yeah,
43:43
Speaker 1: it cuts the legs out from under that set and legs.
43:46
Speaker 1: What about Number four?
43:48
Speaker 2: Do the things that used to bring you enjoyment? Is
43:50
Speaker 2: kind of what I was talking about earlier, even if
43:52
Speaker 2: they don't seem interesting now. That whole thing where like, Jeez,
43:55
Speaker 2: I used to really love pottery right and throwing clay, sure,
44:00
Speaker 2: and I just I quit doing it once I started
44:02
Speaker 2: dating Josh.
44:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, Clay throwing my house.
44:08
Speaker 2: H and Josh hated it when Chuck went to the
44:11
Speaker 2: Potter's Wheel because it reminded him of Ghost And Josh
44:14
Speaker 2: hated that movie, so he wouldn't allow me to do it.
44:17
Speaker 2: But you know what, I'm going to reclaim that pottery wheel.
44:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is ironic because I was always walking around
44:23
Speaker 1: our house just like Patrick swayzey in that scene. But
44:27
Speaker 1: I still hated that movie. Oh that was more like
44:32
Speaker 1: the Chris Farley, Chippindale Patrick swayzee version.
44:36
Speaker 2: Number five Remove reminders. This is the box that you
44:41
Speaker 2: will burn, which is now just throw your laptop in
44:44
Speaker 2: the fireplace, right in your smartphone.
44:46
Speaker 1: And then like reconnect with your friends, Like, yeah, you
44:49
Speaker 1: left him in the dusty years ago, but they're still alive.
44:52
Speaker 1: They probably wouldn't mind hearing from you. Yeah.
44:53
Speaker 2: The problem here is is if you truly do have
44:57
Speaker 2: a mix of friends that you both love, not like
45:00
Speaker 2: I didn't leave behind all my old friends. Or the
45:03
Speaker 2: worst case scenario is like all of my friends are
45:06
Speaker 2: from you. Now what do I do?
45:09
Speaker 1: Go down to the YMCA and make some new friends?
45:12
Speaker 2: I guess. So I found this one last study I
45:15
Speaker 2: thought was interesting. The best way to get over a
45:17
Speaker 2: breakup according to science, And this is actually published in
45:21
Speaker 2: the Journal of Experimental Psychology, And they tested a bunch
45:25
Speaker 2: of strategies for getting over a breakup twenty four heartbroken
45:31
Speaker 2: people ages twenty to thirty seven that had been in
45:34
Speaker 2: at least a two and a half year relationship, so
45:36
Speaker 2: pretty significant. Some were dumpies, some were dumpers, and they
45:40
Speaker 2: said there were three strategies. One is to negatively reappraise
45:45
Speaker 2: your ex just think about all the bad things. The
45:49
Speaker 2: other one was called love reappraisal, which is believe and
45:55
Speaker 2: read statements like it's okay to love someone I'm no
45:57
Speaker 2: longer with it's all right. And then the third was distraction,
46:02
Speaker 2: literally the ice cream and look over here movies trick,
46:07
Speaker 2: the black mirror trick. And then there was the fourth prompt,
46:10
Speaker 2: which was the control, which was don't think about anything.
46:13
Speaker 2: Of course means you're thinking of the stape of March Vela.
46:15
Speaker 1: You don't think about anything. Really, just undermine the science
46:19
Speaker 1: of that clear brain.
46:21
Speaker 2: So those were the four prompts. Then they showed everyone,
46:24
Speaker 2: They hooked everyone up to an EEG machine, showed them
46:27
Speaker 2: photos of their exes, and they measured the intensity of
46:30
Speaker 2: emotion in response to that photo, and then had them
46:35
Speaker 2: use these different prompts to see which one works best.
46:38
Speaker 1: When they looked in the people who were not thinking
46:40
Speaker 1: about anything, they were bleeding out of their eye sockets.
46:43
Speaker 2: They were and according to the readings, all three, all
46:48
Speaker 2: three of the strategies significantly decreased their emotional response to
46:51
Speaker 2: the photos really relative to the control. If you looked
46:57
Speaker 2: at your ex in a negative light that first one,
47:01
Speaker 2: like there was such a jerk. You had a decrease
47:03
Speaker 2: in feelings of love, but you left in a worse
47:06
Speaker 2: mood like that judged up bad feelings.
47:09
Speaker 1: Like you wasted your time or something all that.
47:12
Speaker 2: Maybe or just like just really took me off thinking
47:14
Speaker 2: about all that stuff.
47:15
Speaker 1: Right? You know?
47:16
Speaker 2: So now did dumb study.
47:19
Speaker 1: Drove some clay?
47:20
Speaker 2: That's right, distraction made feel made you feel better overall,
47:27
Speaker 2: but didn't that have much of an effect on how
47:30
Speaker 2: you really felt about them? Okay, you just didn't leave
47:33
Speaker 2: it necessarily a bad mood. You just got ice cream
47:35
Speaker 2: and watched a funny movie good enough, which is fine.
47:37
Speaker 2: But they said that that doesn't do anything long term
47:39
Speaker 2: to help you recover. Oh okay, just like a temporary whatever.
47:42
Speaker 1: Does it prolong it? Though? Do you think? I mean,
47:45
Speaker 1: you know as much as the people conducting it said.
47:49
Speaker 2: It's a form of avoidance that is shown to reduce
47:51
Speaker 2: the recovery.
47:52
Speaker 1: Okay, so it would prolong it. Then, I guess. So
47:55
Speaker 1: everybody stop eating ice cream and watching Black Mirror.
47:58
Speaker 2: And then love Appraisal show no effect on your mood
48:01
Speaker 2: or how you feel about them, but it did dull
48:05
Speaker 2: the emotional response a little bit, So.
48:07
Speaker 1: There's really nothing to do.
48:09
Speaker 2: Doesn't sound like it.
48:11
Speaker 1: I saw a couple more tips. One is you could
48:14
Speaker 1: write a letter that under no circumstances, will you ever send?
48:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good trick actually reship price like anything
48:23
Speaker 2: bothering her.
48:24
Speaker 1: It also really works well for grieving too. You just
48:28
Speaker 1: write a letter, sure, and you say whatever you want
48:30
Speaker 1: because you know for a fact that the other person
48:32
Speaker 1: will never read it. You could say whatever you want
48:36
Speaker 1: and it's just like a cathartic process that can help
48:38
Speaker 1: hasten things. And then also, why do sad songs feel
48:43
Speaker 1: so good when you're going through a breakup? Why do
48:46
Speaker 1: people seek out sad songs? And the best explanation I saw,
48:50
Speaker 1: the best theory is that a song is a little
48:53
Speaker 1: capsule of emotion, and when you're seeking out a sad song,
48:57
Speaker 1: you're confronting the very emotions that you're probably stifling right then,
49:01
Speaker 1: and confronting it in such a raw form forces you
49:05
Speaker 1: to express those emotions i e. Cry and that helps
49:09
Speaker 1: you process them faster because you're you're not pushing them
49:12
Speaker 1: off any longer. You're you're you're you're expressing them, you're
49:16
Speaker 1: sorting through them. So that's what sad songs make you do.
49:19
Speaker 1: That's why people seek out sad songs when they're down,
49:22
Speaker 1: and it actually helps hasten recovery Lady in Red. I
49:29
Speaker 1: don't think that's a sad standing with me.
49:32
Speaker 2: That's the saddest song.
49:33
Speaker 1: You're like, savely it takes me away?
49:36
Speaker 2: That uh sailing by Christopher Cross Lady in Red, and
49:41
Speaker 2: then Dan Fogelberg's saying same old anxione right, three set
49:45
Speaker 2: of songs.
49:45
Speaker 1: Jerry knows that song. Those were two Christopher Cross songs.
49:49
Speaker 1: He's got two of the three sets.
49:51
Speaker 2: No, Lady in Red's not Christopher Cross.
49:52
Speaker 1: I think it is.
49:53
Speaker 2: Now five dollars, Jerry, we're all nodding.
49:57
Speaker 1: Now, five dollars is on the table.
49:59
Speaker 2: All right, I'll look it up.
50:01
Speaker 1: Well, you guys will find out next episode whether I
50:03
Speaker 1: was right or not.
50:04
Speaker 2: I remember the guy's name.
50:06
Speaker 1: It's Christopher Cross. Oh, Jerry's rarely doing one of her
50:11
Speaker 1: rare speaking parts. She says, Christoph Waltz. That's the actor.
50:16
Speaker 2: You know. What's funny is I mistyped something and it
50:18
Speaker 2: changed my search to Lady in Red wings like red
50:22
Speaker 2: wing boots. Boot must be a fetish side, I guess.
50:25
Speaker 1: So. Yeah. If you want to get in touch with me,
50:28
Speaker 1: Chuck or Jerry, you can shoot us an email to
50:31
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast how Stuff Works dot.
50:33
Speaker 2: Com Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
50:40
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
50:43
Speaker 2: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.