Katharina Buczek
Have you ever left a relationship and wondered how your now-ex thinks of you? Well, this shocking group of studies published in Sage Journals might intrigue you.
The research suggests that men actually view their ex-partners in a more positive light than women do.
Much of the past research into romantic relationships has focused on the qualities of present or ongoing relationships.
Instead, this group of researchers decided to take the opposite approach. They wanted to discern “how people evaluate their former partners and, more importantly, do men and women differ in how they evaluate their ex-partners?”
Some might wonder, well, if the relationship is over, why does this matter? The researchers addressed this notion head-on and described the three key reasons why understanding feelings about past relationships is so important.
The study describes how first, feelings of affection could still be attached to a past relationship. And, men and women could react differently in the face of a break-up.
Second, there are often many other shared avenues involved in a break-up. For example, mutual friends, possessions, and even children.
These things could “cause partners to be interdependent for an extended time into the future.”
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, “the quality of individuals’ past relationships, as well as the nature of their dissolution, is likely to have an impact on people’s feelings of attachment, beliefs regarding relationships in general, and possibly the current relationship in particular.”
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