‘Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus’. We all know that, don’t we? That quote goes on to suggest that men and women have different expectations when it comes to a relationship. A stable relationship can only exist if a proper compromise or balance is reached between those expectations. But in actual life, it is seen that more often than not, such expectations lead to quarrels, arguments and even break-ups.

So let us try to understand why do relationships break-up, and how are Men and Women responsible for it, in their own ways. Before I start, we should keep one thing in mind: The points discussed are related to men/women in general, and they may not be present in all men or all women. People differ from one another, and there are male feminists and female tomboys, for example.

His:

Basically, many people believe that males detest the word-‘commitment’. A man will not hesitate getting into a physical relationship, but he does not want to think of the long term results of it. He wants to enjoy life, and will postpone any sort of serious commitment [Read-marriage] as long as he can. Arguably, most men have a polygamous mentality. They find it hard to stick to just one partner, and they want to experience the feeling of staying with multiple women. So to commit oneself to one woman permanently is a sort of a mental ego-war. The truth is that even today, most men consider themselves to be superior to women in every way. So they believe that its naïve to restrict oneself to one person alone. But that does not apply for all men. Not all males consider love to be synonymous with sex, but majority give more emphasis to physical love over emotional love. This may be the first step towards infidelity.

There are some men who get so emotionally attached to their partners that they find it hard to let go. These are usually the possessive types. They will hate it if their girlfriends talk with any other male. They want a 24 x 7 report on the lifestyle followed by their partners. They will usually have a high sense of insecurity of being deserted. But on the positive side, they will be protective in nature, and will do almost anything to keep Her happy and satisfied. They do not realize that getting over-possessive can actually strain their relationships. And if a break-up does happen, they will keep trying to get the girl back. In extreme cases, it may lead to nefarious cases of revenge-crime, in which the male lover torments his ex-girlfriend for deserting him.

Hers:

According to Statistics, 90% of all major crimes[such as murders, rape, etc] are committed by men. Am not suggesting that women are never wrong, but the truth is that most girls do not think of physically harming a person, vengeance, etc. They prefer ignoring or taking help from others.



There is a common saying-‘All relationships are initiated by men and are ended by women’. There is a certain level of truth to it. In more than 80% of cases involving break-ups, it’s the female who brings up the issue. A woman prefers to end a relationship if she feels that it is not working for her. Whereas a man will try to extend a fragile relationship for as long as possible.

Most women do not like discussing about their inner feelings with their partners. In case, something is wrong, they will prefer to keep quiet rather than point it out explicitly. This is the reason that such negative feelings tend to pile up, and are then unleashed all at once, in the form of a break-up. Her partner is often left astounded, and he keeps wondering why she took such an extreme step all of a sudden. Whereas it may not have been a sudden decision at all.

Women are known to be moody, and indeed their mood changes frequently, which is also partly due to physical reasons. Most females consider love to be something emotional, something unique and special, and they do not relate it to mere physical advances. In some cases, a female may feel seriously hurt if her partner keeps instigating her to get physical with him. Women are generally more tolerant than men, but they take note of mistakes made by their partners very seriously. In some cases, they refuse to pardon a person for committing a slip-up, in the mistaken notion that he will continue to make such faults in future. They may even take the extreme step of labeling the person as evil/wicked, and will avoid all communication with him in future, even if the person had done it unintentionally.




Though it is said that women tend to forgive easily, I believe that such a thing rarely occurs in real life. In very few cases does a woman actually reconcile herself with her ex-partner, even if she was the person responsible for the break-up.

I have analyzed a few causes of break-ups in relationships. These are by no means exhaustive. There are many more reasons, some obvious, others subtle, which can result in break-ups. But what is important is that sometimes a Man should try to think like a Woman, and a Woman should try to think like a Man. That helps!