Who actually takes the initiative to end a relationship – and why?
ASK A RESEARCHER: According to a Danish study, women more often take the initiative to divorce, but this is not necessarily because the man is “dull”, explains the researcher.
Do you know someone who has separated?
And do you have the impression that it was the woman who made the decision?
Yes, you are not alone.
A videnskab.dk’s readers, Simon, asks if there is any difference in who ends a relationship.
“It seems like it’s usually the woman who ends the relationship because we humans are often duller”, he writes.
It is a good question, which we have forwarded to Camilla Stine Øverup, who is associate professor of social psychology at the University of Copenhagen.
She says that data from both Denmark and other western countries show that it is more often women who initiate a divorce.
– I don’t know of figures that look at who breaks up with whom in shorter relationships, but I’m guessing that the trend is the same, she says.
– But the reasons are different. A great Dane study shows that men talked about lack of love or intimacy, sexual problems and general disagreement, while women talked about respect or trust, infidelity, addiction, for example to alcohol, and violence.
But this study – «I Had Not Seen Star Wars» and Other Motives for Divorce in Denmark» – did not look at who got the divorce.
Although men reported these problems, it is not necessarily the men who initiated the skill.
– It could be that the woman in the relationship gave that reason when she asked for a divorce, or that it was a shared experience, Øverup elaborates.
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Women make the decision
She recommends that we call Søren Sander, who is a psychologist and divorce researcher, one of those who stood behind the Danish study.
So we do.
– The reader is right: it is usually the woman who makes the decision to dissolve the relationship, notes Sander.
– We have carried out a large investigation into the divorce in Denmark, where we investigate who has taken the initiative for the divorce. In 50 percent of cases it was female, in 35 percent of cases it was male, and in 15 percent of cases they were the only ones.
– But is it because men are “dull”, as our reader suggests?
– I can’t say anything about men being dull. I haven’t seen any studies that show that, Sander points out.
– But from my conversations with people who are separating, it seems to wave back and forth. It is an asynchronous process.
This means that there are often different places in the process when they consider separating. It is usually one of the parties that is more clarified than the other, and the figures show that it is usually the woman.
– It is often a long process, but it is often the woman who gives up hope first. Maybe men are more hopeful, says Sander.
You have to remember that the divorce process usually started a long time before. And it continues for a long time. It is not a one-off event, Sander elaborates.
– You can see that women are more prepared for what will happen. She has come a long way in the train of thought, the grief and the crisis. Whoever makes the decision is better prepared, he says.
Five main reasons
Sander says that the Danish study points to five main reasons for divorce.
- Lack of love and intimacy
- Communication problems
- Lack of sympathy and respect
- The parties have grown apart
- Infidelity
And it’s actually quite interesting, says Sander:
– There is no significant difference in the reasons given by men and women. The reason I think it’s interesting is that maybe we tend to generalize a bit: women miss love and intimacy, but miss sex.
But that is not true. For men, lack of love is as important, Sander said.
Reference:
Jenna Marie Strizzi, Søren Sander et al.: “I Had Not Seen Star Wars” and other reasons for divorce in Denmark. Journal of Sex # Marriage Therapy2020. (Summary) DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2019.1641871
© Videnskab.dk. Translated by Lars Nygaard for forskning.no. Read the original case on videnskab.dk here.
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