On McCartney, A Life in Lierx, you can hear the stories behind iconic tracks from Paul McCartney's career, like Hey, G.

When I played it to John & Yoko in my music room on my psychedelic piano. I'm sitting facing this way, and they're standing behind me, almost on my shoulder.

Hear McCartney, a Life in Lierx on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

All that sitting and swiping, our backs hurt, our eyeballs sting. That's our bodies adapting to our technology. But we can do something about it.

We saw amazing effects. I really felt like the cloud in my brain dissipated. There's no turning back from me.

Make 2024 the year you put your health before your inbox and take the Body Electric challenge. Listen to Body Electric from NPR on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, everybody. It's Josh. For this week's Select, I've chosen our 2019 episode on the science of breakups. It's just a straight ahead interesting episode about people and what makes us tick. I hope you enjoy it.

Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Brian over there. There's Jerry. Rush, rush, rush, Jerry. This is stuff you should know, the Breakup Edition.

All right. Three people who You've never broken up with one another.

No, that's true.

The Last Three.

Great point.

Modern triad. Yeah.

The triad.

So I picked this one out because mainly It's just a refrain. We get an email a lot. We hear from heartbroken people a lot. Sure. More than you would think. They are just like, I'm so sad.

Lots of broken hearts.

You guys have helped me with this show as a distraction, which we will learn is one of the official ways to get over a breakup.

Yeah, look over here.

Yeah, exactly. It just got me thinking about, is there any science behind breakups and the emotions that go along with it? It turns out there's a lot. A disturbing amount of study has been done.

I know.

When you look at it, you're like, Oh, man, maybe you should have allocated that money toward research, toward other things.

Yeah, like cancer.

Yeah.

Although social psychology couldn't do anything about cancer.

No. It's not like they're like, Oh, well, it's all taken from one big pool. We'll just allocate some of this breakup money toward cancer research. Sure. That's not how it works.

Well, you could allocate the money, but the mental energy, I guess, is what I'm talking about.

Yeah, but it seemed like study after study. Also, we should point out, too, that I think there was one case in here of one study where they looked at homosexual couples, but most of this study is cisgendered straight couples. Yeah. Through that lens only. They're not doing a ton of research outside that.

I found one that tracks. It correlates the likelihood of breaking up to time, and they had it broken out by same sex and straight, married and unmarried. Those were the four categories. So some people are doing it. Sure. But yeah, for the most part, no. And I think one of the reasons why Chuck is a lot of this is from the mid 2000s, early 2010s.

Yeah.

And that was That was about the last, the tail end of that. Now, I think it's starting to change, fortunately. Because people of all genders and sexual orientation break up and get dumped. And we're here to help all of you. So buckle in. Grab a hanky, and let's get through this.

We should go ahead and start out by saying, I guess, that in theory, more people are breaking up now because people are generally waiting longer to get married. Right. So if you could extrapolate that, if you're not married for 10 more years than, let's say, our parents were, then maybe you've gone through a couple of more breakups along the way.

Yeah, we should give a shout out to Kristin Conger of Unladylike Media.

Yeah, Kongs.

Who wrote this article. Our old pal. She points out that that typically means that you are going to find somebody who you work with rather than rushing into it. But it also, as she puts it, leaves the window open longer for heartbreak to be dumped. Yeah. One thing I saw, Chuck, this is mind boggling to me. 85% of people, according to this one study, will be dumped in their lifetime, will experience a breakup in their lifetime. That means 15% of humanity won't. Those are some interesting people.

15% have not had a breakup or been broken up with.

Will not in their lifetime.Oh, okay. They're just going to either never have a relationship or the first time, they're going to hit it out of the park.

But that doesn't mean like... Or settle. I've never been dumped.

Yeah, they'll never have gone through a breakup.

But I've been I've been the breakups. I've been the dumper.

Right. I know what you're saying. No, I believe that they will not have experience to break up in their lifetime, either way.

Well, that's great. That means they met the person that they love when they're young, probably.

Again, or it means that decided to live their life alone, just fine.Right..

Or.or both.

Like I said, they decided like, Yeah, I'm just going to stick with this person.

Yeah.

I don't want to ruin my record, my spotlight. What's the latest record?

I think it's very interesting here that supposedly, and this is very hanky, how they found this out about the spikes and breakups from like...

That's a Facebook data poll. Social social media. That doesn't count, social psychology. It doesn't count.

I agree, but it doesn't make a little bit of sense. I could see this being true, that generally dumping someone or getting broken up with can happen on any day of the year. But there are spikes in early December and early March because of Christmas holidays and spring break.

Yeah, and technically-I could see that being true. I'm sure it's true, at least on Facebook. And yeah, this is a pretty big data pool, but it's so lazy.

It's lazy, but I could see it because it makes a little bit of sense that you would not want to go through the holidays with someone. And you said a thing, too, and this is important to point out, when the breakup happens, when that talk, or these days, text message or phone call happens.

It's not okay.

That is the end of something for maybe both of you, but definitely one of you.

Yeah, sometimes, most of the time.

That actual act of saying, We're breaking up, that's at the end of many, many weeks or even months or even years of contemplation about whether or not you want to still be with this person. Right.

And that's why being broken up with is almost across the board way harder than breaking up. Because like you said, by the time the person who initiates the breakup initiates the breakup, this is at the end of a long road of decision making. Whereas the other person might have been blissfully unaware or at least willfully ignorant or not willing to address the issues. So they are, one way or another, largely caught off guard by being broken up with. So the person who does the breaking up has already gone through all these stages of grief or of separation, whereas now it's this person, the person who's just been dumped. It's their time to go through it.

Right. So if you're doing the dumping, the hour after you have that conversation, you're like, What a relief. I'm starting over.

Let's go get some gin.

Whereas the dumpy is like, that begins their process. Although the only thing I'll take issue with that whole line of thought, though, is that a lot of people, even that might get dumped, aren't like, What? They may have known and just didn't want to admit it or weren't brave enough or strong enough to do it themselves.

I agree with you on that. I think that there's still a thread that they had not been preparing themselves just by being in, say, denial or unwilling to address it, face it. Now they have no choice but to face reality, whereas the person who did the breakup was facing reality and coming to terms with it quietly. Sure. And then now it's your turn.

Right. Which brings me back to my original point, which is Christmas and spring break make a little bit of sense because the person who is desperate to get out of a relationship break up with somebody, they're staring at those Christmas holidays, and that first week of December rolls around. They're like, I got to do this now because I don't want to travel out of town with this person and go through the whole gift thing. And the holidays, it's tough to be in a relationship that's a lie.

Well, sure, because-around the holidays. I mean, the holidays are so about connecting and feeling and warmth and all that. If you're faking it or have to fake it, some people are like, I'm not going through that. No good. I also saw an explanation in harpers' bizarre of all places that some people may do that because of the pressure of coming up with a really good gift. Sure. That the relationship is not worth... The pressure of coming up with a good gift outweighs the value of the relationship to those people. Or there are some people who don't want to put their significant other through that, so they just break up proactively.

Right.

Which also means that they didn't value the relationship that much either. But at least in their mind, they're not doing it for themselves. They're doing it for the other person because they don't want to put the other person through that pressure of having to get the perfect gift.

Yeah, I've never had that thing either where you start dating someone and it's a couple of weeks for their birthday or Christmas, and then that pressure of like, Man, how do I play this one?

After a couple of weeks?

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's a pass. You really like this person, but how deep do I go on this gift?

Here, I don't really know you, so I got you a basket of socks. Everyone loves socks.

So here's an Amazon gift card for 38.50..

After a couple of weeks, that's a little close. Yeah, I think so. Come up with a perfect gift or even be expected to.

I did mention breaking up by text or whatever. Like you would suspect, if you were born before 1975, like myself, you break up in person, supposedly, about 74% of the time.Not bad.Post-1984, if you were born, less than 50% of the time, you're going to do that in person. They say Generation Y, whatever that is.

I think it's millennials. Is it? I'm pretty sure.

When did they name them? Do they know what Like, does my daughter have a generation already? I don't know. Like a name?

I'm sure somebody out there has named your daughter's generation.

So annoying. Don't box her in.

Right. Well, you got to pigeonhole folks.

Let her grow up. Be her own person. But if you are Gen Y, you're more likely 30% to do it over the phone. And of course, this says a searing instant message or an email. I think these days you would call that a text.

An email is the lowest percent-wise and compassion-wise. 4% of people break up by email. What was it on- Text is pretty bad. Email is as bad as it gets.

Was it Sex in the City where it was a sticky note?

No, I don't remember.

I feel like that was a sticky note.

In the movie or the show?

I didn't see the movie.

Sticky note break up.

I think so. Should we take a break?

Yeah, let's take a break, man. All right. This is going really well so far. Okay.

Grow your nursing career with Resilience Health care. We pride ourselves on creating a workspace where nurses can thrive. With 24 hours support, over 40 training courses available, and flexible hours. Plus, our nurses work on a one on one basis with our clients. We're currently looking for nurses with at least 12 months experience. Whether you're looking for extra shifts or a whole new role. We've got opportunities for you. Grow your career at resilience. Ie. Resilience Health care, the power of possible.

On McCartney and Life in Lierx, you can hear the stories behind iconic tracks from Paul McCartney's career, like Hey, June.

The movement you need is on your shoulder.

The movement you need is on your shoulder. Now, I thought that was me just blocking in. And when I played it to John and Yoko in my music room on my psychedelic piano, I'm sitting facing this way, and they're standing behind me, almost on my shoulder. And they're listening, and I'm so pleased with myself I'm playing this new song.

Listen to Paul McCartney dissect the people, experiences, and art behind his songwriting. Hear McCartney, a Life in Lyrx on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

All that sitting and swiping, our backs hurt, our eyeballs sting, that's our bodies adapting to our technology. But we can do something about it.

We saw amazing effects. I really felt like the cloud in my brain dissipated. There's no turning back from me.

Make 2024 the year you put your health before your inbox and take the Body Electric challenge. Listen to Body Electric from NPR on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, Chuck.

We've talked about when people break up, how they break up, why do they break up?

Well, actually, there's one more. Okay. Okay. I think pretty important thing about the how, which is men and women. Oh, yeah. Women tend to present, and this makes sense, too, if you want to be stereotypically-Stereotypical? About it. Women tend to present a list of grievances.

Here's all the things wrong with you, Bob.

Pretty much. Whereas men, it's a little more, supposedly a little more nebulous.

Where'd the magic go?

Yeah, there you go.

That's apparently the difference is as far as rationale for breaking up.

And these are so macro level and broad and how we talk about it. It's a little embarrassing to even do.

To talk about this stuff? Yeah. I know.

I always-Momen do this and women do this.

Right. No, it's Absolutely true. But I feel like when you talk about this, people can find themselves in the contours of-I think so. If you put all this stuff together. If you just took one study and said that this was definitive, people should punch you in the kidney. That's agreed. But not really. Don't punch anybody. You know, everyone, over the last almost 11 years of stuff you should know, I've said a lot of things that make it sound like I'm inciting people to violence.

Friendly violence, though.

I was joking every A single time. Why?

Has someone said something?

No, I just want to make sure that everyone knows that I was never, ever actually serious in saying, Hit somebody in the head with a tack hammer. Or punch someone in the kidney.

I can't do that a lot, actually.

I'm kidding all the time.

Except for when you recommend that you pants somebody in front of-I was kidding even then, too.in front of a classroom or-That's psychological abuse.

It is. It's physical, but it's more psychological than anything.

You ever been panced in front of people?

Yes. Really? Yes. I can tell you it's psychological abuse.

I don't think I've ever been panced. Boy, I can't imagine anything more horrifying than being panced without underwear on.

I can confirm that because I can't remember being panced. I just remember that I have been panced. I think I just immediately blocked out everything. Sure.

Yeah. No story there. No. No. Okay. If When you get broken up with, you will feel, and we're going to talk about the science of a lot of this because it's very similar to overcoming addiction sometimes. But of course, depression and anxiety, sometimes suicidal thoughts.

Sometimes homicide. Oh, sure. That's an outcome, worst case outcome, that and suicide of breakups. But they are directly related to breakups. That's how bad breakups can be.

Yeah. Yeah. Apparently, when people do write in about getting dumped and stuff, I always say it's the most trite thing in the world, but time is the only thing that really helps. Yeah. Like, ice cream and stuff like that is good, but it really does decrease over time. However, in studies, eight weeks after being dumped, in this study, 40% of people still had signs of clinical depression, and 12% appeared moderately or severely depressed. It depends on the relationship, how long you're in it, how much it meant to you, what person you are, but it can stick around for a bit.

It can. The thing is, though, there are things you can do to help accelerate the healing process, and we'll talk about those at the end. How about that? Okay. We'll make you all wait.

All right.

Where are we at, Chuck? Are we at the- Well, the attachment styles, I think, is interesting because we did talk about gay, straight, cisgendered on the gender spectrum, maybe none of that matters.

Maybe what matters is what they call your attachment style.

That's what this says pretty plainly. That's what it comes down to.

How you attach yourselves to other people.

You can be a needy, clingy dude. You can be a avoidant woman, or you can be either one of those things anywhere on the gender spectrum. That's the thing. The idea that women are clingy and men are distant is fabled. Or it's at least ham-fisted.

Yeah, I think so. It's that thing in social science that bothers me, which is like you're either this or this. Like one thing or the other.

And really, all you are is a white college student. That's what they really mean.

Yeah, who had a little time on their hands.

Right. He needed extra credit.

But there are two, supposedly, again, two things, attachment styles, anxious attachment and avoidant attachment.

Well, Conger points out that's two of a spectrum. Oh, okay. And you can fall somewhere on there. There's actually a... It's pretty straightforward. It's the OIS, I believe, or OSI. It's a scale where you pick how your relationship is best described by a series of Venn diagrams. And one circle is you, and one circle is your significant other. And they're just increasingly together from just barely touching to almost completely merged into one single circle. And you just circle the one that best describes your sense of what your relationship's like, and that supposedly gets your spectrum replacement on the spectrum of attachment across. Oh, interesting. It's real subjective and self-reported, so that is to say not scientific.

Right, unfortunately. Supposedly, two-thirds of women initiate divorces. In this article, it says that might give them statistical edge over getting over a relationship.

Because they initiated the breakup, so they've been in the process already.

Maybe.

That's what I think she meant.

I think so. I'm just not so sure that just because a woman initiates a divorce, it may have been after years of systematic abuse, which may not mean she's so ready to get over this quicker than he might be. Yeah, no.

I mean, you can't just say, If X, then Y with this stuff. It's a relationship, sir. It's messy as humans get. It's a relationship.

Yeah.

That's all you need to say.

Well, let's talk about the brain a little bit because this is where it does get a little more interesting, I think. Thank God. Slightly more scientific. Okay. There was a study in 2011 by neurologists at the Einstein College of Medicine, which sounded totally fake.

Totally. But it's not. I have sounds made up, written down. It's in the Bronx. Reputable. Yeah, there's also- Reputable. There were also anthropologists from Rutgers and Suni to legitimize things in this study.

If Rutgers is legitimizing things, we're in trouble. Oh, really?

Is that really? I thought Rutgers was all right. Or am I confusing it with Tufts?

You're probably thinking Princeton.

Okay.

Both New Jersey schools.

I thought Rutgers was the public ivy.

Okay.

Sorry, Rutgers. I tried.

I'll send you a check back. I can't wait to hear from them. They're going to be so mad at me. I've hung out at Rutgers. I've been there people.

So you know what you're talking about? I know exactly what I'm talking about. Is it like the Detroit of New Jersey colleges or something?

That's not untrue. Okay. All right.

You don't disagree.

Boy, we're going to get killed. That's okay. So this study from Einstein College of Medicine found that just looking at a photograph of an ex-partner caused the The second somatosensory cortex and the dorsal posterior insula.

Nice.

Jeez. And these areas process physical discomfort. They start lighting up. The same thing as happens as when you get physically injured, basically. Right.

You are in actual legitimate pain as far as your brain is concerned in the midst of a breakup, at least when you're stuck in an MRI machine and showing a picture of your recent ex.

Which is a big deal now with social social media because every modern article I read about breakups and getting over them talked about what a deleterious effect social media will have on your recovery process.

Are you taunting me?

Because this stuff's everywhere now. It used to be easy. You could just throw everything in a shoe box and set it on fire and send it down a river in a little boat made of rage.

Sure.

But you can't do that anymore because they're everywhere.

No, but that's tip number one from psychologist Guy Winch, author of How to Fix a Broken Heart. Stay the H off of social media. Do not stalk your ex on social. Do not check in. Just separate.

I imagine that would be really hard because in the old days, it was just left to your imagination to think about how much fun they were having with-Now you can see pictures of it.the nine new boyfriends that she has. Sure, right. But yeah, you're right. Or maybe it helps some people.

I don't know. I think it's imperative that you not do that to help. It's not like watching them on social media will prevent you from ever getting over it. I think no matter what you do, you're going to eventually get past this. Sure. But all you're doing is prolonging the process, and that's unnecessarily. Yeah.

Then also when you were on the the fMRI machine, and they did brain scans from people who had been broken up with recently, they found that very much similar to people overcoming an addiction to cocaine, in that that same circuitry is of overcoming addiction. It's just lighting up. It's that potent.

Yeah. So far, what this MRI study from Albert Einstein came up with is that you were in physical pain from the breakup, and the same centers that are activated by addiction cravings, withdrawals, are activated by the breakup as well. That's astounding.

Yeah. And this weird mental cycle happens, basically, when you do look at a photograph of what they say a former lover.

Lover. Like the Burger King laying on a rug, bear-skin rug.

But you'll see the photo, and the weird thing is you'll immediately get a reward. You will get a dopamine hit, a pleasurable feeling by seeing this person that you love.

And then you realize, Oh, Wait.

Then you get sad immediately afterwards. And then that sagness. Where did that come from?

It is a little saggy feeling.

That triggers the brain's ventral tegmental area and the nucleus acumenbens. I think so.

I know we've run into that before. We used to talk about the brain a lot more.

Acumenbins. I think we figured out the brain, though, right? So we stopped.

Yeah, we were like, it's done.

But these two things working together, regardless of how I mispronounce them, they trigger the urge to see that person. So you get sad, and then your brain lights up in two areas, and you go, Hey, remember that dopamine hit you get from looking in this picture? Why don't you just give them a call and see what's going on?

You want the real stuff? Go. That's right. Go get them. Those two areas, apparently, also are analytical as well. So they're responsible for rehashing the relationship. But apparently, they're not very realistic because most people, when rehashing the relationship, highlight the good parts and forget about all the bad parts.

I have tended to do that.

I think everybody does. I don't understand why.

I don't know. I don't agree with that. Emily, and we, of course, been married so long, this subject never comes up anymore. But I was always like, Oh, with the old girlfriend, what was so bad there? And then if I really thought about it, I would remember where she's always like, Oh, that was awful.

Oh, really? Yeah. Got you. Well, she's smart.

Yeah, maybe so. I'm a dumb dumb, so that all makes sense.

Okay, so even, and you're not dumb dumb, even if you represent a third of people or a half of people who do, when rehashing, only think about the good stuff and forget about all the negative stuff, what is that? Why does that even happen? It's bizarre if you think about it.

Probably a personality thing. If I tend to be optimistic, maybe.

Yeah, I guess that's a pretty good explanation to tell you the truth. What I was going to say is if you look at relationships or romantic love as an evolutionary drive to pair and mate successfully over and over again and to stay together, that would bring you back to this person that you've already connected with rather than making you go look for another mate. That makes sense. So maybe it's like a backstop or fail safe for breakups, evolutionarily speaking.

Right. Like, I was so close to having nine babies. I really want to start all over again. Right.

Which is funny because that means that Emily is more evolved than you in that sense.

Yeah, in every sense. That's awesome. But the end of that mental cycle, basically, though, is those areas light up that say, go back and see that person. Then you are immediately unsatisfied and about the fact that that's not happening. That's when your frontal cortex trips into gear, and that's when you get angry. It's just that mental cycle that starts seeing that photo on a social media platform and ending up upset in the end.

But the same study led by Helen Fisher found that over time, the same process is greatly degraded. Sure. I think they did a follow-up in, well, months, Congress says, found that the whole process and all of the neurochemicals and the brain regions are much less active, which, again, it's just time. Give it time.

Right. But if you don't give it time and you do the thing where you do get back together, that can be great. Sometimes you can work it out and people can change.

But there's a big caveat there.

Well, right. Go ahead. No. No, you say yours.

Okay.

Because I think I'm talking about something else.

What I saw was that if you get back together, rather than saying, this is a fresh start. We're going to try this over again. We're going to really make a go of it. If you do that, all you're going to do is just walk right back into the same pitfalls and pratfalls because the separation probably did nothing or virtually nothing to your individual personalities, which are the source of all of your conflicts. So it's not like you just magically worked your conflicts out and you're getting back together and everything's fine. That's just a charade. But if you get back together and say, I decided I love you the way you are, and I don't want to be away from you, and I just accept you for you, and I accept our relationship with all of its problems, you're probably going to have a successful reunion. If you go into it like, all of our problems are solved because we broke up, you're just going to do the same thing again down the line. And that's apparently a fairly frequent thing that something like 60 % or some crazy percentage of the younger generation, Generation Y, I guess, the process of breaking up, the majority of them, that that breakup involves getting back together multiple times.Right, with that person.Not just once.

Yeah. So you're getting back together and just going through the same pattern. I think there's a field of thought and psychology called scripts. These are scripts that we're playing out one another's scripts. And if you don't alter the script, you're going to go through the same script over and over again. You're working out the same things from your past or from your childhood against one another, and you're not doing it in the right way. So all you're doing is creating conflict. And that doesn't just magically go away because you spend a couple of months apart. You have to just say, I love you for who you are, and we're going to just keep going.

Yeah, I think what I was going to say was, don't they think, though, that that also depends on just what person you are in terms of thinking either people can really make substantial change in their lives or they can't?

That's how you deal with a breakup, which we'll talk about in a minute.

That sounds like a good place for a break.

I think so, too. All right. Sorry, you wouldn't have a table, please? Oh, sorry.

Do you want to sit down?

Irish people can be very polite, but sometimes it pays to be direct. Come direct to Energia for our best rate on electricity and gas with Ireland's cheapest dual-fuel bundle, as well as real-time energy insights to help you manage your usage. It means you're getting a better deal. And we're not sorry. Switch today at energyia. Ie. Energia Smart Data Plan, EAB, €2,490. Standing charge, PSO levy, carbon tax, and discounted unit rate supply. Full details, including associated terms and conditions at energyia. Ie.

On McCartney and Life and Lyrx, you can hear the stories behind iconic tracks from Paul McCartney's career, like Hey, June.

The movement you need is on your shoulder.

The movement you need is on your shoulder. Now, I thought that was me just blocking in. When I played it to John and Yoko in my music room on my psychedelic the piano. I'm sitting facing this way, and they're standing behind me, almost on my shoulder. And they're listening, and I'm so pleased with myself I'm playing this new song.

Listen to Paul McCartney dissect the people, experiences, and art behind his songwriting. Hear McCartney, a Life in Lyrx on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

All that sitting and sleeping, our backs hurt, our eyeballs sting. That's our bodies adapting to our technology. But we can do something about it.

We saw amazing effects. I really felt like the cloud in my brain dissipated. There's no turning back from me.

Make 2024 the year you put your health before your inbox and take the Body Electric challenge. Listen to Body Electric from NPR on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Before we get to that, what we were just talking about before the split, this is one piece of data from the same-sex couple community. Supposedly from studies, they do think that same-sex couples are better at staying friends.

Yeah, I saw that.

After a breakup? Yeah.

Particularly lesbian couples. Yeah. Then gay men, and then straight couples are like, Forget about it. So long.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing. Can you really be friends after? It all depends on how intense and how long and how a person you are. But yeah, it's interesting when I meet people that legitimately are friends with people that they seriously dated years later.

It's pretty rare, I think, actually. I think it is, too. I think it seems less rare because you see it on TV shows a lot. It's also almost aspirational. Like, Oh, look at how laid back and with these people are, that they can be friends after this. I think it's pretty rare, actually. I think it's an idealized form. Because you like to think that you're on good terms with everybody in your life.

I think that's usually the person breaking up, though, there's like, I'd like to still be friends. Sure. Whereas the person getting broken up with it's like, Or you could get it by car. That would solve the problem. Yeah.

And then sticking with the whole same-sex, straight thing. Are we saying straight still?

I don't know. That doesn't feel right, does it?

It doesn't. Let's just say same sex and hetero? Yeah, hetero.

There's a clinical name for it.

Oh, boy. The time and marriage seem to be the two greatest indicators, at least as far as this one study I saw went, for the likelihood of staying together over long periods of time. All relationships, same sex and hetero, man-woman, all of them are at the greatest risk of breakup within the first year or two. And then it starts to drop precipitously. But I think married hetero couples have a fairly low rate of a low chance of breaking up over time. It's pretty much flat the whole time. And then with same-sex couples, the same thing happens. The chance of breakup is pretty high at the beginning, and then it starts to come down, and then it basically tracks with hetero couples for marriage. So marriage is the factor. Time is the second factor. But then time stops being a factor after 30, 40 years for unmarried couples, both hetero and same-sex. They start to break up after a year, like 30 or 40. The chance of a breakup increases, yeah. But once you get married, once you got a ring on it, over time, over decades, is what we're talking about, your chance is almost nil of breaking up.

All right. Like less than, I think, a %. But that doesn't sound right because half of all marriages end a divorce?

Yeah.

This thing was way off. But maybe that's when taking into account, maybe that's front loaded by all the divorces that happen in the first five years or something like that.

Yeah, that would make a little bit more sense. Yeah, it does. They do find that your chances of getting over a breakup or adjusting to that new post-breakup life really centers around regaining your sense of self that when you couple up with someone, it's not saying you can't have a sense of self anymore because it's very healthy to. Sure. But there's an inevitable absorption and morphing that happens, and a little bit of your sense of self goes away when you couple.

Yeah, all the same friends, the same phone number. Yeah. And the same address.

Yeah. Boy, what about couples that share the email address?

Yeah. You mean I have one?

Really? Sure. Never had one, but you have your own, too.

Well, yeah, we each have our own, but we have our shared one, too.

I think I'm talking about the people that just have the shared address. Sure. I've always found that interesting. Yeah. I'm judging.

I don't know anybody who just has a shared address.

I don't get why people would have the same one, I guess. I just always... Emily still has a Mindspring address.

Wow. Is it emily@mindspring. Com?

No. And that is the truth because I'm not saying that just to keep people from emailing her. But she had it for so long, and I make fun of her all the time. Sure. Because she still pays $20 a year for this.

What?

She was like, I've had it for so long that I just can't give it up.

That's why people stay on Facebook.

Yeah, I'm not changing my email address.

There's so many memories there. It's like...

Even that, just her contact list and every email. I don't know. I just think it's funny. I was like, Where's that money going? Who owns what used to be mind The air of the Mind Spring fortune.

He can count on 20 bucks a month from your house.

He's getting a couple of pack of cigarettes every month because of Emily. Oh, man. Then for recovery, the whole stress-related growth thing that can happen with recovery, which is, and I think women tend to be more apt to do this than men, but like, All right, you know what? I'm free now. I'm going to do all those things that I lost while I was with him. I didn't have time for my friends anymore. I lost connections with them.

I didn't fly model airplanes or RC airplanes anymore.

I'm going to drop some weight. I'm going to start eating healthier. The post-breakup weight loss is a huge, huge thing. It is. Partially from stress But partially just because I'm going to make myself the best I can be, and I'll show her or him.

I think it's also just as simple as more free time.

Sure.

You know? Two.

And something to do that is... Exercise is also Stress relieving. You might not be eating as much because your stomach is tied up into stress knots. There are a bunch of reasons for it.

But here's where that part you were talking about earlier, I said we would get to kicks in, is how much of the self you identify with does relate to how well you handle a breakup. How much of the you is the we in the relationship? And what they found is that That's a huge part of it. But more significant is the amount of growth that happens while you're in a relationship. You can share a tremendous amount of the same self with your significant other and grow as a person as a result. And if you do that, you're actually going to have a harder breakup because that we, that super attachment that led to that personal growth is related to that other person who's now gone. Whereas if you were Even if you were totally enmeshed with another person, but you didn't grow much personally, if you experience a burst of growth after the breakup, you're going to have the easiest breakup of all. Even though you were super enmeshed with the person, you weren't growing. But then you grow afterward. Now that period of non-growth is related to that person who's gone, and you can be like, so long, zero, I'm going to make myself a hero.

Yeah.

Do you see? Sure. Did they come across? Yeah. Because sometimes I'm not the best at explaining things.

Which is pretty funny if you think about it. It really is. In 2000, they did a study at Northwestern University, where they did find though, that they asked people, I believe, how bad do you think this breakup is going to be if you're in a relationship? What if you broke up? And then they found out that they weren't as bad off as they thought they would be, which is encouraging. It is.

But also think about this, Chuck. These vultures who are running the study were like, You're in a relationship. We're going to study just in case you guys break up. Yeah. And so they would get that info, that self-reporting info, about how bad the breakup would be. And then they swooped in. Upon the breakup, they're like, How bad is it? Tell us. And the person was like, Well, this is as bad as it is. And it was almost across the board. So not anywhere near as bad as the people thought it would be when they were in the relationship. Which is pretty surprising. And what was even more surprising is the more in love you are, the easier it's going to be relative to how bad you it will be during the relationship. Which makes sense if you stop and think about it.

Yeah, I thought the other interesting thing, too, when we were talking about getting over a breakup and your sense of self, that's closely tied to how you feel about rejection. There are more than a couple of ways. But if your reflection of your... How you think about rejection is tied heavily into how you feel about yourself. So there's some people that might be rejected, and it might devastate them because they start to analyze themselves. And what did I do wrong, and what's wrong with me? There's a whole other camp out there, and I think this goes into personality and ego and all that stuff.

You call these people healthy.

Or sociopaths. Oh, you think so? Maybe. Oh, I took it to be healthy. It's probably on a range.

Wow. We just put both of our cards on the table, didn't we?

But the people that are like, Yeah, I got broken up with, and I got rejected. But you know. That happens. That happens in life. People get rejected. It's not because of me. It's not everyone can be together.

You find this quote sociopathic, I learned that two people can both be quality individuals, but that doesn't mean they belong together. That's sociopathic to you.

That was... Oh, wait, it says he said that. It was Ted Bundy.

Patrick Bateman.

No, I don't think it necessarily means you're a sociopath, but I think someone that is a true sociopath would probably be way more apt to be like, Oh, yeah. Well.

It was them, not me.

Yeah, it's fine. People just break up.

There's a subgroup to that sociopath, as you call it, camp. And they are like, Well, breakups happen. I heard what the other person said, and there's some things I feel like I need to work on. I was a terrible communicator, so I'm going to work on becoming a better communicator as a result. That's called stress-related growth. Yeah. Is what that's called. Were you growing out of this horrific experience. And that's healthy. That's super healthy. But the key is what's unhealthy is to say this was all because of some fatal flaw that I have. It's part of my personality that I'll never be able to get rid of. And so all I'm going to do is poison every relationship from here on out, and I'm just going to build walls and keep everybody at a distance. That's what some people do as a result of a breakup. And you can't do that. Even if your brain starts to go that way, this research says, Stop it, don't. You have to disassociate yourself, become the sociopath, I guess, if need be, to say this is not because of an inherent flaw in me that's uncorrectable. Even if the person was right, even if they're like, You're a terrible communicator and you have serious mommy issues, that doesn't mean that you will always be a terrible communicator with serious mommy issues.

You could work on those post-breakup and become a much better SO to the next person or whatever. The key is not being a fatalist. There's nothing you can do to change. Then also, you should evaluate whether the person was saying that in anger, how much faith you put in their opinion of you. There's a lot of factors that you need to take into account before you take on that thing that just put you in the bottom of a well, where you could conceivably hang out for the rest of your life if you're not careful without copious amounts of therapy.

Yeah, agreed. Or turning to drugs and alcohol, which is a big... Gin. Yeah, big thing that a lot of people do.

Gin cuts both ways.

Should we talk about some of these tips from this guy?

From psychologist, Guy Winch. Remember, number one is don't check up on them on social media.

Good luck with that.

Here's why he says that this will reinforce your ex's presence in your mind and will make it harder for you to stop fantasizing about your broken relationship. You're basically just literally keeping them right there in front of your face through social media, which is why it's a bad idea.

Number two, avoid creating mysteries about why the breakup happened. And again, this is along those same lines of just keeping your ex like forefront in your mind, which is hard. I mean, it's going to take a little while. Sure. He says avoid. You don't expect the next day to pop up and just be like, Well, they're out of my mind.

That's sociopathic. Yeah.

Even if you're the breaker upper, it doesn't mean that you don't have a process to go through as well. Sure.

But that's why it says avoid creating mysteries. It's probably going to happen, but be mindful when it's going on and be like, enough, I'm going to go work out or go drink some gin.

Or both. Number three, make a list of all the... Oh, this is a good one. Make a list of all the compromises that you had to make that you don't want to make again. I start to think about like, yeah, when I was with this person, I felt like I could never really have my real sense of humor out in public because they thought it was loud.

That counters that rehashing that just focus This is on the positive. It cuts the legs out from under that.

Cutting legs.

What about number four?

Do the things that used to bring you enjoyment is what I was talking about earlier. Even if they don't seem interesting now, that whole thing where like, jeez, I used to really love Pottery and throwing clay. Sure. I quit doing it once I started dating Josh.

Yeah. I have no clay throwing in my house.

Josh hated it when Chuck went to the Potter's Wheel because it reminded him of Ghost, and Josh hated that movie. So he wouldn't allow me to do it. But you know what? I'm going to reclaim that pottery wheel.

Yeah. Which is ironic because I was always walking around our house dressed like Patrick Swayze in that scene. But I still hated that movie. I was more like the Chris Farley Chippendale, Patrick Swayze version.

Number five, remove reminders. This is the box that you will burn. Which is now just your laptop in the fireplace in your smartphone.

Then reconnect with your friends. Yeah, you left them in the dust years ago, but they're still alive. They probably wouldn't mind hearing from you.

Yeah, the problem here is if you truly You do have a mix of friends that you both love. Sure. It's not like, I didn't leave behind all my old friends. Right. Or the worst case scenario is like, all of my friends are from you. Now, what do I do?

Go down to the YMCA and make some new friends.

I guess so. I found this one last study I thought was interesting, The Best Way to Get Over a Breakup, According to Science. This was actually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology. They tested a bunch of strategies for getting over a breakup. 24 heartbroken people, ages 20 to 37, that had been in at least a two and a half year relationship. So pretty significant. Some were dumpies, some were dumpers. They said there were three strategies One is to negatively reappraise your ex. Just think about all the bad things. The other one was called love reappraisal, which is believe and read statements like, It's okay to love someone I'm no longer with. It's all right. Then the third was distraction, literally the ice cream and movies trick. Look over here.

The black mirror trick.

Then there was the fourth prompt, which was the control, which was, Don't think don't think about anything, which, of course, means you're thinking of the state of the Marshmallow Man.

Don't think about anything. Really just undermine the science of that study.

Clear your brain. Those were the four prompts. Then they showed everyone. They hooked everyone up to an EEG machine. Okay. Showed them photos of their exes, and they measured the intensity of a motion in response to that photo, and then had them use these different prompts to see which one works best.

When they looked in the people who were not thinking about anything, they were bleeding out of their eye sockets. They were.

And according to the readings, all three of the strategies significantly decreased their emotional response to the photos. Really? Relative to the control, if you looked at your ex in a negative light, that first one, like, Oh, they were such a jerk. You had a decrease in feelings of love, but you left in a worse mood, like that, dredged up bad feelings.

Like you wasted your time or something like that.

Maybe. Or just like, it just really took me off thinking about all that stuff. Now I did this dumb study.

Got to go throw some clay.

That's right. Distraction made you feel better overall, but did not have much of an effect on how you really felt about them. You just didn't leave in necessarily a bad mood. You just got ice cream and watched a funny movie.

Good enough.

Which is fine. But they said that that doesn't do anything long term to help you recover. Okay. Just like a temporary whatever.

Does it prolong it, though, do you think? I mean, you know as much as the people conducting this stuff.

It said it's a form of avoidance that is shown to reduce the recovery.

Okay, so it would prolong it then. I guess so. Everybody, stop eating ice cream. In watching Black Mirror.

Then love appraisal showed no effect on your mood or how you feel about them, but it did dull the emotional response a little bit.

There's really nothing to do.

Doesn't sound like it.

I saw a couple more tips. One is you could write a letter that under no circumstances will you ever send.

Yeah, that's a good trick. Not for love relationships, but just like anything bothering her.

It also really works well for grieving, too. You just write a letter. Sure. You say whatever you want because you know for a fact that the other person will never read it.

You're a jerk.

You can say whatever you want. It's just like a cathartic process that can help hasten things. Then also, why do sad songs feel so good when you're going through a breakup? Why do people seek out sad songs? The best explanation I saw, the best theory, is that a song is a little capsule of emotion. When you're seeking out a sad song, you're confronting the very emotions that you're probably stifling right then. And confronting it in such a raw form forces you to express those emotions, i. E. Cry. And that helps you process them faster because you're not pushing them off any longer. You're expressing them. You're sorting through them. So that's what sad songs make you do. That's why people seek out sad songs when they're down. And it actually helps hasten recovery.

Lady in Red.

I don't think that's a sad song.

Is Standing with Me. That's the saddest song.

You're like, sailing, takes me away.

Sailing by Christopher Cross, Lady in Red, and then Dan Fogelberg's Same Old Enzyme. Three saddest songs.

Jerry knows that song. Those were two Christopher Cross songs? He's got two of the three saddest songs?

No, Lady in Red is not Christopher Cross.

I think it is.

No.

Five dollars.

Jerry, we're all nodding now.

Five dollars is on the table. All right, I'll look it up. Well, you guys will find out next episode whether I was right or not.

I remember the guy's name.

It's Christopher Cross.

Oh.

Jerry's doing one of her rare speaking parts. She says, Christoff Walsh? That's the actor.

You know what's funny is I mistyped something and it changed my search to lady in red wings, like red wing boots. It must be a fetish site.

I guess so, yeah. If you want to get in touch with me, Chuck or Jerry, you can shoot us an email to stuffpodcast@howstuffworks. Com.

Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

On McCartney, A Life in L lyrics, you can hear the stories behind iconic tracks from Paul McCartney's career, like Hey, G.

And when I played it to John and Yoko in my music room on my psychedelic piano, I'm sitting facing this way, and they're standing behind me, almost on my shoulder.

Hear McCartney, a Life in Lyrx on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

All that sitting and swiping, our backs hurt, our eyeballs sting. That's our bodies adapting to our technology. But we can do something about it.

We saw amazing effects. I really felt like the cloud in my brain dissipated. There's no turning back from me.

Make 2024 the year you put your health before your inbox and take the Body Electric challenge. Listen to Body Electric from NPR on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Angie Martinez. Check out my podcast, Angie Martina's IRL, where I talk to Super Bowl halftime performer and the newly married usher about relationships.

Trust is the main component to happiness and success in a relationship. Being able to actually hear each other and speak up. I think most of the time we all just want to be heard.

Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcast.